Melanie Manchot at the exhibition “When the Grid Goes Soft” at MOTINTERNATIONAL Projects gallery, London.
Curator:Persilia Caton
Private View: Friday 13.12.2013 6-8pm
Melanie Manchot, Tracer, production still (Jak), 2013
Nathan Bomford and Cedric Bomford have been invited to construct an installation that will function as a sculptural form, as well as a framing device for the work of Jakob Kolding and Melanie Manchot.
Built from locally sourced, salvaged and reclaimed materials, the Bomford’s describe their plan-less process as ‘thinking through building’. Their practice is a lived experience centred on the act of working.
Positioned within the Bomford’s installation, Manchot’s film Tracer draws attention to the perception of built forms. Through the actions of parcour runners and the structures that support their movements, a reciprocal connection between the
individual, the collective, and the environment is made.
Placed in the public sphere and in the gallery, Jakob Kolding’s collaged posters utilize text and imagery from theatre, cinema and literature to further his examination of how people react to their surroundings.
The artists’ works are positioned together as an ideological construction to examine and question the formation, function and experience of urban space and place. This interconnectedness is located between the interior mind, external physicality and the built world, with each understanding of place contingent on the self.
When the Grid Goes Soft is framed as an experimental project within the history of MOT as site for curatorial and artistic innovation. Since 2002, the work of over 150 internationally acclaimed artists have been shown, including Jeremy Deller, Omer Fast, Liam Gillick, Rodney Graham, Rachel Harrison, Runa Islam, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Louise Lawler, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy and Lawrence Weiner.
Melanie Manchot (b. 1966 Germany, lives and works in London, UK) explores portraiture as a performative and participatory practice. Working with photography, film and video, her projects often propose constructed events or situations in public spaces.
Located at the threshold between documentary and choreography the work frequently articulates modes of individual and collective experiences and relations.
Manchot’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including at The Whitechapel Gallery, London; MacVal, Musée d’Art Contemporaine, Paris; The Photographers Gallery, London; Galerie m, Bochum, Germany; The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; The Australian Museum of Photography, Sydney; The Courtauld Institute, London; Museum Folkwang, Essen and as part of Nuit Blanche, Paris.
She is the recipient of many awards, most recently the Oriel Davies Award, 2012. Tracer was commissioned by Great North Run Culture and was premiered at ALTIC39 in Newcastle in September 2013.
