Profusion
Profusion
19 Jun – 11 Jul 2010
Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, UK
Curated by Sotiris Kyriacou and John Plowman
Anna Barham, Karla Black, Marcel Broodthaers, Lucy Clout, Clem Crosby, Jimmie Durham, Mark Fairnington, Doug Fishbone, Martino Gamper, Roger Hiorns, John Plowman, Daniel Silver, Harald Smykla, Jack Strange
Beacon Art Project presents ‘Profusion’, an exhibition inspired by the unique setting of Calke Abbey, a National Trust property in Derbyshire. Hidden away in a hollow within an ancient deer park, Calke’s interiors and outbuildings are filled with the accumulation of years of collecting and hoarding by its eccentric and reclusive owners. Containing a diverse selection of household objects, artefacts, precious heirlooms and collections of natural history, Calke is now preserved in a state of atmospheric decline, as it was found when the Trust took it over in 1985.
‘Profusion’ presents especially commissioned and existing works by twelve acclaimed international artists, exploring themes and ideas pivotal to the exhibition’s context.
Calke’s rambling contents declare their fragility and materiality, emphasising a heightened sense of physicality and entropy. The house is purposely presented in a way that disregards established hierarchies, taxonomies and methods of display, celebrating instead the glorious disarray of a rich diversity of objects and artefacts and their testimony to the passage of time.
Calke emphasises multiple viewpoints and possibilities within a framework of interconnectedness. It embraces the tentativeness of imposed categories, highlighting their relativity and debunking presumptions regarding the containment and representation of knowledge.
taken from the press release
