Platform 20: K-House: James Clarkson
27 July - 21 August
Part of Platform 20
James Clarkson’s practice is interested in the different scales of technology and the coded language of business data management. Exploring how information can have both global and bodily implications, his sculptural pieces are recombinations of disarticulated forms – modular steel frames, stationary trays, floating numbers and spreadsheet formulae – that give physical ‘shape’ to the immaterial systems undergirding our lives in late capitalism.
As communication and information pass through platforms, interfaces and users, they take on different forms for Clarkson. But what kind of power dynamics exist in these channels? How do online and digital spaces conceal information as much as they invite us to share intimate aspects of ourselves in an attention-grabbing economy?
For K-House, Clarkson will be exploring the architecture of the office space as the physical interface between our work, selves and these complex chains of information. The work will manifest itself as a series of desktop, wall-mounted and floor-based sculptures, turning the gallery at Bloc Projects into an abstracted office environment. A uniform series of desks are designed to hold a mesh of fragmented language and diagrammatic visualisations, alongside which a number of other strange bureaucratic assemblages are stacked, hung and shelved. While each of these elements will be conceptually specific, it is also not entirely important that they are fully understood; rather, they materialise just some of the unexpected intermingling between networks, labour and subjectivities.
Documentation image of K-House. Image courtesy of the artist
James Clarkson lives and works in Sheffield. Selected exhibitions include; Private Song, Doosan Arts Centre, Seoul (2020); The Coventry Biennial, Coventry (2019); The Collection Stripped Bare, The Lab’Bel Collection, France (2016); Smooth Flow, The Tetley, Leeds (2014); Pavilion, David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (2012); Twin Tone Lustre, DREI, Cologne (2013); About Sculpture, Rolando Anselmi, Berlin (2014); Graphic Design, Futura Project, Prague (2014); A Painted Sun as a Yellow Spot, Rod Barton Gallery, London (2012); Small Rome, Frutta, Rome (2014); Return Journey, MOSTYN, Llandudno (2014) and he has participated in a number of collaborative projects with artists including Haroon Mirza and Ditte Gantriis.
James Clarkson is the recipient of the 2019-2021 Freelands Foundation Artist Platform in partnership with Site Gallery and recently received the Henry Moore Foundation 2020 Artist Award. He is also a participant of Syllabus VI, which is organised by Wysing Arts Centre, Eastside Projects, Iniva, Spike Island an Studio Voltaire between 2020-2021
Platform 20 features the work of five Sheffield based artists: James Clarkson, Maud Haya-Baviera, Victoria Lucas, Conor Rogers and Joanna Whittle. The multi-site exhibition and supporting public programme of talks, workshops and events presents a fascinating material and conceptual insight into artists’ work-in-progress developed during their two-year residency with Sheffield’s visual arts organisations.
Platform is an established artistic development programme at Site Gallery which allows artists to explore new ideas in a public space, testing new thinking and research with engaged audiences. For this edition, the exhibition will be presented at Site Gallery, Yorkshire Artspace and Bloc Projects.
The artists began their residencies in 2019 and are five of twenty from the Sheffield City Region, taking part in a rolling five-year initiative funded through the Freelands Artists Programme. Each artist receives a two-year paid residency which includes investment in professional development, production as well as opportunities to exhibit.
Documentation images: Jules Lister.