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Michael Craig-Martin
Andy Goldsworthy
Christine Hatt
Runa Islam
Jasper Johns
Richard Long
Karl Ohiri
Paul Seawright
George Shaw
Wolfgang Tillmans
Armando Andrade Tudela
Rachel Whiteread
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June 14 - 15 July, 2018. Opening: June 15
The Courtauld Gallery, London
curated by Emma Batchelor, Marie Blanck, Camille Feidt, Saskia Flower, Beatriz Garcia-Velasco, Felicien Grand d’Esnon, Laura House, Hannah Maryniessen, Margot Mottaz, Naomi Polonsky, Helen Record, Jane Simpkiss
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There Not There brings together the work of twelve international contemporary artists, including Jasper Johns, Rachel Whiteread, Michael Craig-Martin and Runa Islam. Working in a variety of media including painting, photography and film, these artists interrogate the boundary between the seemingly opposite notions of absence and presence. Despite their differences in approach, the artists share a common fascination with the ideas of disappearance, transformation and erasure. These themes emerge from the artists’ engagement with the natural world, the urban environment and human relationships.
Richard Long (b. 1945)
A Line Made by Walking
1967
Silver gelatin print mounted on board and titled in red crayon and graphite
The works in this exhibition are linked by their engagement with the act of disappearance. In Richard Long’s seminal work A Line Made By Walking (1967), the artist records the trace of his presence in nature, while he himself remains absent. Runa Islam’s 16mm film Stare Out (Blink) (1998) provides a surprising comparison, also capturing an absent presence. A young woman gazes intently at the viewer before she suddenly disappears, leaving her imprint on the viewer’s retina. These artists, like others in the exhibition, seek to expose the ambiguous line between appearance and disappearance.
Karl Ohiri (b. 1970)
How to Mend a Broken Heart
2013
21 defaced photographs, 1 wedding photograph (series of 22)
The exhibition will also explore the way in which artists have engaged with loss and erasure in different political and social contexts. British-Nigerian artist Karl Ohiri’s series How to Mend a Broken Heart (2013), on display for the first time since it was acquired by the Arts Council Collection, consists of a group of family photographs, violently defaced by his mother. Ohiri appropriates the photographs in order to reflect on his family’s painful history and his mother’s rewriting of it. Irish artist Paul Seawright revisits the sites of the 1970s sectarian violence in Belfast in order to come to terms with this collective national trauma. Whereas Ohiri records a deliberate act of effacement, Seawright seeks to prevent the erasure of historic events.
Michael Craig-Martin (b. 1941)
Kid’s Stuff 1-7
1973
Mirror, tape and text on plastic
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The emotionally-charged artworks in There Not There will provide an opportunity for the visitor to consider both their own experiences and those of others. Jasper Johns’ The Seasons (1987), recently acquired by The Courtauld Gallery, poetically reflects upon the passing of time and the process of ageing. Incorporating motifs from his earlier works and the silhouette of his shadow into the compositions, Johns anchors these universal themes in his own life. Michael Craig-Martin’s Kid’s Stuff 1-7 (1973) echoes these meditations on time and mortality, yet transforms the viewers into the subject of the work. Reflected intermittently in the surface of the works, the viewer is forced to be simultaneously present and absent, there and not there.
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