SELECTIVE AFFINITIES
Exhibition 2 – 24 May
Private View, Tuesday, 1 May, 6.00 pm (Joint with Chris Evans show)
Gemma Appleton
Hannah Browne
Anne-Marie Creamer
Stuart Croft
Jan Mladovsky
Michael Ridge
Freya Smith
Holly Sutton
Mathew Noel-Tod
Mark Aerial Waller
Liz Wright
Natalie Zervou
The title of the show is paraphrasing Goethe's novel Elective Affinities. In the
context of the novel, the well-established chemical term “elective affinities”
related to mysterious behavior of chemical elements extends to human
relationships, both personal and political. Like the alkalis and acids, the
Goethe’s characters and their words and images, even if diametrically
opposed, may have an affinity for one another.
Goethe was an artist as well as scientist and believed that both art and
science search for the same truth. He says about art that it “rests upon the
deepest foundations of knowledge, upon the being of things, insofar as we are
permitted to know it in forms we can see and grasp”, that knowledge based on
experience of nature is merely an ideal and that it reveals itself in the work of
art, when it becomes perceptible reality. “Artist must confront the naked truths
that are not very comforting… Art is long, life short; judgment difficult and
opportunity transient”.
Contemporary communications seem to demand new expression reflecting
the channeling of images, words and sounds into a stream of information. The
show explores how the artists’ work using images, sounds and words
represents reality and whether the various strategies enjoy a harmonious
kinship, engage in skirmishes, or seek to destroy one another. The history of
iconoclasm and its periodic ebb and rise tells us about the ideological stakes
of the debate.
The artists are the tutors who live and work outside the region, who begun to
interact professionally through their involvement in teaching, bringing their art
practice together for the benefit of the students. Now they want to contribute
to the local art scene and by doing so to the public at large. The project
involves students showing their work alongside the tutors meeting on the
common ground as artists. ‘Selective Affinities’ thus provides a platform to
explore new pedagogic models. “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know
how to live…then… whatever you can do, you can begin – boldness has
genius, power and magic in it” says Goethe.
Art schools have traditionally been regarded as part of the art-world, at least
by the art-world itself. This is where new generations of artists come from.
However, as publicly funded institutions, they may be primarily expected to
fulfill educational roles and to be integrated in the academic establishment. By
exhibiting their work together at the Outpost Gallery in Norwich and taking
part in the debate, the artists and the students who are associated with New
Media Fine Art at NSAD want to demonstrate not only the affinity of their
creative practices but also their affinity to the idea of art schools as part of the
art-world, and the value of such concept to the local community.
Jan Mladovsky
Exhibition Curator
Debate
Tuesday, 1 May, 3.30 – 5.30 pm
Panel
Anne-Marie Creamer
Derek Mace
Linda Morris
Neil Powell
Michael Ridge
Natalie Zervou
Moderator
Jan Mladovsky
Selective Affinities is a metaphor for the process of becoming an artist, which
has been central to the story of art and is well known largely through
biographies of famous artists. Its social dynamic however is intertwined with
the history of the institution of art academy and the theory of art education.
The idea of the debate accompanying the exhibition is to examine the current
relationship between the institution of art school and the personal journey of
becoming an artist, and its relevance vis a vis the contemporary art world against the background of personal contributions to the theme by the panel
representing the artists, students, curators and art educationists.
Katherine Mager
Assistant Curator