Chelsea College of Art and Design, 16 John Islip Street,
November 7–December 15
Some time ago, artist Babak Ghazi bought a copy of the September/October 1975 issue of Data Arte magazine that had been withdrawn from Chelsea College of Art & Design Library. At the close of “The Affirmation” at CHELSEA Space, during which it is displayed, he will gift it back to the collection. This minimal gesture might be seen as affirmative in the terms explored by this quietly ambitious group exhibition, curated by Andrew Hunt. The title is also that of a 1981 novel by Christopher Priest, in which the narrator, setting out to write his autobiography, shifts into fiction, affirming, in Hunt’s words, “a parallel identity in an imagined world.” For this exhibition, thirteen artists were invited to use content uncovered in the library’s special collection for experiments with narrative form.
Chris Evans offers a disconcerting opening. “I am left feeling unstable,” he writes in an unconventional complaint letter to the distributor who sold him a faulty copy of The Affirmation that at page 150 returns to page 119; both book and letter are presented in a display case. Vitrines proliferate inside the small space. Jamie Shovlin sets Ed Ruscha’s 1966 book Every Building on Sunset Strip in relation to a series of photographs capturing locations of a personal resonance; Paul and Steven Claydon invoke a form of neo-futurism in an installation that combines original Vorticist publications with paintings of their own. The silence is modestly interrupted by Tris Vonna-Michell’s low-volume monologue; the viewer must press an ear to a set of small speakers to catch words that accompany images from his private slide collection. Another listening experience is provided by Goshka Macuga’s small but impressive selection of archived artists’ recordings. With ambitious ideas at stake, some works appear mystifying or misfit. Yet Hunt sensitively reveals methodological similarities between a number of artists for whom an archive presents the potential for works that are affirmative rather than deconstructive, such as Ghazi’s attempt to write an alternative ending for his unwanted magazine.