Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Sheffield Hallam University
20 Euros per Kilo
'20 Euros per kilo' is a key work representing an on-going enquiry into the politics and economics of commodified labour in a global economy. Shaw develops a critically engaged enquiry into the language of sculpture, narrative, and exhibition that chronicles the life of an object and its concealed modes of production.
The investigation underpinning this work started during a research fellowship at University of Bath (2006) and explores the relationship between material form and human endeavour. Works resulting from this enquiry include installations and interventions between 2008 and 2012.
These include: ‘Local Colour’ (Incertainplaces, 2008), posters collating a sample of every women's garment displayed in Preston’s shop windows; the conference, 'Just In Time', exploring the gallery as site of manufacture (Site Gallery, 2008); 'ILVA Tree' (Manchester International Festival, 2009), which proposed the use of abandoned shopping centre trees as material; 'The Plastic Family', a chap-book considering the life of plastic, made with artist Melanie Jackson; 'Galena' (The Politics of Utopia: Marxism, Myth and Religion’ conference, 2010), a work developed while in residence in Gemmology, Kingston University, which broadcast sound recordings of the process of drawing galena, a mineral able to receive radio waves; and '20 Euros per kilo' (2011), commissioned by Static Gallery Liverpool and Peter Gorschlüter, Deputy Director Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, for the exhibition and conference 'Terminal Convention'.
The work involved transporting seventy kilos of Texan Holey rock, from terrariums in the decommissioned Cork Airport baggage hall, on flights from Cork to London. The exhibition included Imogen Stidworthy, Rosa Barba, and Douglas Gordon. The Terminal Convention conference included presentations by Shaw, Charles Esche, Stephen Wright, and George Yudice, on oppositional practices. The stone is being explored as a source of new value, as a print pigment. A 'Holey rock' font is under development with Secondary Modern design.
