onwhatthereis

Paul Cordwell Saam Farahmand Nick Jordan Dan Mort Lee Patterson On What There Is takes its name from the classic paper by logician W.V.O Quine (1948), in which he set out his stall for the tasks of ontology. The thing was to try to assert what there is (in the world), and then to ask what could authentically be said about it. A pedantic and laborious prospect perhaps, but one of philosophical objectivity that elucidated distinctions between being and non-being. These terms might form a basis for thinking about the work in this exhibition; what’s there, what can be said about it . . . and so: where does it come from, what’s it doing, and how? Using film and video, sound, sculpture and installation, five artists present works that oscillate between their immanent reception as art, and the exposure/examination of the methodologies and materials that have them lead there. Whether laid bare or implicit, embedded in the work is an obdurate self-reflexivity that comes to the surface of its immediate aesthetic reception, highlighting the alchemical nature of producing art and its relative position to the world from which it emerges.

Paul Cordwell
Saam Farahmand
Nick Jordan
Dan Mort
Lee Patterson

On What There Is takes its name from the classic paper by logician W.V.O Quine (1948), in which he set out his stall for the tasks of ontology. The thing was to try to assert what there is (in the world), and then to ask what could authentically be said about it. A pedantic and laborious prospect perhaps, but one of philosophical objectivity that elucidated distinctions between being and non-being. These terms might form a basis for thinking about the work in this exhibition; what’s there, what can be said about it . . . and so: where does it come from, what’s it doing, and how? Using film and video, sound, sculpture and installation, five artists present works that oscillate between their immanent reception as art, and the exposure/examination of the methodologies and materials that have them lead there. Whether laid bare or implicit, embedded in the work is an obdurate self-reflexivity that comes to the surface of its immediate aesthetic reception, highlighting the alchemical nature of producing art and its relative position to the world from which it emerges.