Documents, Alternatives #1

Abstract

‘Documents, Alternatives #1’ is an exhibition presenting works by 15 internationally exhibited artists and artist collaborations. Built upon a series of time-based works that rely on performative process and created experience, the project 'Documents, Alternatives,' which comprises linked exhibitions (of which this is number 1), symposium and text, aims to resolve this issue by making the document and artwork reflexive. In doing this it acknowledges their need for change, so that they remain continuous and in process, through staging a practical and thought provoking visual discussion. Positioned to operate at the intersection of artistic and academic domains, the project is as creatively stimulating and progressively invigorating as theoretically interrogatory and analytical. This is an experimental, discursive curatorial strategy whereby the document becomes a new artwork and the artwork becomes a new document to keep the ephemeral evolving and in transition. ‘Documents, Alternatives #1’ and the project to which it belongs, are in response to, and as a continuation from the pilot exhibition that curated a selection of international artists’ work to demonstrate the ways in which ephemeral practice can be renewed through re-staging the document as new artwork. It is a re-drafting, re-configuration, re-grouping and re-working of this pilot, ‘The Alternative Document’ at Project Space Plus in Lincoln (13th February - 11th March 2016), and as such it continues the conversation and the lifespan of these works and their relation to others with the exhibition. The project and 'Documents Alternatives #1' are led and curated by Angela Bartram. Includes work by: Angela Bartram, Andrew Bracey, Brazier and Free, Luce Choules, Emma Cocker and Clare Thornton, Kate Corder, Steve Dutton, Tim Etchells, Rochelle Haley, Morrad + McArthur, Andrew Pepper, Louise K. Wilson. The exhibition was accompanied by an artist's talk at Staffordshire University in association with Airspace Gallery as part of Airspace Curriculum on 23 November 2017, and Bartram was commissioned for the window exhibition space, where a new video artwork 'Santa Dogs' showed throughout the duration of 'Documents, Alternatives #1.'