“The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has
found its city, new cities will continue to born. When the forms exhaust their
variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.”*
‘Objects-Models-Proposals’ is the title of the latest
exhibition of Graham Seaton’s work with accompanying collaborations by Rex
Henry at The Old Brick Workshop gallery space in Wellington Somerset.
Looking around at the series of blocky concrete cast forms and inventive wall-mounted
glass, metal and wooden installed photography, the un-definability and flexibility as to what are
the objects, the models and potential proposals, seems in my mind at least,
exactly what this exhibition is out to achieve. Hence begins an investigation
into the relationships between photography and sculpture, urban forms, spaces,
architecture, the model, the city and the mass produced object.
Seaton’s concrete casts
sit almost at home alongside the equally urban paint-weathered exposed brickwork of the Old Brick Workshop. These sculptures, with their dusky reds, yellows, greys and muted colours appear a
cross between totemic-like relics, decommissioned computer
servers and a 1950s Soviet government housing planning application. Emotionally they are
reserved and instead draw your attention to their glorious form, their
weight and shadows/space in which they inhabit (they beckon to be investigated from all angles). Cast from assorted fragments of
packaging moulds and casings these ‘throw-away’ items of consumerist packaging
are given a new, second-life as art objects or sculptures. The stacked floppy
discs alongside some of them becoming architecturally utilitarian their original purpose now
something of a retro throwback to the 80s. The resulting forms really do look
utilitarian, as though their purpose has yet to be defined. It is in this
element of ‘potentiality’ that Seaton seems to contextualise his work allowing
the viewer to interpret and assign meaning, purpose or value to the work, “the what can be, rather than the,
what is”. Sitting somewhere between sculpture, object and model it is more
interesting trying to determine where these forms fit rather than be given a
fixed definition.
The link with architecture and ‘the city’ becomes more
obvious when these forms are scaled-down and placed alongside multiple others
in large groups (pictured opposite).The resulting grid of forms becomes a miniature but vast
citadel of skyscrapers and towers divided by rows of interlinking pathways that
mimic roads. Again, the beauty is in the
possibilities of the various configurations and layouts one could create
echoing some of the ‘real-life’ systems of urban development in towns and
cities. This is all of course in the viewer’s imagination. We aren’t at any
point told, “this is a city” or “a model” but subliminally we imprint that
interpretation on it because of our brought experiences of making/understanding models
and perhaps of maps and mapping. Referenced in this layout is also the circuit
board repeated in the presence of floppy discs mentioned earlier. This
introduction of high and low technology, man-made versus digital and the
recycled and the obsolete are interesting because they make us re-evaluate the
‘purpose’ of things which have seemingly lost their usefulness i.e. the floppy
discs that no longer work, become sculptural components. I speculate whether
this extends to a bigger social comment on how we might take these practices
one step further and reassign purpose and use of many abandoned, decaying and
disused buildings and urban spaces within so many of our cities?
The newer work in this exhibition uses photographs of urban
spaces and fragments of the city printed onto sliding glass sheets or inset
into wooden/metal self-invented frames or wall-hanging installations. Like the
pieces before they defy simple categorisation and become sculptural in that the
viewer is encouraged to view these images from different angles or through different
layers of materials resulting in a variable experience of textures, colours,
shapes and layers. The contrast between the ‘fixed’ view-point of the camera in
photography verses the multiple viewpoints of sculpture being an interesting
juxtaposition making us rethink about the relationship between form and the
space in which it inhabits; the seen and the unseen; the camera lens and lens
of the glass through which the image is again viewed. This creates a sort-of
duplicity that is cleverly repeated throughout the show from the collaborative relationship
between Seaton and Henry to the duplicity in the layering of images;
differentiation from the ‘real’, the fabricated and the imagined. Though
relatively void of human presence; the viewer instead inserts themselves into these
fragmented environments that are less static than the concrete ones, becoming like glimpses through a
window or passing moment caught as a passenger on a train or bus journey. Small
amounts of highlighted colour draw attention to architectural forms and shapes
within these images which on the whole are, for me, a lot more direct at making
the link between the abstract and the real city rather than the ‘imagined’ one
in the concrete works.
Dotted between are sheets of urban materials, spirit levels
and metals propped against walls that bring the exhibition back into the
context of the Old Brick Workshop Gallery itself. Feeling somewhat uncertain whether they are intentionally or ironically
out of place and at times add a bit too much clutter to the overall feel of
the show in my opinion. At their best they do act as a reminder of
the assembly of the exhibition and how the process of creating and installing
an exhibition has parallels to the constructive potentiality of the work and
ideas being exhibited within it.
ObjectsModelsProposals
is on at The Old Brick Workshop in Wellington until February 25th. Open Thursday to Saturday
from 10am until 4pm.
**Find out for yourself at an Artists Talk by Graham Seaton between, 10.30-12.30pm Saturday 13th
Feb -tickets available on door £5**
*from
Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’
