ARTIST'S TALK: Jo Longhurst in conversation with Dr Lynn Turner
Wed 7 March, 7pm, ICIA (Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts) University of Bath - Art Space 2
Drinks & viewing from 6pm - free event
www.bath.ac.uk/icia
ICIA presents SUSPENSION, an exhibition by artist Jo Longhurst, which explores the human body in action and questions ideas of perfection. Join Jo in conversation with Dr Lynn Turner (Lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London) discussing the exhibition in light of ICIA’s 2012 ‘internationalism’ theme, and her previous work.
Jo’s installation ‘A-Z’ incorporates hundreds of editorial sports photographs from various archives, mounted on individual blocks along the gallery wall. The clusters of pikes, straddles, layouts and twists show elements of a gymnastics routine named after the gymnasts who invented them. A-Z draws attention to individuals, histories, nationalities and photographic media, and the visual language on which the discipline is built.
Jo’s interest in social systems, power and control is apparent - the name and formal installation of the work hints at an order or system, but one that fails to fully materialise in the artwork.
The exhibition also includes Suspension (1), a large-scale work specially printed for Art Space 2.
Jo Longhurst best known for The Refusal, a study of human/animal relations and the British Whippet. Her practice features a mixture of analogue and digital lens-based processes, performance and installation.
Since 2009, Jo, a former gymnast, has been working with elite gymnasts in training and competition at Heathrow Gymnastics Club and the World Gymnastics Championships. She questions the ideas of human perfectibility through the ‘hot housing’ of young gymnasts, exploring how the most successful often become representatives of ideologies and nations.
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