The Decorator and the Thief (…)
Exhibition dates: 30 January 2015 – 16 May 2015
Priestman Gallery Exhibition dates: 30 January – 27 March 2015
Exhibition preview: Thursday 29 January, 5:00 – 6:00pm (Priestman Gallery) 6:00 – 8pm (NGCA)
Participating Artists: Keith Arnatt, Claire Barclay, Angela Bulloch, Peter Davies, Leo Fitzmaurice, Barry Flanagan, Ian Giles, Margaret Mellis, Giorgio Sadotti, Jacqui Poncelet, Susie Green, CommonRoom, Yelena Popova
Priestman Gallery: Michael Fischer, Kate Liston, Fay Nicolson, Jackson Sprague
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The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art present The Decorator and the Thief (…) convening work from the arts council collection alongside newly commissioned works that explore the intersection between art, design and craft. Design agency CommonRoom have been invited to accent the gallery with artist designed wallpaper and work by Yelena Popova will provide a critical lens for thinking through issues of visibility, labour and value. A series of commissioned texts will further illuminate the work on display. The Decorator and The Thief (…) asks us to consider the importance of collecting and how issues of taste, questions of judgement and ideas around beauty are ideologically bound.
In the essay It’s Hard to find a Good Lamp (1993) the artist Donald Judd responded to the challenges of designing furniture with the refrain that design is a form of “visible reasonableness”. By extension, can we see art as unreasonable? Do we value beauty over function, ideas over intuition? Can good design be dysfunctional? The show will be accompanied by an exhibition of new work at the Priestman Gallery at Sunderland University which has been co-curated with Sebastian Trend in partnership with the National Glass Centre. More information HERE. Lead image courtesy of Kate Hawkins.
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
Fawcett Street
Art Centre and Library
Sunderland
SR1 1RE
