THOMAS DANE GALLERY CLOSES SIGNALS: IF YOU LIKE I SHALL GROW
From June 8 to July 21, the London gallery Thomas Dane Gallery, presents Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow, an exhibition that focuses on the renowned art gallery and meeting place Signals London (1964-66) . It is the first exhibition that brings together the work of artists who participated in Signals London: space founded by Guy Brett, Paul Keeler, David Medal, Gistav Metzger and Marcello Salvadori, while pointing out the global impact that results from the union of interests generated at that specific point in the history of art. As an interdisciplinary space open to critical research and social encounter.
Signals London, celebrated internationally for its innovative series of solo exhibitions, by artists such as Lygia Clark, Jesus Rafael Soto and Mira Schendel, also used collective exhibitions as a device to create attractive relationships between the various national and international avant-garde networks that surround their founders
The sample will act as part of a research process, guided by the possibility of tracking these wider networks. In doing so, it will define a connection between past and present gallery models.
Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow was thought by the co-founder of kurimanzutto, Jose Kuri in 2016 and is curated by Dr. Isobel Whitelegg, an art historian who has published extensively in Signals London and also in the international circulation of Latin American art. The transition from concept to realization has been favored by the guidance of the original supporters and founders of Signals London. To coincide with the exhibition, kurimanzutto will produce a publication that pays tribute to the original format and concept of the Newsbulletin of Signals London, which documented their exhibitions and included critical essays, images, experimental poetry and reports on the new art and the new science of home and abroad. The title of the exhibition quotes a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, which was published in Signals Newsbulletin vol. 1, No. 2 in reference to the iconic sculptural works of the David Medalla bubble machine.
Gabriel Kuri, artist of kurimanzutto, collaborator of the exhibition, articulates the role that founding artist David Medalla played when he aroused his curiosity about Signals London:
"I met David Medalla in London in 1994 and I was deeply touched by his anarchic and organic approach, also direct and precise towards artistic creation." Witnessing the gestation and development of his renowned exhibition in 1995 really marked my formative years in that The bubble machines and the clay machine in that show showed me in a relentless way that sculpture is potential or possibility, not just a form, its affirmative and celebratory statements were more charged with politics than any form of deliberate criticism. The Newsbulletins of Signals London, published decades before today's instant connectivity, are the epitome of internationalism and cross-pollination, their spirit of experimentation was genuinely independent of the legitimization of institutions or the incentive of the art market. " Often appropriating the terms and concepts of the science of his time, Signals London was originally conceived as 'The Center for Advanced Creative Study', driven by possibility rather than by plan. Describing a collective exhibition as a "pilot" was characteristic of the experimental and interdisciplinary approach of the gallery. The objective of Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow is not to establish a definitive history of the gallery, but to reactivate its past as a point of departure in the present. Borrowing from the collaborative ethics of Signals London, Signals de kurimanzutto Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow will be presented at Thomas Dane Gallery in London or Dane as headquarters, mapping connections and synergies in both spaces of its galleries. With artists who worked in Latin America, the United States and Western Europe, it also sheds new light on the diversity of British artists who were part of the Signals London network. Both galleries will expand their association in 2019, when kurimanzutto will host the Thomas Dane Gallery in its space in Mexico City.
Kurimanzutto, founded in 1999, in Mexico City by Mónica Manzutto, José Kuri and a group of 13 artists, including Gabriel Orozco. It has a collective approach that allowed for greater collaboration, supporting the work of artists locally and internationally. The artists helped develop the concept and structure of the gallery, which has now been expanded to include an international list of renowned artists, such as Monika Sosnowska from Poland, Danh Vō from Vietnam, Adrián Villar Rojas from Argentina, Jimmie Durham from the United States and Sarah Lucas from the United Kingdom. The common energy shared by Kurimanzutto and his artists has led to the shared creation of projects, publications, workshops and exhibitions.
