Christophe Gallois
Various Small Fires
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Various Small Fires
Ei Arakawa, Tony Chakar, Kajsa Dahlberg, Carmen Gheorghe, Knut Henrik Henriksen, Ian Kiaer, Koo Jeong-A, Laurent Montaron, Dominique Petitgand, Josephine Pryde, Florian Pumhösl
Royal College of Art, London
March 16 - April 10, 2007
Curators: MA Curating Contemporary Art students, Royal College of Art, 2005-2007
Ed Ruscha's 1964 book Various Small Fires, whose title we have borrowed for this exhibition, presents a series of photographs of small fires – a few cigarettes, matches, a gas stove, a barbecue – and surprises us with an unrelated image of a glass of milk as the last plate. What does this incongruous element say about systems of classification? How does it make the collection of photographs more interesting and give the book cohesion?
The exhibition Various Small Fires echoes this approach and is situated between thematic and non-thematic modes of exhibition-making. Instead of relating to a central theme, the artworks display a mixture of associated concerns and productive incompatibilities. Such a method also aims to reconsider the different moments that make up the construction of an exhibition, valuing not only the outcome of the process, but also the creative potential of the afterthought.
The exhibition hinges on the use of the galleries’ architecture and what emerges through the bare coexistence of the different artworks. Another concern of ours has been to expose the galleries' interior architecture, eschewing the usual partitions and walls that break up the space and welcoming the limitations and challenges caused by this approach.
The galleries of the Royal College of Art are sites for the constant making and unmaking of exhibitions; they exist in a perpetual state of transformation and function as a daily thoroughfare for staff and students. Most of the artists in Various Small Fires were asked to produce new works for the show. Several of
these interact with the exhibition spaces in a formal way, while others have focused instead
on cognitive, public, or private situations and surroundings.
Our intention has not been to present a group of works that is determined by an imposed sense of coherence, but rather to produce an exhibition that allows for various readings and extends beyond a single unifying idea.
Programme of events in the context of the exhibition:
March 17, 4pm
Parallel Ensemble: a momentary companion to Various Small Fires
Film and video programme
Lecture Theatre 1, Royal College of Art
March 22, 7pm
1979 Pink Floyd as Reconstruction Mood
Performance by Ei Arakawa
Royal College of Art Galleries
April 3, 6pm
On Catastrophic Space: The Evacuation of Hope as Strategy
Tony Chakar in conversation with Eyal Weizman
Goethe-Institut, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PH