Mon 7 Apr 2008 10:25:50 +0200
Curator: Dear Shane and Thomas,
I’m really looking forward to your exhibition here in August. Your opening is set for the 15 of August. I will leave it up to you to decide on how you want to split/ co-operate the show, but would be happy to help out, play a long in any way you want me to.
On 08/04/2008 at 12.32, Shane Bradford wrote
Shane: To me it’s sounds like a good old fashioned UPROCK! Have you come across this expression before? It’s an 80’s thing…when two rivals met in the street instead of fighting they would have a spontaneous uprock, in other words a break-dance competition. I’m not suggesting we do that! But maybe take the idea and transfer it – I propose that I will send you an image of a piece of work of mine so that you can respond to it with one of your own that will match or better it. Then you send me one of yours and I will respond etc…until the show is full. And we call the show UPROCK….
Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:43:42 +0200
Thomas: Hey Jerkface
The first publication of our show holds the title…..
DADADADAAAA
Uprock
V1 Gallery presents
UPROCK
Opening day: Friday August 15 2008. From 17.00-22.00
Exhibition period: August 15 2008 –September 06 2008
V1 Gallery proudly presents Uprock, an exhibition duelled by Shane Bradford (UK) and Thomas Øvlisen (DK).
Shane Bradford from London is best known for his ’drip works’, that have made several art critics and collectors look for big superlatives. He dips various objects (latest chicken skeletons, fashion magazines and tricycles among others) in multicoloured emulsions – a process that can take up to a year – until they look like amorphous abnormalities. But his humoristic wanderlust and socio political eye for the ironic paradoxes in modern society also extends to media such as film and large scale installations. He has exhibited all over Europe, and in 2007 he won the distinguished Celeste Art Prize.
Thomas Øvlisen is a well known name on the Danish art scene. His abstract play with material, shape and motif is submerged in absurd humour and a consistent fascination with the toll of the time. Where Shane Bradford constructs his works and covers them in gloss Thomas erodes and deconstructs his in a process that reminds the viewer of the relentless effect time has on earthly objects (including human beings) as he simultaneously comments on the industrial evolution of the past century.
The differences and similarities between the two artists have created a horn of plenty of thoughts, ideas and materials. And in the middle of all the confusion something suddenly makes sense. Or in the words of two artists:
Sat, 3 May 2008 09:11:53 +0200
Thomas: First of all I think one of the problems with being an artist is that one spends too much time working alone in ones studio thinking about the work being done – and subsequently I am always scared that my thoughts are hermit-like exaggerations and the work itself only actually represents half of what I claim it does. I read more stuff into my work than anybody could possible ever extract through any and all forms of analysis.
On 08/05/2008, at 10.49, Shane Bradford wrote:
Shane: I’m not sure I have anything of worth to add to what you have written. I admire your bravery at not putting a filter on what you say, you are right of course. Perhaps it’s a nice tidy summary of this show; to say that your unguarded approach, mirrored in your practice by the use of erosion as a metaphor for getting under the skin of societies polished surface constructs (deep breath) sits well in opposition to my recoating process, putting a gloss on a dysfunctional illusion that we call civilisation. (Or maybe this neat conclusion is exemplary of my urge for unified finishes!) In the words of someone famous: I DON’T KNOW.
I must admit that with you taking away layers and me adding them on I can’t see how we will ever make an artwork together! Talk about Sisyphus…