GROUP EXHIBITION

In his 1957 talk, The Creative Act, Marcel Duchamp described art as a gap that represents the difference between our intentions and their realisation. Let’s take Duchamp’s ‘ready-made’ practice. The controversial operation that led to its creation is a process of defunctionalisation. By depriving an object of its utility value, it is given an exhibition value, which not only potentially modifies its exchange value, but also opens it up to a symbolic dimension endowed with a transformative presence—the object truly becomes an artwork, seen with a different gaze. The criteria that made this transformation possible, which Duchamp described as miraculous, was linked to the artist’s very subtle sensitivity to perceive the gap between everyday objects and their ‘infrathin’, potential qualities.

Edmunds and Huth situate their work in this gap between the enchant of functionality and the infrathin value of unusability. In some ways, they have incorporated Duchamp’s lesson at its finest; Huth’s vertical stabilisers and skis are technological parts and sport apparel which are released from their assigned social function when detached from the machines they originally belonged to, or via processes of resizing and form-reshaping. In other ways, they venture beyond the boundaries of ready-made, seeking transformative possibilities in reverse: What if art were to undergo a metamorphosis into a high-performance utility? After all, both artists crave for emotional experiences through material objects and adventure. Their artworks must be the kind of a tool for reaching mountain tops and crossing boundaries. Some of Edmunds’ paintings are stretched by bungee cords, and stunning Colour Field alchemies reveal a carbon fibre stretcher beneath. Others have no canvas, leaving a glossy set of stretcher bars with stylised branding. Similarly, the presence of multiple BE logos serves as a reflection on the worth of the artist and his name, which in turn is likely to be read as a valuable item.

Both artists make their own rules to suit their own ends. Yet, these are not really ends at all but playful experiments on infinite chessboards of their own creation. Just like in present technological times, everything is in motion, identities change fast and become fast obsolete. The limit between artwork and object here is neither stationary, nor standardised. It transforms, plays, and leaves a margin of uncertainty, that is as generative and as humorous as possible. Humour occupies a central position in Edmunds’ and Huth’s work, not merely because it represents an individual temperament or disposition; instead, humour represents a strategy that generates perplexity, movement and unexpected effects through continuous de-contextualisation.

In their common journey, Edmunds and Huth get closest to reaching the plastic existence of their dreams through ironical displacements between advertisement and pure conceptual research, functional grip and romantic beauty. Art is put into action, providing us with concrete equipment for longing and exploration, forcing us to ask ourselves which type of future we are heading to, an undistinguishable hybrid of idea and materiality—an ADVENTURE INCL.