Richard Slee: Camp Futility / Studio Voltaire, London
April 25 – May 26, 2012
Opening reception: Tuesday, April 24, 7–9 pm
Studio Voltaire presents a new commission by Richard Slee, comprising of a series of objects and installations made specifically for the exhibition. Slee is an important figure within contemporary ceramics and the exhibition will be his first presentation in a public gallery since From Utility to Futility, a solo exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2010.
Central to Slee’s exhibition at Studio Voltaire is a number of works based on vernacular objects such as wood saws, hammers, pick axes and camping equipment. Inspired by a recent residency at Alfred University, in upstate New York, the works investigate particular myths and the symbolism of our ideas of America such as the great outdoors and the pioneer spirit. Lashed together workbenches that refer to old mining equipment, various scattered tools and an abandoned camp-fire can be read as an allegory to abandoned industries where whole communities move on to find employment elsewhere.
Ideas challenging the economy of productive labor are implicit in Slee’s combination of the hand-made and the found object. The uncanny hybrid of the de-skilled ready-made and the crafted object convey a subversive humourous vision that playfully investigates the limits of the ceramic tradition. Mass produced, everyday objects are meticulously realized with highly glazed, bright colors. These seductive surfaces recall a Pop or post-modern aesthetic that belies the more psychological, underlying cultural references of an object’s utility.
Slee (born 1946, Carlisle) works and lives in London. He studied Ceramics at Central School of Art & Design and the Royal College of Art. Until last year, he was a senior Professor at the University of the Arts in London. His work has been shown in London and internationally since the late 1970s and recent exhibitions include Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990, V&A Museum, London (2011-12), The Peir Arts Centre, Stromness (Solo, 2004) and Tate St Ives (Solo, 2003). Slee is represented by Hales Gallery, London.
Sponsored by SIMONE.
Supported by The Henry Moore Foundation.
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12–6 pm.
CONTACT
Joe Scotland, Director
joe@studiovoltaire.org
info@studiovoltaire.org
Tel. +44 (0)20 7622 1294
Studio Voltaire
1a Nelson’s Row
London SW4 7JR
United Kingdom
www.studiovoltaire.org
Above: Richard Slee, Masked Bean, glazed ceramic, party mask, 2007.
