Wednesday 06 March 2019 – Lunchtime seminar with TC McCormack and Michelle Atherton (Fine Art)

Speakers: TC McCormack and Michelle Atherton (Senior Lecturers in Fine Art)
Title: As Much About Forgetting

At this week’s lunchtime research seminar TC McCormack and Michelle Atherton discuss recent research and latest exhibition at Viborg Kunsthal – As Much About Forgetting – co-curated with Jette Gejl (DK), artist and academic at Aarhus University Denmark.

Artists: Laura White (UK), David Toop (UK), Michael Schultze (D), John Russell (UK), Lea Torp Nielsen (Dk / UK), Sophus Ejler Jepsen (Dk), Jette Gejl (Dk), Lara Eggleton & David Steens (UK), Michelle Atherton (UK) and TC McCormack (UK).

Contemporary art is absorbed by the past like never before. Historical references abound, ranging from aesthetic quotes from art history to formal experiments, performative re-enactment to the unfolding, and reinterpreting of various cultural-historical archival phenomena.

The passage of time gives us both history and memory and yet tensions often exist between these two formulations. Is what we remember what actually happened and is history factual or an interpretation, subject to revision and change? Is it possible to reclaim, re-enact or recall our pasts as imperfect and to sanction a space for forgetting as a means to create a future tense – to free ourselves from weights. Collectively the artists in this exhibition offer a set of connections that tend to omit or exclude more than is included, their aim is not a totality of view. Rather the artworks act as provocations to shift temporal configurations through a recognition of potentially missed or overlooked incidents. The works draw upon the intangible, unstable, the unofficial and the virtual, while some embrace the archive and the artefact.

Underpinning this curatorial approach is an appreciation of the historical as being informed by complex material and cultural rituals that are open to dispute and displacement through contemporary art. The artists offer moments, turns and dis-associations to you, our public, whom we recognise as being fully rooted, as we are, in a wealth of specific cultural positions fundamental in the formation of our histories.

In total the exhibition includes a multiplicity of forms including large-scale backlit vinyl prints, installations, sculptures, video, performances as well as artworks that invite the audience for participation and co-creation.  Key rooms will change over the course of the exhibition, alterations governed by the evolution of specific artworks and a highly performative workshop programme, in collaboration with external partners including the Viborg Gymnasium and HF and Blichergården Center, Art History Department, Aarhus University and Sheffield Institute of Arts.

1.00PM – 2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 06 MARCH 2019
HPO MA DESIGN STUDIO 16.1.16

Funded by Staten Kunstfund, Viborg; Danish Arts Council and Sheffield Institute of Arts and C3RI at Sheffield Hallam University.