Pip Culbert - Seams
Pip Culbert’s exhibition takes its title from the central motif in the artist's practice: seams. Deconstructing clothes, bags, tents, and other textile based objects, gleaned by the artist over time, main structural lines of these forms remain. Objects are transformed into conceptual ‘ghosts’, the forms are reduced to archetypes. Just as a chair is not merely a chair for Joseph Kosuth, and a pipe is not just a pipe for René Magritte; these are not only skirts, pockets, bags, they are much more.
Like strong shadows or characteristic silhouettes, Culbert's works appear as both painterly and sculptural forms. Seams hold different layers of fabric together with stitches, and Culbert follows their tracks to achieve her ‘soft’ sculptures. Culbert reverses the process of any tailor, or machine; there is a modesty and economy of form - it is a process of relief. Drawing from a range of works dated 1992 to 2014, the exhibition celebrates the subtle nuances of Culbert’s practice. As a parachute bomber sits on a wall rather innocuously opposite Culbert’s re-purposed pocket seams one can detect within these works the current political demands our world is facing; from war, political conflict, poverty and austerity; all of which will shape our future.
Pip Culbert (1938—2016) lived and worked in London and the South of France. Culbert’s deconstructed fabric objects have been stripped down to their essential seams. In this exercise of recontextualising the everyday, items are reduced to their bare bones through a process of subtractive drawing that renders three-dimensional objects two-dimensional.
Recent solo exhibitions of Culbert’s work include Grundriß, Gitte Weise Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2009); Flag, Gitte Weise Galerie, Berlin, Germany (2007); Pip Culbert, 64zero3, Christchurch, New Zealand (2006), Pinnies, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand (2005), fadenschein, Gitte Weise Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2004); Linen Line, SoFa Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand (2004). Recent group exhibitions include Un sport est un geste, une régle, un enjeu, HorsJeux, Beauvais, France (2009); Flag, Poppy and Pierre Salinger Foundation, Le Thor, France (2008); ULTRAMart, Contemporary Art from New Zealand, Casa-Museo Benwinre, Valencia, Spain (2007); Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand (2006).
Solo presentations from Chen Chieh-jen, Pip Culbert and Sabelo Mlangeni take place within the framework of “Singular Pluralities ∞ Plural Singularities”, a series of solo exhibitions which began in 2015. Focusing on artistic research and exhibition methodology, the series experiments with installation strategies, and event structures. Through the three parallel exhibitions Artspace will explore studio processes and artistic approaches in conversation with the audience.
The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Pip Culbert Estate and Hopkinson Mossman to mark the passing of the artist in February this year.