Pencil / Line / Eraser, Carroll/Fletcher

Showcasing striking 'post internet' art, London gallery Carroll Fletcher explores  the creative process in the digital age as part of their summer group show Pencil/Line/Eraser

The Concept

The word ‘process’ crops up in art-speak so often it can easily become detached from its literal meaning. This is not the case in the latest exhibition at Carroll Fletcher where process highlights a sense of craftsmanship in art of the information age. It is pretty rare to find internet artists, or ‘post-internet’ artists displaying much sympathy for the medium of drawing, which is a positively 19th century activity to most. However, several artists here re-connect the graphic to the algorithmic by dwelling on what the drawn line shares with technology: the power of process. 

The exhibition takes its title from a work by artists John Wood and Paul Harrison in which a pencil line drawn with one hand is simultaneously erased by another. The video playfully imparts into a simple task some pretty big philosophical and psychological ideas about erasure and the destructive nature of creativity. It also reminds us of what we lose when we create new technologies, a prescient topic in light of our current anxieties about privacy and surveillance.

The Artworks

This exhibition is the first to be distributed across the main gallery on Eastcastle Street and Carroll Fletcher’s new Project Space on nearby Riding House Street, meaning you get two shows for the price of one. In the main space (which has a concrete stairway that will take your breath away) be sure to check out Justin Hibbs’ mesmeric wall drawing. The young British artist’s show stopping contribution aims to 're-map' the relationship between architecture, spatial perception and representation. Also not to be overlooked is Wood and Harrison’s video of an animation created by a photocopier. Over at the Project Space Christine Sun Kim, who has been deaf since birth, shows a compelling collection of works on paper that seek to challenge the ownership of sound. Kim focuses on the parameters and invisible rules that create social values. In many ways this is a metaphor for the ambition of the exhibition in general and it ensures that a visit will leave you in a state of quietly poetic contemplation.