Sight Mapping

Sight Mapping, with catalogue texts by Sherman Sam and Mark Gisbourne and an introduction by Andrew Bick, was initially conceived to support the acquisition by the Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow of a work of Bick's in 2000.

Originally it was an exploration of the current condition of abstract painting in relation to my own practice, but the inclusion of artists working with sculpture installation and photography (Bier) and film and video (A K Dolven) meant that it evolved into a much richer dialogue concerning the optical and haptic in contemporary visual art, as explored by Mark Gisbourne in his essay, “To see is to behold”.

Artists included came from LA (Besemer) London (Bick, Ravenscroft, Rhodes) Dusseldorf (Fries) Hanover (Bier) Bilbao (Fitzgerald), Brooklyn (Singwi) and Singapore (Sam). Funding was received from The British Council, AHRB (AHRC), Pro Helvetia, Diputacion Foral de Bizkaia as well as private sources.

The fusion of video and photography with painting and drawing in the same gallery space (even visual plane in some installations of the exhibition) has become a key technique in my approach to mounting a group exhibition. At Sala Rekalde the exhibition attracted controversy (El Pais, 2 June) mostly because of the dominant position of new media within contemporary practice in Spain, whereby the deliberate reinvention of old media in relation to contemporary practice, central to my research and collaborative processes, was misinterpreted as a regressive step. Later projects, in particular “The Kingston Turnpike” and JJ Charlesworth’s text in “Memory Club” seek to clarify the nature of my position.

A catalogue was published with texts by Sherman Sam and Mark Gisbourne and an introduction by Bick. Co-authors were Mark Gisbourne, Sherman Sam, Linda Besemer, Andrew Bick, Rolf Bier, A K Dolven, Patrick M Fitzgerald, Pia Fries, Ben Ravenscroft, David Rhodes, Sherman Sam, and Sonita Singwi.
ISBN 84-88559-35-6 (Sala Rekalde Bilbao, 2002/2003)