Escape Routes, exhibition view (foreground: Ami Clarke, Data Pool 3, 2012). Photo: M de Pulford
Benedict Drew invites: Angus Braithwaite, Nicholas Brooks, David Burrows, Ami Clarke, Catriona Clayson, Matt Copson, Vera Karlsson, Rebecca Lennon, Terence McCormack, Heather Phillipson, Laura Smith, Milo Waterfield
Guests #2: Escape Routes
LIMBO, 2014
Open 2 - 24 August 2014, Fri-Sun 12 - 5pm
Preview: 1 August 6 - 9pm
I was artistic co-director at Limbo between 2010 and 2015, and led the programme between 2012 -15 working with a team of wonderful Kent-based artists, curators and writers, including Daniel Bass, Helena de Pulford, Mike Foreman, Tam Hare, Jo Murray, Lizzy Rose, Sam Slattery and Charley Vines. The programme was generally not prescriptive - we invited artists whose work we really admired to work with us and did our best to support their ideas as well as we could.
For the Guests series, Limbo invited an established artist who either lived, or worked in Kent to take on the role of host, and to themselves invite others to collaborate with them on a project of their choosing.
Guests did not prescribe the nature of this collaboration, or its outcomes, except that it should be in some way accessible to the public over four consecutive weekends.
For Guests #2, Limbo approached Whitstable and Margate-based artist Benedict Drew, who invited twelve other artists to work with him. For the exhibition, called Escape Routes, Drew brought out the danker aspects of LIMBO's project space, recolouring the walls, darkening the room and making a range of other interventions. As in much of Benedict's work from that time, the altered environment proposed itself as a psychotropic space, seemingly created by an unknown, psychotic, form of authority.
Another recurring theme for Drew is the stability of form in an era of digital mediation. In Escape Routes, form is proposed as a mode of entrapment – as though withholding some kind of essence or pure content which has the potential to be extracted. This idea, where ‘escape’ is considered as the violent separation of form and content, was variously suggested and contested by the works in the show.
The exhibiting artists were:
Angus Braithwaite, Nicholas Brooks, David Burrows, Ami Clarke, Catriona Clayson, Matt Copson, Benedict Drew, Vera Karlsson, Rebecca Lennon, Terence McCormack, Heather Phillipson, Laura Smith, Milo Waterfield
Escape Routes, Exhibition View, 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Escape Routes (exhibition view, L-R: Matt Copson, Reynard in Limbo , David Burrows FREE, LIVE and UN-F*CKING BELIEVABLE!, Benedict Drew, Jazzmag , Rebecca Lennon FOIE GRAS), 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Escape Routes (exhibition view), 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Escape Routes (Exhibition view L-R: 31. David Burrows, FREE, LIVE and UN-F*CKING BELIEVABLE!, 2014; Rebecca Lennon, FOIS GRAS, 2014; Terence McCormack, BL 04, 2014, BL 01, 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Escape Routes (exhibition view, L-R: Heather Phillipson, TURNING HEAVY, 2014; Nicholas Brooks, Island Cultures #7, 2014; Benedict Drew, Psychopomp, 2012; Laura Smith, Brick, 2012; Catriona Clayson, one, two, 2014). Photo: M de Pulford
Benedict Drew, Verbs Not Nouns, Screenprint, 2012. Photo: M de Pulford
Heather Phillipson, TURNING HEAVY, Fleece blanket, wadding, cotton, timber, steel pipe, marker pen, 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Angus Braithwaite, Quercus robur: Father of the Woods, Digital print framed in the wood depicted, 2014; Fraxinus excelsior: World Tree, Digital print framed in the wood depicted, 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Nicholas Brooks, Island Cultures #7. Inkjet print and watercolour on canvas, 2014.
Terence McCormack, BL 04 (Locker key, MacBook charger, A4 clear plastic punch pocket, wallet), Silver gelatin print 30.5 x 40.6 x 0.5, 2014. Photo: M de Pulford
Catriona Clayson, Photograph, 2014 Photo: M de Pulford
Escape Routes, (exhibition view), 2014. Photo: Matthew de Pulford