Public engagement project
Poster Club: Wheat, Mud, Machine
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland | Phase One
Completed
June 2015
August 2015
Poster Club are making a new body of work in the form of posters, stickers and garments for their exhibition Wheat, Mud, Machine in CURRENT. The title quite literally referencing the material properties of the objects represented in the works in exhibition, but also more obliquely to the digital and analogue technologies employed in Poster Club’s production of their art works.
At the heart of Poster Club's practice is a particular relationship with the manual and machinic processes of screen-printing, block printing and digital print. Artist Peter Philips who was employed by Poster Club for an exhibition in 2011 (Eastside Projects, UK) succinctly captured this relationship when he declared, “I don’t want to be a machine like Warhol, but I like the idea of using one”.
Revisiting previous artworks, utterances and installations, Wheat, Mud, Machine is itself a humorous re-appraisal of Poster Club's own work in a self-styled 'Institutional Self-Critique' – a slogan frequently seen in the works in the exhibition. Through their elusive and humorously provocative slogans and experimental utilisation of the ‘poster’ in its inherent multiple form, Poster Club’s works embody the plurality and complexity of contemporary cultural practice.
The idea that the exhibition lives on beyond the frame of the museum by moving into the space of people's homes is in keeping with the long-standing tradition of exhibition posters.
In Wheat, Mud, Machine the audience is invited to make their own memento, operating the simple printing station that forms part of the exhibitionand large stamps of Poster Club fonts to make new images or slogans. In keeping with the ethos of an exhibition poster, Poster Club have created the CURRENT poster to announce Phase One of the CURRENT programme, utilising their specially designed ‘finger font’.
From 28 June – 5 July, Poster Club members Ciara Phillips, Michael Stumpf, Nicolas Party and Anne-Marie Copestake will undertake a week-long residency at Shanghai Himalayas Museum’s Residency Venue Zhujiajiao Art Museum to recalibrate the group’s ideals “to make posters and to collaborate”.
Installation views of Wheat, Mud, Machine (2015) by Poster Club at Shanghai Himalayas Museum. Courtesy of Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Cooper Gallery DJCAD and the artists.
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland
2015 – 2016
Organised by: Cooper Gallery DJCAD University of Dundee, Shanghai Himalayas Museum in partnership with the British Council
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland is a four-phase eighteen-month contemporary art exhibition and forum programme at Shanghai Himalayas Museum that showcases for the first time in China the distinctiveness of contemporary art made in Scotland, its grass-roots spirit and its keen debates with the social and political dimensions of art and culture. CURRENT |???? is co-curated by Sophia Hao and Wang Nanming.
Poster Club
Poster Club is a group of artists who collaborate on designing and printing posters. Using the poster format as an open-ended starting point for their projects, Poster Club's primary interest is in using the medium of print as a site for experimental collaborative practice. Poster Club members participating in the week-long residency are Anne-Marie Copestake, Nicolas Party, Ciara Phillips and Michael Stumpf.
Poster Club's ideals are succinct yet open.
- Make posters
- Collaborate
They approach the idea of what a 'poster' is, and can be, by creating works that announce their own presence without informing us as to what they might mean. Instead of 'objective' information, their posters offer elusive statements, open-ended questions and humorous conjunctions.
Poster Club are Anne-Marie Copestake, Charlie Hammond, Tom O'Sullivan, Nicolas Party, Ciara Phillips and Michael Stumpf. Poster Club have exhibited at: Martha Street Studio, Winnipeg (2014), Dundee Contemporary Arts (2013), Platform, Glasgow (2013), The Duchy, Glasgow (2013), Glasgow Print Studio (2011) and Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2011).
All photos courtesy and copyright of Poster Club.
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland is a collaboration between Shanghai Himalayas Museum and Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee and organised in partnership with the British Council.
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland is kindly supported by the British Council, British Council China, China-UK Connections through Culture, The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, Scottish Government and Goldsmiths College, University of London. CURRENT | 不合时宜 is a direct result of the Research and Development Trip (January 2014) funded by Creative Scotland.
CURRENT | 不合时宜 : Contemporary Art from Scotland is an Official 2015 UK-China Year of Culture Exchange Event.
Poster Club have been kindly supported in the production of their work for CURRENT |????: Contemporary Art from Scotland by Glasgow Print Studio.
Image Credit: Poster Club, Wheat, Mud, Machine at Shanghai Himalayas Museum, 2015. Photo: Courtesy of Cooper Gallery, DJCAD, University of Dundee.