Oh, OK Then
One-off, site-specific installation responding to other artworks already in situ, in the context of the group exhibition ‘The Order of Things’.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-43-2034
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham, U.K.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- January
- Year of production
- 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
- No
- 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
- No
- Additional information
- Oh, Ok Then is a four-part multimedia work created by artistresearcher Adam Gillam for the exhibition The Order of Things,
curated by Andrew Bick, Johnathon Parsons and Katie Pratt, and held at The Wilson – Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham,
23 January–5 March 2017. Named after Michel Foucault’s eponymous 1966 book, the exhibition of thirteen international abstract artists
sought to explore questions of individual artistic expression and materiality in an increasingly digital era. Specifically, the curators
invited Gillam to create an artwork that would respond to an otherwise complete exhibition, where all other artworks were already
in situ by the time of his final intervention.
Gillam undertook research for Oh, Okay Then between October 2016-January 2017. In line with his ongoing exploration of the tension
between improvisation and refinement, Gillam collected materials from Cheltenham, which he then took back to his studio and reworked with
existing elements from his studio space, as part of a cannibalising and ad-hoc approach. Gillam then had these elements shipped to the
exhibition space where he developed the final work through a process of selection, composition and reconstruction, the day before the
opening. The engineered spontaneity of this making-based research process was supported by contextual and literature-based research
into art, anthropology and architecture, including into the work of Richard Tuttle, B. Wurtz, Thea Djordjadze and Karla Black, and the
writing of Charles Jencks and Nathan Silver, and Marc Augé.
The final multi-part wall-based assemblage is a material manifestation of a conversation Gillam had with the curators, in which he responded,
‘oh, okay then,’ to the invitation to participate. Through the research process, this offhand phrase underwent a transformation from a
fleeting linguistic moment to consolidated material artefact which sought to respond to the particularities of the space, location and
architecture of the exhibition space.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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