Delicate Situations

Like the artworks that made up this project Delicate Situations has now passed. But the blog will remain online. Thank you to all those who have visited the site and all the participants. 

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Delicate Situations lasted from 15th January 2007 until 15th January 2008. The one common factor to all the works in the exhibition is that they were left in a place (for as long as they lasted).

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a sequence of delicate situations
showing ourselves

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anywhere

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Delicate Situations shows the implications of the struggle with circumstance and the contrasting strategies and choices that face us. It does this by creating a condition for the exhibition of the art work by which its fragility or resistance to circumstance is radically exposed. It exposes not only the vulnerability of a finished art object but also the often vulnerable circumstances of the process and production of art work. The nature of the way in which the work in Delicate Situations is shown allows a chance to dwell on the nature of display and varying ways in which an individual artist reacts to showing their work. By providing no specific venue for the work it provides an extreme situation to dwell on the value of publicity and privacy and the significance of the ephemeral and disappearing artwork. This leads us to think about the ways in which artists develop strategies for being seen and not seen and the ways of merging or keeping seperated the making of the work and the making the work public. Finally, by dissolving the boundary between the practice of art and the practice of life it allows for a critical and reflective space to open up at the centre of the everyday.

For more information contact Joe Schneider

Please click on photos for larger images.

Urban Foxhole 2 - Bridge Walkway

Artist: Charlene Lam

Location: New York, USA

Entrance to the Manhattan Bridge's pedestrian walkway.
A quiet observer.

By evening, the fox has been thrown to the ground.
And disemboweled.

Urban Foxhole 1 - Subway Platform

Artist: Charlene Lam

Location: New York, USA

Hiding out on the platform at the Grand Street station.
Staying safe as the train arrives.
By morning, the fox is gone, but the train arrives all the same.

17th Hole [QUERCUS ROBUR]

Artist: Anonymous

QUERCUS ROBUR 1 - This shows the golf course hole the day before our intervention.

QUERCUS ROBUR 2 - This shows our intervention 'artwork' piece. Three English Oak trees (Native to the area) planted around the 17th hole of the golf course.

QUERCUS ROBUR 3 - This shows that our trees have been removed and the ground patched up with new turf. The hole & flag was subsequently also moved to another more 'flat' area probably to let the new turf re-grow. I must stress that this image was taken about 2-3 months after the intervention, mainly because we didnt want to be caught as our element of surprise had been lost. Although we did do a covert walk past the day after our intervention, only to find that the piece had already been removed.

Sugar Cube

Artist: Adriana Grant
Location: Seattle, Washington (3rd Avenue and South Washington Street)

A seven inch sugar cube, weighing nearly ten pounds, was installed in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood on January 1, 2008, at approximately 5 p.m.

At 9 a.m. the next morning, the Sugar Cube has been removed, leaving only traces of white in the gravel.

Photos by Adriana Grant

In Rainbows

Artist: Morgana Suppo

Location: Shopping Centre, Turin, Italy

Sugar Cube

Artist: Adriana Grant

Location: Seattle, Washington (3rd Avenue and South Washington Street)

A seven inch sugar cube, weighing nearly ten pounds, was installed in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood on January 1, 2008. The piece is solid sugar, composed of 1331 sugar cubes.

Photos by Peter Mumford