BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice

‘(…) A didactic dimension will not be absent from this exhibition. It is, above all, a lesson in looking. We no longer think ‘object’. We are whiplashed by colour, FIRST AND FOREMOST. That is what this exhibition is about. Over and above being a mere coloured surface, the tri-dimensional aspect serves to free up our visual perception and add weight to the colour experience.
Elsewhere, it is in the meshing of art with technique, of engineer with artist, not oft seen, which enlarges our horizons. This exhibition provides the occasion to build a bridge between these two worlds.
The yellow-danger, red-signal, green-exit, blue-obligation code of industrial signals and technicians, is given a new direction in the hands of artists, re-routed to a new destination, yet all the while remaining as yellow, as red, as green, as blue. The functional duty of the engineer’s colour is redefined by the artist; it leaves behind it the industrial workspace and enters the artist’s domain.

Finally, all those objects which colour our lives: the sponges, the clothes pegs, the crates, the bags, the bins, the barrier fences, the cords, the nets, the titbits, the gloves and buckets… all those coloured ready-mades become the primary matter for a reincarnation; reminding us once again that colour sensation always precedes that of form.’

Marc Crunelle ‘COLOUR first and foremost’
fragment

The questions of the use of colours in the production of functional objects have been asked in the catalogue. Which colours are ‘advisable’ and to which purposes? How do they shape our visual culture and our everyday environment? How are our colour preferences evolving? Apart from the texts in four languages, the publication includes the reproductions of works by 11 artists that have been basing on the idea of ready-mades, or the ready objects of mass production, introduced in the new context of the gallery space of the BWA Contemporary Art Gallery in Katowice in 2008.

Artists:
Jean-Pierre Bredo (Belgium), Claude Briand-Picard (France), Jacob Dahlgren (Sweden), Tina Haase (Germany), Carole Louis (Belgium), Antoine Perrot (France), Trevor Richards (Australia), Benjamin Sabatie (France), Roman Signer (Switzerland), Anu Tuominen (Finland), Beat Zoderer (Switzerland).

• See several book pages
• Organizers