Following its successful first showing at the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, this exhibition has been reconfigured specifically for the large scale galleries of MARCO in Monterrey. Co-curated by the Tamayo and the British Council, Sodio y Asfalto takes as its theme the sensory texture of urban space and features the work of 12 artists based in Glasgow, London, New York and Mexico City - David Batchelor, Kathrin Böhm, Martin Boyce, Nigel Cooke, Jim Lambie, Rosalind Nashashibi, Paul Noble, Oliver Payne & Nick Relph, Melanie Smith, Mark Titchner and Richard Wright. Their diverse approaches contribute to a shared dialogue concerning the nature of the contemporary city. Works plunder and echo the cacophony of colour, graphics, materials and sounds that give the metropolis its resonance, while many make reference to the Modernist assumptions that continue to pervade discussion of the urban context. Observation of the patterning and rhythms of social space is also transposed into the gallery environment.

Works range across all media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film and video and many were made specifically for the exhibition, in response to the architecture of the spaces. Jim Lambie's striped metallic floor redefines a large area of the museum, while a large scale digital print by Mark Titchner was created to cover an entire wall. David Batchelor's barrier of lightboxes blocks a natural opening between galleries and Melanie Smith's mixed media installation uses the full ceiling height. Kathrin Böhm’s pasted coloured and printed paper spreads across areas of the gallery walls. Off-site works by Mark Titchner and Melanie Smith are shown on billboards across the city, and posters by Richard Wright are flyposted in the streets.

David Batchelor, Kathrin Böhm, Martin Boyce, Rosalind Nashashibi, Oliver Payne and Mark Titchner joined Melanie Smith in Mexico City and Monterrey to install their work and all gave lectures.

A full colour catalogue was launched at the MARCO opening, featuring installation photographs from both venues, texts by curators Tobias Ostrander of the Tamayo and Ann Gallagher of the British Council, as well as a contribution from architectural theoretician Neil Leach is available from Cornerhouse. www.cornerhouse.org

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Film

    A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.

  • Installation

    An artwork comprised of many and various elements of miscellaneous materials (see mixed media), light and sound, which is conceived for and occupies an entire space, gallery or site. The viewer can often enter or walk around the installation. Installations may only exist as long as they are installed, but can be re-created in different sites. Installation art emerged in the 1960s out of Environmental Art (works of art which are three-dimensional environments), but it was not until the 1970s that the term came into common use and not until the late 1980s that artists started to specialise in this kind of work, creating a genre of ‘Installation Art’. The term can also be applied to the arrangement of selected art works in an exhibition.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.

  • Video

    Images recorded on videotape or on optical disc to be viewed on television screens, or projected onto screens. The medium through which these images are recorded and displayed.