Groeflin Maag Galerie is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with British
artist Barnaby Hosking. In the exhibition entitled New Work, Hosking is presenting
two new video installations.
‘’The two works, Netsuke and Untitled III were made during the summer of 2008
and compliment each other to operate as a coherent installation.
Netsuke employs a linear description of the making of a Netsuke sculpture in a
specially built structure using a natural spotlight from the sun from which to focus
ones attention, a technique which was used by artists in Japan before the advent of
electric light.
In Untitled III the movement in the video is de-lineated so that one cannot locate
a beginning or an end. Indeed there are alternating periods between the videos
movement, when both screens are indistinguishable from each other and operate as
monochrome abstract paintings, thus alternating the viewers common perception of
linear time.
The idea of process is a central theme of my practice and each work uses it in a
different way: Netsuke uses cause and effect in such a way that the viewer can
follow how the work comes into being from the encasement of a room of darkness.
In this way the idea of process seems to rely on the interconnectedness of elements;
the studio, the sun, and the final presentation of the work. It is in this final
presentation that the viewer completes the loop with his or her engagement with the
work to create a circular experience of time: Process (video), object (Sculpture) and
the perceiver (viewer) of both these elements are operating in an endless cycle of
the cognizance of perceiver and perceived so that the artwork can never be seen in
its completion.
Unititled III juxtaposes a video and a painting so that the viewer may contemplate
upon the different experiences of time as dependent on the media being viewed.
When faced with a monochrome painting one is faced as much with ones own thoughts
and physical presence as with the painting itself: time seems to slow down and
become more or less uncomfortable depending on the disposition of the viewer
However, with the experience of a video or film one has more objects for the mind to
grasp onto which keeps ones mind occupied and waiting to see what happens next. In
this work, the idea of process is revealed to be not as dependant on the existence of
causes and effects of supposedly concrete objects as in Netsuke, but rather to be
merely a process of the mind.’’
Barnaby Hosking