Press Release, September 2020
MAGICK
Anna Margrethe Pedersen Ѻ Arianne Churchman Ѻ Desmond Church Ѻ Albin Werle
MAGICK is the final exhibition in the five forms of play series. It is the big reveal, the final transformation, or weirdest trick. A group exhibition gathering four professional artists : Anna Margrethe Pedersen, Desmond Church, Arrianne Churchman & Albin Werle to present artworks that consider Magic as a category of play & Art as a form of Magic.
MAGICK is the wild card, it is the anti-category that does not conform to a single definition, it is the carnival or ritual that transforms everyday reality into something fantastical but temporary and ephemeral. MAGICK is a transmutation of objects, ideas and realities from one state into another, it is the quickest way from zero to infinity breaking the laws of physics by allowing an unequal transfer of energy. Changing matter into something else, or performing the illusion of change, is when Magic actually works.
Art is Magic.
Opening: Thursday 24th September, 12-22.
Exhibition period: 24th of September - 3rd of October, 2020.
‘Five Forms of Play’ is a year-long project revolving around five group exhibitions, from March 29th 2019 to March 20th 2020. Over 20 artists are invited to collaborate with the artist, pedagogue and curator Francis Patrick Brady to create and learn together how to play with their work. To play with their work means to: vibrate, mock, invent, activate, remake, recreate, simulate, or destroy, in an abstract or physical sense; put simply it is an alternative way of seeing and engaging with the art. Each artist have been commissioned to create an artwork, or rethink a current artwork, so that it can be played in some way and all together they will play with each of the works as in symphony or in solo, as group exhibition or performance event.
From Bauhaus to Dada, Situationists to Fluxus, artists have utilised play and gamified speculation to funnel chaotic creative energies or disrupt the normal flow of reality to examine the hidden structures of society. Roger Caillois divided and described play in four unique forms and in this exhibition series those forms of play are applied as the titles and organising principles of each show; plus a fifth as the wildcard in the deck or the anti-category as the final show on March 20th 2020 (Spring Equinox). Like the village carnival, play allows us to invert the rules of the day and be together in a new invented temporary set of rules.