The Function of the Oblique - Curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini

Resistance - Sebastian Acker, Nicolas Feldmeyer, Shan Hur, Minae Kim, Jinhee Park, Tobias Zehntner

no format gallery | 14 - 22 April 2012

Private view: 13. 04. 2012 | 6 - 10 pm

www.noformat.co.uk

Action - Sebastian Acker, Nicolas Feldmeyer, Shan Hur, Minae Kim, Jinhee Park, Tobias Zehntner

No Fixed Abode will organise a program of events, screenings and conversations

www.nofixedabode.org.uk

Son Gallery, Peckham | 27 April - 26 May 2012

Private view: 25. 04. 2012 | 6 - 9 pm

www.songallery.co.uk

A project in two parts, The Function of the Oblique presents a series of artistic responses to the eponymous work of architectural theory by Paul Virilio and Claude Parent, in which they declare 'the end of vertical and horizontal plane. The concept of the oblique was presented as a new mode of appropriating space, promoting continuous, fluid movement and forcing the body to adapt to instability. Approached from different attitudes, Resistance and Action, this two part exhibition takes place across two galleries in South East London.

Resistance is set at No Format Gallery, Woolwich, and will be informed by an understanding of the oblique as resistance to gravity and its horizontal legacy.

Action will take place at Son Gallery in Peckham and analyses physical and architectural conditions favoring fluidity, alteration and constant change.

Through a series of experimental events created by intersecting fields of architecture, broadcast, film, installation and publication, No Fixed Abode’s labour time will be the active motor of Action in order to develop forms of shared critique and reflection. No Fixed Abode is the artistic collaboration between Robert Quirk and Terry Slater.

In both Resistance and Action the artists use concepts of the oblique as a destabilising force, creating imbalance and unexpected outputs by employing a variety of media to challenge traditional conceptions of space.

Background

In 1963, Claude Parent and Paul Virilio formed the Architecture Principe group with the aim of investigating a new kind of architectural and urban order. Rejecting the two fundamental directions of Euclidean space, they proclaimed 'the end of the vertical as the axis of elevation' and 'the end of the horizontal as the permanent plane’. In place of the right angle, they adopted 'the function of the oblique,' which they believed would have the benefit of multiplying usable space. For the Architecture Principe group, the concept of the oblique was a new mode of appropriating space, very much inspired by a Gestalt psychology of form, which promoted continuous, fluid movement and forced the body to adapt to instability.

Artists

Sebastian Acker

Sebastian Acker

b. 1981, Germany

lives and works in London

Sebastian Acker has a background in space design and installations often reflecting on the configuration of space individually and socially. Acker is currently studying an MA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. His work is informed by notions of space and materiality, and how this relates to the urban and physical world.

Nicolas Feldmeyer

www.feldmeyer.ch

Nicolas Feldmeyer

b. 1980, Switzerland

lives and works in London

Nicolas was born 1980 in Switzerland. After studying architecture in Zurich and fine art in San Francisco, he is currently doing a master at the Slade School of Fine Art. His work explores notions of space and its articulation in different media, questioning assumptions of normality and the elsewhere in his research and practice.

Shan Hur

www.shanhur.com

Shan Hur

b. 1981 Korea

lives and works in London

Shan Hur is a Korean artist who lives and works in London. Hur holds an MFA in Sculpture from Slade School of Art (2010) and has exhibited extensively in the UK. Hur's sculptural interventions disrupt the viewers perception of the white cube, directly implicating the gallery space as an active element in the artwork itself. The ideas, which inform Hur’s practice, derive from a fascination in the moment of transition when a particular space is reconfigured for a new purpose and questions our perceptions.

Minae Kim

www.minaekim.com

Minae Kim

b.1981, Korea

lives and works in London

The origins of Kim’s works are based on the urban or structural environments present in our everyday life. Kim observes, reflects and reverts the physical and conceptual function of what sometimes is left out, hidden or un-noticed. The elements used in Kim works are often detourned replicas of preexistent details which call for attention and suddenly animate to become the centre of reflection. Kim installations raise questions about the nature of the spaces we inhabit and our relationship therein. Minae Kim holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, 2011 and her works has been recently part of New Contemporaries ICA, 2011 and RCA Final Degree Show, 2011.

Jinhee Park

www.jinheeweb.com

Jinhee Park

b.1979, Korea

lives and works in London

Jinhee Park holds an M.F.A from Goldsmiths College, London, 2010 and an M.F.A in Sculpture from Seoul National University, Korea, 2007. His work reflects on the time lost in familiar scenery and records the traces left (hidden) in nature of certain occurrences or events. Time and its changes are reflected in Park's practice as a spacial visualisation characterised by interventions on common materials such as plain wood, using as a natural point of departure to record and visualise what remains.

Tobias Zehntner

www.tobiaszehntner.com

Tobias Zehntner

b.1983, Switzerland

lives and works in London

Tobias Zehntner holds a BA from Goldsmiths College of Art, 2011. His work is concerned with science, art and architecture intended as tools to explore phenomena while elaborating a keen interest in human and mechanical movements in time and space. Zehntner has a fascination with the acts of looking and observing, which leads to minimalist studies of the poetry of the everyday. A contemplative view on mundane and urban environment often reveals an appeal to modernist aesthetics and compositions, while the focus on movement often leads to a choreographical approach to synchrony and symmetry.