-gone wild

Where does all that art go? With such a glut of artwork being produced a lot of the quaint notions of leaner times beg to be addressed: Is art really the one thing that lasts forever? Do we need to always preserve the sanctity of an artist’s production? And do the origins of an artwork’s materials affect its outcome or meaning?

By slipping the work of George Raggett’s recent exhibition at the Happy Lion Gallery back out from the ‘culture industry’, we may help to provide some answers to these questions. These plastic, cardboard, wax and glass constructions have gone feral: they have escaped from the demands of commerce and consumption to be returned to the living world of art production, where they will go on to thrive and develop for some time to come.

The disassembled sculptures have been delivered to the studio of Justin Beal where he will, treating it all as simply raw material, use it in the production of a piece of his own artwork. That work will then continue on to the studios of other artists, each in turn documenting what they receive and transforming it into their own work.

After Justin Beal it will go on to Jim Ovelmen and then Evan Holloway, Keith Walsh and Katie Grinnan. From there it will move on to artists in New York. The artists being asked to participate are not limited to sculptors and are being chosen based on a range of possibilities and approaches their unique vision may present. Eventually, the documentation to date will be converted into an artist’s book by Conny Purtil, perhaps as its final iteration. The artworks produced will be available for public viewing at various times, or perhaps at any time by request. The future and longevity of the ‘piece’ is deliberately uncertain.