On Peacock Island and Gutters of Gold
Solo exhibition and artist’s book combining new work by Volker Eichelmann and selected works by British poet, decorator and aesthete Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), conceived as an investigation into collage as a form of art making.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-27-1683
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Focal Point Gallery, Southend, U.K.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- January
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
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- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
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- Additional information
- The artist’s book, Gutters of Gold, and exhibition, On Peacock Island (both2017), presented new work by Volker Eichelmann and
made public, for the first time, selected works by British poet, decorator and aesthete Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), held in private
archives and commercial galleries. Together, the two components expanded Eichelmann’s long-standing investigation into collage as a
form of art making. Gutters of Gold comprised six chapters, with the exhibition On Peacock Island acting conceptually and aesthetically
as the seventh chapter, realised at Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, 28 January–30 April 2017. In Gutters of Gold, Eichelmann puts
forward a model for the presentation of practice-based research that prioritises visual contextualisation over textual. In this, browsing – an
activity central to collage-making – is actualised by the book’s user, constituting an apt mode of visual encounter that emphasises nonconscious forms of cognition. The exhibition On Peacock Island drew on art and design practices from eighteenth century (e.g. writer
and collector William Beckford) to the contemporary practice of Marc Camille Chaimowicz. In the exhibition, Eichelmann was inspired by
the qualities of water in order to establish a technically distinct form of collage. The latter was not pasted onto a support, but rather formed
a détourned composite through the use of PVA glue and backing paper, which was peeled off in order to reveal the finished work. At
same time, Eichelmann’s research brought to light many artefacts, including collages, that significantly widen the scope of Tennant’s
preoccupations – amongst others, a vast plethora of projected books, articles, essays that he intended to write. Supported by a range of
collection and exhibition visits, archival research and practice-based, technical experiments with materials, Eichelmann was able to use
the repositioning of Tennant’s practice and legacy as a catalyst for repositioning the fragmentary logic of collage within contemporary art.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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