Exhibition opening times:
Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th June, 12pm – 5pm
Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th June, 12pm – 5pm
Preview: Friday 9th June, 6pm – 8pm
Artist Talk: Friday 16th June 6pm – 7pm
‘Openness’ is a mixed-media exhibition consisting of an intersection between; sculpture, video and the architecture of 36 Gallery.
The exhibition has two main elements; a large site-specific sculpture, inspired by the visual humour of the 1980’s American television series ‘Police Squad!’ (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, 1982) which is in dialogue with a site-specific video work entitled ‘History’.
The ‘Police Squad’ inspired sculpture, entitled ‘Openness Sculpture’ is specifically concerned with a scene, in the series, where the central character Sergeant Frank Drebin is in a police lab with a lab technician.
In the scene, Sergeant Drebin and the technician walk from one room to another, the technician opens a door between the two rooms and Sergeant Drebin follows him, not by walking through the door, but by walking around the wall of the programme’s set itself. (Please See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siE_182RwpA)
The work is interactive, allowing exhibition goers to navigate the door and wall how they see fit and is a visual metaphor for physical openness.
The video work ‘History’ consists of a computer screen displaying the artist scrolling through his last year’s Internet History and is concerned with emotional openness. (Please See: https://vimeo.com/706705370)
Hensey’s objective for the exhibition is to show that openness isn’t just the act of disclosing something personal about oneself, more so, it’s about the space that opens up for that person as a result.
What he is interested in expressing is the shared and all-inclusive qualities of this space.
The former 36 Lime Street Gallery was established in 2009 as an artist run space to provide a platform for emerging and established artists to experiment and take risks with new work. Selected by committee from an open call, 8 proposals are selected and exhibited throughout the year.
The gallery space continues to provide a platform as 36.
