Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle at Random Gallery
Monday, May 4th, 2009A collection of objects rendered in clay: food items, internal organs and geometry tools. Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle’s installation, A Secondary Education occupies Random Gallery, a shop window used as a collaborative space between the galleries Air de Paris and Praz-Delavallad.
Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, A Secondary Education
The objects are easily identifiable, they look like something you might come across in a school, or even a kids’ playroom (the food items in particular). The reason for their presence, however, is less obvious. The installation is made even more ambiguous by it’s location in what looks like a shop window. The objects seem to be on display as if for sale, but there is no shop behind the display. Here the objects have lost their communication value and are rendered absurd.
The title may refer to the education of 11 to 18 year-olds, evoking the educational potential of objects as visual aids. On the other hand, ’secondary education’ could be understood as re-education – a re-education of the banality of images and objects, of the lack of meaning when context is removed.
The effect is thought-provoking, without being overly conceptual, amusing and very slightly disturbing.
A Secondary Education is on at Random Gallery until 20/06/09
[...] the artists in public spaces and is presented on a mock-marble plinth. Like in their installation A Secondary Education, the effect is humorous and [...]