Output details

Boxes and Shelves

'Boxes and Shelves’ comprises seven interrelated wall-based sculptures whose making and installation is an experiment in the transposition of ‘everyday’ things into the realm of art, and an exploration of the relationship between purposive objects and ‘raw’ materials.

Constructed from the grey backing card discarded from A4 writing pads, ‘Boxes and Shelves’ originated from a by-product. Hughes experiments with ubiquitous but marginal objects such as bus tickets, lined A4 paper and gumstrip, investigating the difference between their perceived and potential value.

The A4 pieces of card from which ‘Boxes and Shelves’ are made are punched with two holes used for filing paper. These holes, originally bureaucratic in purpose, are used to generate the artwork with the minimum means, each one becoming the centre of a cube, the dimension of which is determined by the distance between the hole and the edge of the original piece of card.

These cubes are arranged on shelves made of the same materials, which are then arranged on a wall in an art gallery, so that they can be read severally, or as an ensemble, as a single work of art.

The artworks were originally commissioned and developed for an exhibition at CUBE Manchester, opening 15th March 2008 (and supported by a £10000 Henry Moore Institute Award). CUBE is core funded by the University of Salford. The exhibition was reviewed in the Guardian by Robert Clark, March 2008.

Following this exhibition Hughes was invited to make a solo exhibition of the ‘Boxes and Shelves’ series at Dicksmith Gallery, London, opening 3rd April 2008. This was reviewed in the Guardian by Jessica Lack (April 2008).

Seven of the works were purchased for the Saatchi Collection, were included in the 2010 exhibition ‘Newspeak: British Art Now’ and were documented in the accompanying publication (Booth-Clibborn Editions ISBN-13: 978-1861543141).