Output details

Ecologies of Value

This retrospective at Nottingham Contemporary (ppt:2-20) drew together the themes in Newling’s work evident in Outputs 1-2, as well as bringing others from his earlier work to a contemporary audience. The juxtaposition of Newling with Piero Gilardi indicates the critical framing that the curators put over this selection of pieces dating back to the 1970s. Gilardi’s social engagement, and relation to Arte Povera, points towards the milieu that gave rise to Newling’s work with people and his attention to values, material, site and object. As the curators put it, Newling ‘is a pioneer of public art with a social purpose’.

Accompanied by Spinning, a major publication (ppt:33 and see Davey output 1), the exhibition has a theme of care for the human and non-human, invoking ideas of, and engagement with nature; with the artifacts of both sacred and profane devotional practice; God and Money. Newling’s approach to exhibiting relates to Carol Duncan’s argument that museums function as contemporary sacred spaces, reserved for contemplation. The juxtaposition of the sacred and profane point towards the relationship between various senses of ‘ecology’ – social, financial, devotional – and their consequences for humans’ presence on the planet in what biologist Eugene Stoermer called the ‘anthropocene’ era.

The works included relate to financial ecologies – one is made of dirt collected from 50,000 two pence coins (ppt:7-8&22), another models the interior of ATM machines (ppt:8). These are displayed beside works that force attention on the material artifacts associated with spiritual ‘ecologies’ – communion wafers, a monstrance. The new work made for the show picks up on the themes in Newling’s work that grow, literally, out of human engagement with matter and which connect with concern for the biological environment (ppt:18,23-25).

The exhibition was reviewed in Art Monthly (ppt:35) and Art and Christianity (ppt:34) and attracted 44,787 visitors (ppt:36).