Abstract
You are Here has been conceived around several contemporary artists whose art re-imagines the body and its boundaries. Incorporating a symbolic figurative presence as an alternative to the external appearance of a human figure – a traditional marker of our existence – these works locate the body through spaces, materials, sensations, and information that exist in relation to it (and to us).
Elements of architecture, altered apparel and jewelry define the body in terms of spaces and surfaces that surround it. Domestic objects (mirror, pistol, crowbar) translated as sculpture and photographs simulate physical encounters and mindful engagements of the body. Fragments (hand, teeth) acting as surrogates for a whole convey primal sensorial experiences of touch and need. Digitally converted DNA profiles extend the body's boundaries to beneath the skin.
Curator of Contemporary Art, Susan Stoops notes, “Formal strategies including dramatic scale shifts, the subversion of familiar materials, and the implied potential of movement of unfixed elements, not only challenge conventional ideas of the figurative in art but also propose an understanding of the body not as a biological constant but as a definable variable.”
Artists include Claire Barclay, Alice Channer, Tory Fair, Jim Lambie, Charles LeDray, Annette Lemieux, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Rona Pondick, Amanda Ross-Ho, Gary Schneider, Milagros de la Torre, and Gillian Wearing, among others.