Dan Mort has described his work as 'possible sculpture'. Fusing disparate items, materials and production techniques, his pieces often reference familiar modernist strategies that are thrown of balance by the inclusion of unexplained elements. His interest in physicalist philosophophy and also hermeneutics feed into the work - sheer materiality and a sense of the arbitrary play against the works' potential as signifiers, frustrating the viewer's reading process and confusing terms of value and distinction.
His practice asks whether determined viewing conditions inevitably force the assignation of contextual or symbolic resonance - or if the resulting work could infact be understood as nothing more than stuff, arranged in vacuous, quasi-aesthetic configurations. The pieces hover ambiguously between purposefullness and a pervading threat of implosion; between potential for an emergent 'meaning', and parodic absurdity - in this way the work offers numerous routes in, but often no comprehensible way out.
Biography
Exhibitions
2008
100 Perfomances for the Hole, Garage Biennial, San Francisco
2007
Collectif 2007 Group Exhibition, L'Espace 72, Dison, Belgium
Loner's Island, G39, Cardiff
Circle of the Tyrants, Southwell Artspace
A Glass of Broccoli, Terrace Gallery, London
Obstacle – New UK Sculpture (curator), Spectacle Gallery, Birmingham
2006
Year 06 Projects Art Fair, Mary Ward House, London
Antony Hall, Dan Mort and Andrew Palmer, MOOT Gallery, Nottingham
Rag and Bone, Three Colts Gallery, London
Contained Happening, International Project Space, Birmingham
Solo Exhibition, L’Espace 72, Dison, Belgium
2005
On What There Is (curator), Spectacle Gallery, Birmingham
Parlour, House Gallery, London
2004
Unrealised Projects, 1 000 000mph, London/Le Roy Nieman Gallery, New York
MA Exhibition, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
2003
Four by Four, Chapman Gallery, Manchester
2002
Goldsmiths Degree Show, Goldsmiths College, London
2001
Welcome to the Laundry, Prenelle Gallery, London
Awards
AHRB Postgraduate Bursary 2003/04
Education
MA Fine Art
MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University 2003-2004
BA Fine Art
Goldsmiths College 1999-2002
Articles
a-n reviews unedited (web), Obstacle, April 2007
Arty review, On What There Is, August/September 2005
a-n magazine review, On What There Is, October 2005
Flux News, Belgium, January 2006
Collections
Adam Cohen, New York
Claude Delguerre, Geneva
Greg Cox, London
No comments:
Post a Comment