“duh? Art & Stupidity” at Focal Point
Artists: Tariq Alvi, BANK, Michael Bracewell, Archie & Edith Bunker, Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen, Bonnie Camplin, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Cecelia Condit, The Cockettes, Claude Faraldo, Gaylen Gerber, Ryan Gander, Isa Genzken, Judith Hopf, Larry Johnson, Erik van Lieshout, Kalup Linzy, Clunie Reid, Kim Schoen, Lily van der Stokker, Sturtevant, Annika Ström, Mario Garcia Torres, Rosemarie Trockel, Tomi Ungerer, Andy Warhol
Venue: Focal Point, Essex
Exhibition Title: duh? Art & Stupidity
Curated by: Paul Clinton and Anna Gritz
Date: November 10, 2015 – March 26, 2016
Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.
Images:
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Tariq Alvi, Marc Camille Chaimowicz
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Gaylen Geber, Tomi Ungerer, Andy Warhol, Kim Schoen
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Andy Warhol, Kim Schoen
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Gaylen Gerber, Claude Faraldo, Tomi Ungerer, Bonnie Camplin, Ryan Gander, Larry Johnson
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Gaylen Gerber, Claude Faraldo, Tomi Ungerer, Bonnie Camplin, Ryan Gander, Larry Johnson
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel,, Gaylen Gerber, Claude Faraldo, Tomi Ungerer, Bonnie Camplin, Ryan Gander, Larry Johnson
- Judith Hopf, Rosemarie Trockel, Tariq Alvi, Marc Camille Chaimowicz
- Archie & Edith Bunker, Ryan Gander, Isa Genzken, Judith Hopf, Larry Johnson
- Michael Bracewell, Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen, Kim Schoen, Andy Warhol, BANK
- Andy Warhol, Kim Schoen, Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen, BANK
- Michael Bracewell, Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen, Andy Warhol, Kim schoen
- Werner Büttner & Albert Oehlen
- Michael Bracewell, Kim Schoen
- Andy Warhol, Kim Schoen
- Ryan Gander, Larry Johnson, Claude Faraldo, Gaylen Gerber
- Ryan Gander, Larry Johnson, Claude Faraldo, Gaylen Gerber
- Clunie Reid
- The Cockettes, Cecelia Condit, Judith Hopf, Kalup Linzy
- The Cockettes, Cecelia Condit, Sturtevant
- Lily van der Stokker, Mario Garcia Torres
- Lily van der Stokker
- Lily van der Stokker
- Lily van der Stokker
- Lily van der Stokker
- Lily van der Stokker
- BANK
- BANK
- BANK
- BANK
- Tariq Alvi, Marc Camille Chaimowicz
- Gaylen Gerber, Tomi Ungerer
- Gaylen Gerber, Bonnie Camplin
- Ryan Gander, Isa Genzken
- Annika Ström
- Erik van Lieshout
- Erik van Lieshout
- Erik van Lieshout
- Erik van Lieshout
- Sturtevant
- Sturtevant
- Sturtevant
Images courtesy of Focal Point, Essex
Press Release:
‘duh?’ looks at stupidity as a subject and a tactic of art making, with a particular focus on its relationship to the politics and performance of identity. High culture is meant to keep its audience from being stupid, but artists have repeatedly drawn upon stupidity, or playing stupid, as a form of dissidence, irreverence or as a means to cast off received thinking.
To work from a position of stupidity would appear to be a good way to counter knowingness and intellectual superiority, but how can artists adopt stupidity as a strategy without turning it into cleverness? Even if you don’t play stupid, how do you make art about stupidity without declaring yourself to be smart? If certain forms of intellectualism, through being inflexible and unresponsive, appear stupid, and stupidity is therefore not opposed to intelligence; then what exactly is stupidity anyway?
The theme of stupidity readily invokes matters of intellectual superiority, class and sophistication, judgment and understanding, insult and exclusion, legitimate and illegitimate knowledge. In addition, this exhibition also explores less obvious aspects of stupidity in relation to language and representation, critique and appreciation, cliché and repetition, recognition and unintelligibility, certitude and selfhood and the very nature of thought.
Developed from Paul Clinton’s research into stupidity, art and identity. Paul is assistant editor of frieze and Frieze Masters magazines. Anna Gritz is Curator for Film and Performance at South London Gallery.
About Paul Clinton
Paul Clinton is a writer and is the assistant editor of Frieze and Frieze Masters magazines. He has taught on art, stupidity and queer theory at Goldsmiths College and the University of Manchester. In 2013 he edited a special issue of the philosophy and critical theory journal parallax on stupidity, and in 2014 the South London Gallery staged a day-long event around his research on this subject. In the same year he organised the conference Shimmering World, which featured presentations by artists Ed Atkins, David Panos and Hannah Sawtell. His catalogue essays include on the work of artists Bonnie Camplin, and Jacopo Miliani. Previous speaking engagements have taken place at the Frieze Art Fair, ICA, Tate Modern, Whitstable Biennale and Whitechapel Gallery, amongst other venues. He was also a founding member of the band No Bra, co-writing several songs on the album Dance and Walk, and with Patrick Wolf he formed the band Maison Crimenaux.
About Anna Gritz
Anna Gritz is Curator for Film & Performance at the South London Gallery (SLG). She worked previously as the Associate Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London; Assistant Curator at the Hayward Gallery, London; and Programs Director at apexart, New York. Recent curatorial projects include ‘Sand in the Vaseline’, Material Art Fair, Mexico City 2015; ‘Kapwani Kiwanga’, SLG 2014; ‘Last Seen Entering the Biltmore’, SLG 2014; ‘Bonnie Camplin: The Military Industrial Complex’, SLG 2014; ‘Soundworks’, ICA 2012; ‘Lis Rhodes: Dissonance and Disturbance’, ICA 2012. Forthcoming projects include Michael Smith, Juliette Blightman and Danai Anesiadou and a group show looking at acting and gender entitled ‘The Making of Husbands’. Her writing has been included in Art Monthly; Art Agenda; Frieze; Frieze d/e; Mousse and Cura, exhibition catalogues and books. She is an Attaché for the 20th Biennale of Sydney.