TWO AND A HALF DIMENSIONS

An exhibition curated by Marcus Harvey

Pangolin London
21 September – 29 October 2011

This September, Pangolin London will open a group exhibition curated by artist and magazine editor Marcus Harvey.  ‘Two and a half dimensions’ is a phrase Harvey employs to describe the ‘gateway’ from wall based painting to sculpture. The exhibition brings together paintings whose preoccupation is with three dimensionality in its most direct  sense and floor-based sculpture that reflects the painterly and imagistic.
 
Harvey explains: ‘Two and a half dimensions’ is a term coined by Harry Thubron (who taught at Goldsmiths in the 80’s) to describe a wall-based piece of work that grew out from the picture plane to extend pictorial space literally. This is an intriguing ‘zone’ because it has the property of conferring a sense of the super real. The constituent parts are allowed to defy gravity and their straining attachment to the picture plain makes them neither illusionistic nor a sculptural object. This has always been an exciting space for me, either to load up with paint or to secrete a found object. I am not simply wanting to look at this idea as wall-based work but want to pursue the urge that painting has to detach itself from the canvas and present itself as a lump or a dynamic entity in the world.
 
Pangolin London’s September show features a range of artists from Sir Anthony Caro and Harry Thubron to recent graduates, which reflects Harvey’s preferred model of looking at a subject by using a cross generational mix of established and emerging practitioners.
 
Tina Jenkins (runner up in this year’s marmite painting prize) has a strange method of construction/deconstruction. She paints multi layered abstract paintings onto plastic sheeting and remembering what went where, peels or flays back the skin of the surface and leaves it curled and drooping like a Navajo saddle blanket.
 
For years, Richard Clegg has literally deconstructed the canvas by casting it in translucent polyester resin as a sculptural object along with the easel and brushes. Reminiscent of Jasper Johns’ bronze cast of soaking paint brushes, Clegg’s work incorporates the artist’s essentials into the art work itself.
 
Further artists include Adam Walker, Richard Clegg, Harry Thubron, Ian Dawson, Anthony Caro, Hew Locke, Edward Lipski, Martin Westwood, Sophie Newell, Jeremy Butler, Tina Jenkins, Corin Johnson and Marcus Harvey.
 
Marcus Harvey
 Marcus Harvey was born in Leeds in 1963 and lives and works in London. He has participated in several important group exhibitions such as ‘Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away’, Serpentine Gallery, London (1994), ‘Sensation’, Royal Academy, London (1997) and 'In The Darkest Hour There May Be Light: Works from Damien Hirst’s murderme collection', Serpentine Gallery, London.
 
Harvey’s solo exhibitions include White Cube, London (1994 and 2009), Tanya Bonakdar, New York (1995), Mary Boone Gallery, New York (2002), Galleria Marabini, Bologna (2005 and 2007) and Mimmo Scognamiglio, Naples (2005).
 
Pangolin London and Pangolin Editions
Pangolin London is situated on the ground floor of Kings Place in Kings Cross, London. The exhibition coincides with the opening of the new Central St Martin’s School of Art on the Argent Development in Kings Cross.
 
Opened in October 2008, Pangolin London is one is London’s few galleries dedicated to exhibiting and exploring sculpture and is affiliated with Europe’s leading sculpture foundry, Pangolin Editions.

Pangolin London
Kings Place
90 York Way
London N1 9AG
Telephone: (0)20 7520 1480
Email: gallery@pangolinlondon.com
www.pangolinlondon.com
 
Image Credits: Marcus Harvey, Heroic Head, fired stoneware Unique