Various Artists, Jerwood Encounters: TTTT, Jerwood Space, London

Curated by Sarah Williams, TTTT responds to recent developments amongst artists around language, technology, image dissemination, sentimentality and anxiety. A series of reconfigured works from artists exploring sculpture and screen-based practices will be shown alongside new works by Oliver Laric and Benedict Drew.

The acronym TTTT, in this case of this exhibition, refers to the phrase “these things take time.” However, there are many other associated meanings to the acronym including “too tired to type”, “too tired to talk” and others. The multifarious meanings suggest the rapid developments that are being made within our own language and how these are influenced by the internet and changing in the current technological, economic and political environment.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition speak to this change as well, exploring how we mediate our lives in the midst of new experiences, technological and otherwise, and the impact of the contemporary world on approaches to the making of sculpture and three-dimensional work. A number of works utilise screen-based and sculptural approaches as a way of directing the viewer around, through, or into the work.

Traditionally sculpture has achieved this through its physical presence, form and materiality. Where screen-based, filmic and sculptural approaches are shown in configuration, further complications occur between viewer and ‘thing’. The exhibition provides a space to consider how the way in which we perceive and navigate the world is changing as our lives become more mediated through a screen and how artists are responding to these concerns.

In addition to the new works by Oliver Laric and Benedict Drew, the exhibition also features reconfigured work from Nicholas Brooks, Cécile B. Evans and Nicole Morris. Showing for the first time in London is Johann Arens’ film essay, a montage with an ancient depiction of Venus and Mars as its centrepiece. Heather Phillipson will also show a film, this one experienced via a colourful sculptural viewing platform; Phillipson works across video, sculpture, sound, text and live events, splicing images, noises and objects from the digital and physical leftovers at hand.

A series of new works will be launched as part of the exhibition’s accompanying events programme. These will include a new performance by Nicole Morris; a film screening of How happy a Thing can be by Cécile B. Evans, co-commissioned by Radar, Loughborough University and Wysing Arts Centre; and a staging of a work in progress titled Friendly Things from the Future by Nicholas Brooks.

Jerwood Encounters: TTTT, until 22 June, Jerwood Space, London. For more information visit www.jerwoodvisualarts.org.

Credits
1. Cécile B. Evans, How happy a Thing can be (2014).

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