Output details

The Long March Back to Progress.

The Long March Back to Progress’ was large-scale solo show over 4 floors of the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden. Comprising of partly retrospective and partly new works, it was conceived as a frustrated spiral upwards across the floors, as a critique of, and inevitable acknowledgement of the all-pervasive idea of progress, and a playful untying of the old modernist/post-modernist debates. As such the whole show made itself into a single experiential and performative work. As a single conceptual piece of work, it also used the site-specificity of the Kunstverein itself as a raw material.

The process of making and conceptualizing the show was documented by Dr Sandra Danicke in an online profile during the making of the show:

http://www.art-magazin.de/kunst/8845/radar

It was documented, circulated and archived on the Kunstverein’s own site:

http://www.kunstverein-wiesbaden.de/en/exhibitions/exibition-details/rory-macbeth-the-long-march-back-to-progress-2215.html

And reviewed: http://www.kunstaspekte.de/index.php?tid=50119&action=termin

A number of works went on to being included in important Museum and private collections (ARoS Museum of Contemporary Art, Aarhus, and the Leif Djurhuus Collection)

One ongoing work, ’The Wanderer’ by Franz Kafka, was shown for the first time at this show, and has become a feature film in collaboration with Laure Prouvost.

It has shown at various venues including Tate Britain, and the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and the work has been completed as Writer in Residency at X Marks the Bokship, London. It was reviewed by Sean Ashton, in MAP magazine, (2009) and the finished work, a book is due for publication early next year with No Demand Books.

Other works from the show have consequently found themselves aired, or the subject of academic research:

Radio Broadcast

‘Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service’ BBC Radio 6.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vjc85

‘Performance and its ‘Inappropriate Objects’: Rory Macbeth’s sculptures as performative mis-taking’ Marco Pustianaz, (Routledge http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a922841175~db=all~jumptype=rss).