Where is the Work?

‘Where is the Work?’ is a key development of investigations by Cornford & Cross into the relationship between artistic collaboration, social engagement and site-specific installation. Their practice is based on ‘action research’ into the proposition that a key function of contemporary art is to test concepts, assumptions and boundaries in everyday life. They make ‘live’ interventions into social situations, which involve people within and beyond contemporary art discourse. Each project involves discussion, research, writing a proposal, and (hopefully) realizing an installation. However, ‘realizing’ does not mean presenting a resolved statement, but a paradox manifested in physical action and sculptural form, to engage a variety of audiences in reflection and debate.

Both new installations critically engaged with assumptions underlying the role of art galleries in regeneration, by focussing attention on the gallery architecture as basis and threshold.

‘Where is the Work?’ explicates diverse ephemeral works in which Cornford & Cross have deployed conceptualist and ‘arte povera’ strategies to explore new relationships between object, image and text, and the producers and consumers of art.

Solo touring exhibition, website and publication funded by Arts Council England. The exhibition toured four venues: Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland (November 2005); Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth (February 2007); Pump House Gallery, London (June 2007) Exchange Gallery, Penzance (September 2007). The publication is 192 pages, hard back, full colour; essays by John Roberts and Rachel Withers. The exhibition, website and publication feature drawings, photographs, objects and texts from thirty projects by Cornford & Cross in public places, plus ‘Fire Down Below’ and ‘The Abolition of Work’, two new site-specific works for Aspex Gallery and Exchange Gallery.

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