The World Turned Upside Down – Buster Keaton, Sculpture and the Absurd, Mead Gallery

The World Turned Upside Down, installation shot, Mead Gallery

Another of my favourite exhibitions; unfortunately I was no longer at the Mead Gallery when this opened from 4 October – 14 December 2013. I loved working on this programme with Ben and Simon, and with each of the artists involved in the early stages:

Curated by Simon Faithfull and Ben Roberts, ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ places the work of over twenty international artists working in film, sculpture, installation art and performance in direct relation to Buster Keaton’s films to track a lineage from the melancholic and at times anarchic comedy of Keaton to the dry wit of conceptual practice.

By examining Keaton’s approach to art through making – the processes of failure, risk and repetition – the exhibition also establishes a nuanced presentation of the developmental relationship between slapstick film, sculpture and performance and highlights parallels within modern and contemporary sculptural practice which continue to resonate today.

The exhibition features work of conceptual artists working in film, photography, sculpture, installation art and performance; by historical and contemporary, established and emerging artists. These include Bas Jan Ader, Angus Braithwaite and Fred Lindberg, Marcel Broodthaers, Alexandre da Cunha, Simon Faithfull, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Brian Griffiths, Emma Hart, Jeppe Hein, Sofia Hulten, William Hunt, Tehching Hsieh, Gordon Matta-Clark, Hayley Newman, Miranda Pennell, Ruth Proctor, Roman Signer, William Wegman, Richard Wentworth, Richard Wilson, John Wood and Paul Harrison, Ben Woodeson, Erwin Wurm.

‘The World Turned Upside Down’ is a Mead Gallery exhibition which has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation.