‘Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s Contemporary Art Master (MACA) students are pleased to announce the group exhibition Spectral. The exhibition celebrates the coming together of multiple artists from Chelsea College of Arts and Goldsmiths Master’s courses. Opening 25 September for a Private Viewing and 28 September for UAL’s Welcome Week party. The exhibition presents a survey of recent works of painting, photography, sculpture, and installations that showcase the haunting process of seeing and being seen.
Co-curated by Sotheby’s MACA students Francesca Christodoulou and Cecily Quinn, the exhibition offers a reflection of in-betweenness, hybridity and liminality. Haunted associations ebb and flow throughout its varied array of works.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by Maria del Pilar Blanco and Esther Peeren’s The Spectralities Reader: Ghosts and Haunting in Contemporary Cultural Theory. The notion of ‘spectrality’, a term from which the exhibition takes its name, engages with ideas of vision and visibility, specifically ‘that which is both looked at (as fascinating spectacle) and looking (in the sense of examining)’. The text focuses on the ghost as a symbol for “in-betweenness”, whether it be in the above’s interest in perception, its place between materiality and immateriality, or life and death more explicitly. The text is concerned with the political and social implications of such states of in-betweenness when given context. Each artist's work is a reflection of their personal interpretation of the text’s interests and, by proxy, their definition of the ‘spectral’ concept. This has created a unique group show that examines voyeurism, playing with the audience’s perception of what “haunting” within various contexts can mean. With works ranging from impromptu spiritual paintings, enigmatic scriptural pages, miscellaneous found objects, theatrics and the stage, and the perceptive camera’s lens; Spectral is a paradigm for the artists’ lucid creative capacity.’
Francesca Christodoulou and Cecily Quinn
The V&A Hazard Tape project was inspired by walking within the V&A building and observing the prevalence of hazard tape throughout. The frequency of visitors has visibly taken a toll on the building itself. The photographs also capture a natural essence of the workers, as each position and application of the tape varies.
“Tape is liminal and temporary but also demarcates space. It is not only something noticed at the margin in itself, but is also something that draws attention to the joining of two things or creates a new thing or is a remnant that returns something forgotten to view. Tape (in the way of the photos) is a symbol of hybridity and appears as a ghost of something that has occurred.”
Richard Cook
