‘The Group Show at Fruitmarket Seeks to Ignite Conversationd about Social Class Through Sculpture’

Widewalls

‘The Group Show at Fruitmarket Seeks to Ignite Conversationd about Social Class Through Sculpture’ 3 March 2023

Balasz Takac

Class consciousness remains a relevant concept, given the widening economic inequality and class divisions driven by the expansion of capitalism. The art world itself is a highly competitive market thoroughly permeated with issues of social privilege and inequality, impacting the ways in which art is produced, distributed, and valued. This is why initiating a public dialogue concerning class issues is as important as ever.

The most recent contribution to this conversation is a group exhibition titled Poor Things, which will soon be on view at Fruitmarket. Curated by the artists Emma Hart and Dean Kenning, the upcoming show explores the sculpture in the context of social class.

The Class Struggle and Art

As a social relation driven by inequality and exploitation, both Ema Hart and Dean Kenning understand the notion of class and its reproduction in terms of economic, social, and cultural capital. For instance, artists from lower-class backgrounds are not only underprivileged in terms of money but also in terms of time, space, availability, and contacts. Hart and Kenning explained:

When talking together in front of our work, we’ve come to recognize that often the decisions that manifest in our sculptures around the subject matter, materials, and methods harbor questions about social class.

Moreover, they feel these sculptures "can speak to us about our world and leave a dent in someone else’s," generating responses beyond aesthetic appreciation. They add that strategies within their work, such as "manual production, liveness, entertainment, the use of everyday objects and materials, dumb humour, and a popular visual graphic vocabulary of figures and gestures," have a significant potential "to ignite discussions about class."

The exhibition brings together sculptures by twenty-one UK-based artists: Chila Burman, Jonathan Baldock, Emma Hart, Beagles and Ramsay, Linda Aloysius, Eric Bainbridge, Simeon Barclay, Joseph Buckley, Andrew Cooper, Jamie Cooper, Penny Goring, Brian Griffiths, Lee Holden, Dean Kenning, Laura Yuile, Josie KO, Rosie McGinn, Rebecca Moss, Janette Parris, Anne Ryan, and Aled Simons.

In the spirit of solidarity, Hart and Henning will have a discussion with each of these artists in front of their artworks, examining sculpture through the lens of class and vice versa. In doing so, they hope to inspire reflection and draw new conclusions by combining the subjective and the objective realities of class beyond the individual circumstances of each artist. Audio recordings of these conversations will be accessible to visitors as they move from one artwork to another.

Dean Kenning - Renaissance Man, 2018. Courtesy Greene Naftali. Photo: Gustavo Murillo Fernandez-Valdes

The artists and curators underlined that they didn't have fixed ideas about how each work addresses class but rather saw the exhibition "as a way of finding things out and hopefully, in this way, broadening the conversation around art and class."

As a central plank of the exhibition, the conversations with the participating artists will be part of a publication that will be

launched during the exhibition.

Poor Things will be on view at Fruitmarket in Edinburgh from March 04th until May 21st, 2023.

Featured image: Laura Yuile - Heavy view, 2020. TV screens, pebbledash. Dimensions variable. Video. Courtesy the artist.