Project Studio 9

Curated by Theresa Liang William West

Project Studio 9 contains three episodes, that explore various different nature of curatorial interests. The purpose of this project is to question rather than answer notions of varying roles of the curator and the artist within the art institution. All episodes facilitate Studio 9 (located in the Slade Research Centre, Woburn Square) as an inaugural platform for communication and from there the 'product' of this communication will evolve. Individuals from different disciplines and of different expertise are invited to commit to a five-day collaboration based in studio nine.

Episode One:
Sallow and Swallow's Heart
October 15th - 19th 2007

This episode tells a fairy tale of two ballerinas created by Andra Simons and Chiayi Chuang.It is presented in the form of a five-day performance consisting of choreographed dance by Angel Cortez, 80's and 70's pop music selected by Chiayi and Andra, and sculptural interventions by William West. Episode One sets out to explore the working relationship between the artist and the curator when the creative process from start to finish is a joint collaboration.

Episode Two:
Studio/Storage/Gallery
November 12th - 16th 2007

Theresa Liang and William West invited FormContent to co-curate a series of exhibitions in studio 9. Both Undergraduate and Postgraduate students from the Slade school of fine art were invited to submit works. Subsequently the two sets of curators create a sequence of curated exhibitions out of works submitted. The episode questions how the context of studio, storage, gallery affects the way art is seen.

Guidelines for Exhibitions
Day One: The submission and registration of work
Day Two: Theresa and William curate space
Day Three: Deconstruction and reconstitution of display
Day Four: FormContent curate space
Day Five: Discussion between curators, participating artists and exhibition visitors

Episode Three:
The Thrilling and
Symbolic Adventure
December 12th-13th 2007

The Thrilling and symbolic adventure used Carol Duncan's critical essay 'Who Rules the Art World' to instigate the making and selection of three separate pieces as well as the title for the project. The project is to be seen as a visual thesis investigating and questioning set roles within the art worlds different industries (art making, criticism, history and theory)

Tom Badley, an undergraduate currently in his fourth year at the Slade School of Fine Art, presents Will and Theresa Draw Tom, a performance where Tom poses as a life drawing model for fellow student curators Theresa Liang and William West. The performance intends to create an unusual and awkward setting to be experienced exclusively between the model and drawers, hence it is designed to be viewed by no audience. Only the reminiscence of the performance and the artistic efforts of William and Theresa ,in the form of easels and drawings, are on display.

Jody Patterson is an art historian and lecturer whose interests include the relations between art and politics and, more specifically, between modernism and mass culture. Patterson presents Hommage to the Guerilla Girls, Honow and Fleming C. 2007, a slide show comprising all of the nude images sourced from a randomly selected "canonical" history of Western art. Referencing the Guerilla Girls' earlier work interrogating the ways in which the "canon" was tied to the representation of nude women, Patterson demonstrates that the gender differential in the choice of reproductions accompanying texts remains virtually unchanged in 2007.

Bruce Mclean is a sculptor, whose artistic practice 'confronts the pretensions of the art world and wider social issues such as the nature of bureaucracy and institutional politics'. McLean presents a pair of text-based posters that abstract notions of critical and artistic practices that employs generic critical language to describe unrealized art works.