Nottingham Contemporary has a wonderful show entitled The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things. As the title suggests, the exhibition has many different objects, video, and audio works. Everything in artist-curator Mark Leckey's exhibit is broken down into six themes: cars, animals, the body, machines, virtual space, and monster. They range from Ancient Egyptian canopic jar or a space suit for a dog.
The objects on their own are not that strange for an exhibit, however together they seem strange. The point of the exhibit is to display objects you wouldn't normally see together. It takes away connotations objects have and shows their utter thingness if that makes sense. In some ways the exhibition disrespects objects in the process. For instance, the ancient jar is shown alongside a tin of Felix Cat Food.
Objects find freedom in the show. Leckey says objects ‘transform or transcend their object-hood’. Together they form a giant work that is up to the audience to notice and interpret on their own. However they might be distracted by the giant, inflatable Felix The Cat. The variety of materials is astounding, which is why it will be shown on film at the Vienna Biennale.
[viaHyperallergic / LeftLion]
