The Space Where I Am, Blain Southern

For their group show The Space Where I Am Blain Southern Gallery, London, explore an enduring fascination in modern and contemporary art: space and the void 

The Idea

How do we define sculpture? An object of art that extends beyond the two dimensional into tangible space? Sure enough. But what about the suggestion of an absent object defined by the air it no longer occupies, or the empty space between two walls? These also have their place in the sculptural world and The Space Where I Am celebrates just this. A collaborative exhibition between artists of the last hundred years, living and dead, this show at Blain Southern is an exploration of the dialogue between presence and absence, space and object. 

The history

Since the dawn of modern art, artists have been perfecting new modes and mediums with which to interrogate the essential form or substance of art. We might begin with Marcel Duchamp’s toppled urinal, or fast-forward to Martin Creed’s  Turner Prize winning installation consisting of a light going on and off endlessly. A poignant question for art has been not so much what forms can embody and artistic enquiry, but where else that enquiry can extend to; the space between object and viewer. 

The show

Featuring works from the last fifty years, The Space Where I Am will encourage you to rethink the limits of the solid art object. Rachel Whiteread, an apt poster-girl for the show, will be displaying her large-scale casts of negative space that re-imagine physical space and make objects from empty air.  The ambitious site-specific works of the late Gordon Matta-Clark will also have some presence, alongside the mirrored surfaces of Michelangelo Pistoletto that challenge the notion of artwork and viewer as separate. Other artists in the show include, prolific German painter Gerhard Richter, the canvas-slashing Lucio Fontana, Tom Friedman and Donald Judd. These artists have all enacted micro-revolutions within their respective mediums. Approaching this show with a mind open to reconsider the physical limits of art will be a well rewarded endeavour.