SECOND HAND : PART ONE & TWO

 

Featuring: Sovay Berriman, Kath Buckler, Benedict Davies, Naomi Frears, Leila Galloway, Georgia Gendall, Liam Jolly, Dean Knight, Patrick Lowry, Alice Mahoney, Jacqui Orly, Stuart Robinson, Melanie Stidolph, A Todd, Andy Webster.

 

Second Hand, a group exhibition I curated with 15 contemporary artists unfolding over three weekends, across two spaces.Part 1 began at the K9 Crusaders Charity Shop as a one-day intervention, with works nestled amongst the shops many treasures, before the works are extracted and re-presented at Auction House.Moving between contrasting systems of value and display, Second Hand explored how context shapes meaning — from the visual noise of a charity shop to the conventions of the gallery. By asking artists to present something existing, work with items in the shop, or make a light-touch intervention within this non-art space.

 

I was interested to see what happen to the work in the differing registers, but also how to engage new audiences to encounter contemporary art in everyday spaces, and the follow it as it relocates to the gallery, making the act of extraction both visible and literal, and encouraging new audiences into the gallery space, and into dialogue with the work.