DoL & PITT projects are proud to present Backroom 1987-2012 by Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas and collateral works by Nathaniel Pitt, Ned James and Saulius Leonavicus

Backroom 1987-2012 is a durational installation first made in 1987 and then repeated in 2012 and adapted for Meter Room, Coventry. The installation is a conversation about the private, public spaces in every institution and the transparency of the activities that take place therin. Backroom is a version of another work called Quarto do Fundo - backroom from 1987. Muntadas placed a CCTV camera in the backroom of the Luisa Strina Gallery in Sao Paulo, access to this room is barred by a rope. The backroom in a commercial gallery is a space for keeping archives, documents, the store of works and most importantly where many dealings in the art market are made.

“Technology forces the door of the secret and the indiscreet camera unfolds what belongs to this category of the invisible, the constitutive principle of the exercise of power.” (Muntadas – Volume 1 Between / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte pg.241)

Untiltled 2012 homage to Michael Asher by Ned James and Nathaniel Pitt

If Your Going to Work in a Fish Factory, Your Going to Smell Like Fish 2012

Saulius has transcribed a skype conversation between artist and gallerist –
“The use of that conversation I see as a mirror which is facing exhibition, and tries to narrow a gap between cause and effect.” S.Leonavicius.

A Floor Plan for an Institution 2012 by Daniel Pryde-Jarman

“Floor Plan for an Institution is a durational collaborative project, whereby artist-curators from 5 artist-run spaces have been invited to contribute to the design of a speculative artist-run institution within the Meter Room project space, as a means of collectively imagining an alternative model for what an art institution could be.” This curatorial brief set by Daniel is active research that tests ideas culminated in Daniel’s PhD. Using Chantal Mouffe’s theories on ‘counter-hegemony’ and Jacques Rancière’s concept of ‘dissensus’ Daniel is exploring how the operation of artist-curator-run spaces can be used to contest hegemonic and dominant systems of art production.

Untiltled 2012 homage to Michael Asher by Ned James and Nathaniel Pitt

Ned James and I were both deeply saddened by the news of Mike Asher’s passing earlier in October, Ashers work is seminal and in terms of institutional critique. Untiltled 2012 is a whistful and knowing nod to Michael Ashers work which has for over for almost 40 years encouraged museums and art galleries to question the logic of their organizational and architectural structures, and so time itself here is given the ‘un’titled treatment in a wry acknowledgment that A Floor plan for an Institution is still valid but like time is cyclical.