28 July 2011

Looking in and stepping back



A short cut from Tate Britain through "the square" at Chelsea College of Art led past this exhibition by Roger Ackling: "The placement of the work is an important part of Ackling's practice, taking into account the architectural setting and the relationship between individual pieces. Through this process the final installation becomes a part of the art work."

This installation consists of tools and discarded boxes (with his trademark sun-made marks) and has the feel - to someone passing by and glancing in - of a vanished rurality. The reflective windows compress the three-dimensionality of the urban setting; by separating the exhibition from the space beyond the gallery, the glass paradoxically brings it into that exterior space, in an interaction that in retrospect gives another meaning to the stacked tower-blocks of the boxes.

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