Chris Evans: Clods, Diplomatic Letters
With contributions from Arūnas Gelūnas and Rein Raud.
Curated by Gerda Paliušytė.
Photos
Photo by Joe Wood
Photo by Chris Evans
The Gardens presents a new work from CLODS, Diplomatic Letters (2012–ongoing), a series in which drawings of invasive plants are solicited from members of the international diplomatic community. The drawings are photographed, inverted and printed as silver bromides. The photographs (Diplomatic Letters) have, as their counterpart, a series of concrete forms (CLODS). Each CLOD, varies in size, has at least one hole, and bears the traces of its facture process: the chunk is first modelled in clay, then cast in concrete. Hollowly echoing urban planning, the CLOD mimics the concrete lump left by the removal of a post or a pipe.
Additions to the series, CLODS, Diplomatic Letters (2014) are often accompanied by commissioned texts. For this presentation, the curator of the exhibition, Gerda Paliušytė commissioned If Anything, a Synecdoche by Estonian scholar and author Rein Raud.
The work will be permanently installed at the parliament of the Republic of Lithuania following this exhibition at The Gardens.
The show is supported by Ministry of Culture of The Republic of Lithuania.
List of the works:
Ambrosia Artemisiifolia, commissioned drawing by Arūnas Gelūnas, Ambassador for Lithuania at UNESCO, inverted 2014
CLOD VI (dark), 2014
CLOD VII (light), 2014
//
Chris Evans (1967, Eastrington, UK) lives and works in London. Evans’ work is characterized by the realisation of unsolicited assignments and evolves through conversations with people from a broad range of professions – people selected in relation to their symbolic or public role. Recently this has included the directors of a luxury jewelry company, the editors of Morning Star newspaper, an anonymous philanthropist and members of the international diplomatic community. Collaboration becomes entangled along invisible paths of consultation and negotiation, as social processes become crystallised in art objects.
Recent solo exhibitions include CLODS, Diplomatic Letters, Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam (2012); Goofy Audit, Luettgenmeijer, Berlin (2011); The Cell That Doesn’t Believe In The Mind That It’s Part Of, Marres, Maastricht (2010);
Forthcoming exhibitions, this autumn, include a solo exhibition at Project Arts, Dublin and Piper Keys, London and group exhibitions – Regenerate Art, Kunstverien Munich and Les Mots Bleu, Belleville Biennial, Paris.
Currently exhibiting as part of A Needle Walks into a Haystack, Liverpool Biennial.