Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Anglia Ruskin University
Reconstructing the Old House
(Curated Exhibition)
‘Reconstructing the Old House’ is a nine-artist touring exhibition curated by Spencer, featuring varied responses to architecture and the urban environment. This exhibition relates closely to principle concerns that underpin Spencer’s studio practice, that of architecture as emblematic form. The work in this exhibition ranged from iconographic representations of architecture to an architectonic approach to object-based sculpture and mixed media reliefs. Alongside are explorations of the languages of model-making and scaled representations of the urban environment, as well as computer-generated animations that respond to the reduced modernist aesthetic of 1960s abstraction. The architectural reference can be seen as a starting point for a broader investigation of process, material and idea, highlighting the highly subjective nature of the relationship between the artist-maker as an individual creative practitioner, and a broader urban context of signs and signifiers.
The exhibition ran for 5 weeks at the Nunnery Gallery, London, 2009, and travelled to the Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge. A colour catalogue accompanied the exhibition, jointly funded by Arts Council England and Anglia Ruskin University. Additional financial support was given by the Bow Arts Trust. David Ryan provided a text for the catalogue that discussed the historical context for themes developed within the exhibition, with reference to the cabin paintings of Peter Doig, and the writings of Georg Simmel and Rem Koolhaas.
Spencer gave a Fine Art Research Unit lecture about the exhibition at Anglia Ruskin University, and during the Nunnery Gallery exhibition chaired a public seminar discussion with 3 of the other artists. This exhibition built on Spencer’s previous curated projects: ‘Fantasy Island’ (2006), ‘Weekending’ (2004-05) and Tiergarten (2004), and allowed him to explore more closely the underlying themes represented in his painting, contextualised in relation to a wide range of other Fine Art practices.
