Constance DeJong: On a Continuous Present

The first solo gallery exhibition in the UK of the American artist, writer and performer, Constance DeJong. Comprising material from DeJong’s expansive career, this exhibition highlights DeJong's iterative approach to art making — where language, text and image making combine — to further complicate our understanding of where an art work begins and ends.

Taking its title from Gertrude Stein’s assertion that writing and reading language is a simultaneous experience or ‘continuous present’, where seeing and saying are inseparable, the exhibition will explore DeJong’s innovative and complex explorations into the intersections of the formal avantgarde through experimental prose writing, multi-media spoken text and media works, and usernavigated digital projects.

First visiting London in 1976 to perform Modern Love, a spoken-word performance derived from her experimental novel of the same name, DeJong’s experiments with writing include self-publishing; founding the imprint Standard Editions in 1976 to publish her own work alongside the surrealist Dorothea Tanning. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring material relating to this visit alongside other archival elements and an interview between DeJong and curator Lara Pan

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