Thursday 10 April 2008

Dan Mort





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



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