October 23 - November 29, 2008
Opening:
Thursday October 23rd, 7to9 p.m.
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October 23 - November 29, 2008 |
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With four new works, Groombridge continues his long engagement with metaphorical reductionism, this time referencing codification itself, throwing our perceptual reflexes in flux as we work to decipher the visual codes embedded in the meticulous objects and graphical work on exhibition. Among the works in the show, a small, sculptural construction detailed in a De Stijl palette of red, blue, and yellow alludes to a radio, a site of transmission, with the fullness of a sign, but no signal. A silkscreen work entitled, Marco Polo, features three typographical “utterances”—the words “distant,” “briefly,” “still waiting”—set in a specific spatial relation, in a durational frame of waiting, waiting for meaning to settle, or not, and it is that function of “seeking to define” or finding the key that activates the works in this exhibition. As Charles Reeve observes in his essay for the catalogue that also launches with this exhibition, “Art seems transparent when it invokes code we understand, when it speaks our language, when it meets our expectations. Groombridge reverses the equation—by withholding meaning while making clear that his art has one, he encourages other meanings to proliferate, while pointing out that all art has the potential to be obscure. All art speaks in code. Obscurity and clarity are functions of knowing or not knowing a particular code, not of whether a given work is coded. Beyond that, what seems obscure in Groombridge’s work actually is the metaphorical point: a message that, drained of purpose, goes nowhere.” At the opening we will launch a new publication on Brian’s work with essays by Charles Reeve and Siobhan Roberts, this 48 page full colour monograph will be available that evening at the special price of $20.00. Afterwards the monograph will be available through the gallery for $25.00.
upcoming
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