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RESEARCH - MERLIN CARPENTER 'TITLE OF SHOW'

Merlin Carpenter
Title of Show
28 September - 4 November 2017


The exhibition, presenting a series of wooden pallets as well as a poster, marks the artist’s first solo show in Denmark.

The series of wooden pallets hanging on the wall are readymade paintings. Some of them have previously been exhibited at “Control 20” (Laure Genillard, London, 2017), and as sculptures in “Tisch” (Kiefholzstr. 401, Berlin, 2017).

To put these works into context: Carpenter has previously exhibited a series of transit blankets stretched onto wooden frames for his solo show “MIDCAREER PAINTINGS” at Kunsthalle Bern (2015), and matt black painted readymade doors at dépendance in Brussels (“Blogs of the Near Future”, 2016). Carpenter’s project “Solo Show” at Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club in Miami (2010), which went on to become a van full of educational material parading around Eastern Europe and Russia in the “Burberry Propaganda Tour 2013”, involved somewhat similar readymade paintings. They were fake Burberry check textile stretched onto large wooden frames.

The titles of each pallet range and differ as they represent either words (funny title, great title, sick title) or give the impression of representing thematic areas or problems (radical title, political title). I believe the artist is leaving each piece open to interpretation by selecting these titles as the works only differ in the form of a different pallet.  A wooden pallet, in the simplest sense, is associated with transportation or industrial use, but when taken from that environment and placed in a 'white cube' gallery space it can see be seen as merely a material object. The works themselves are interesting as far as a 'readymade' exhibition as the artist hasn't manipulated the found object, but merely taken it away from its original environment creating a new context for that object. 

The exhibition has intrigued me as the artist has left everything open to interpretation, leaving me with many questions about it. Is there a concept? Why did he use pallets? What do the titles represent, if anything?. But has also inspired me as to the use of found objects, I use alot of found materials within my own practise but i tend to deconstruct them and manipulate them so the idea of displaying the object as itself could steer my future practise.

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