SUTURE ARTWORK WITHOUT ANAESTHETIC

RICHARD SQUIRES • PHILLIP WARNELL

THE OLD OPERATING THEATRE, MUSEUM & HERB GARRET
9a St. Thomas St, London Bridge, London SE1 9RY

22 OCTOBER 2005 – 31 MARCH 2006

PART TWO LAUNCH & ARTISTS TALK with LISA LE FEUVRE - 14 JANUARY 2006, 2PM AT THE MUSEUM

SUTURE is a two-part exhibition at The Old Operating Theatre, Museum and Herb Garret. An intervention of moving image and photographic work, SUTURE places video monitors and light boxes amongst the amputation saws, trepanning tools, pill-making machines and instruments for the surgical removal of human gall bladder stones and diseased limbs.

SUTURE Part One: ‘Exhibition’ and ‘Host’

Squires’ ‘Exhibition’ is an interactive video installation where the viewer can assume a number of different roles – perpetrator, witness, catalyst – but is always implicated in the visceral consequence of the piece. Arising in part from his interest in notions of ‘interplay’ in the relationship between artwork and audience, ‘Exhibition’ is like the momentary exposure of the flasher in the woods. You get everything and nothing.

Warnell’s ‘Host – Guest Plus Host Equals Ghost’ makes use of raw material gathered by the artist ingesting a miniature camera. The un-tethered guest auto-documented its passage, sending signal photographic images as it was propelled by the bodies’ muscular, peristaltic contractions. Assembled into four animated sequences, each set within the aperture of the artists’ mouth, they generate a public view of an internal landscape. A fifth screen presents assemblages of material documenting the time spent in a clinical environment.

SUTURE Part Two: ‘SalivaDriver’ ‘Incubator’ and ‘Calculus’

Richard Squires presents a new interactive multi-media work ‘SalivaDriver’ in which the artist can be viewed via a webcam-style interface, having undergone a surgical procedure to expose his salivary duct. Utilising the interface the viewer can manage the artist's salivation.

Phillip Warnell presents two new photographic light-box works: ‘Incubator’ and ‘Calculus’; generated specifically for exhibition at The Old Operating Theatre, utilising the museum's collection of extraordinary part organic, part mineral artefacts.

‘Exhibition’ was commissioned by the Radiator Festival in Nottingham/Berlin (2003). Squires has shown internationally, most recently at Centre d'art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, France (2005), Showroom MAMA in Rotterdam (2005) and 291 Gallery, London (2005) and is the founder member of London-based comic art collective, Let Me Feel Your Finger First (LMFYFF).

‘Host’ was first presented as a performance/installation at The MACRO, Rome (2004) and will be the focus of ‘Endo-Ecto’ an interdisciplinary, performative symposium that will take place at the ICA in February 2006, organised in conjunction with The Arts Catalyst. The online component of the project, a nine-metre web object, can be found online at www.guestplushostequalsghost.com. Host was produced with financial support from The Arts Council, London and The University of Gloucestershire. Warnell’s recent output includes exhibitions at Matts Gallery (2005), ‘Zero Visibility’, MOMA, Ljubljana (2003-touring).

A specially commissioned publication designed by the artists with a text by Lisa Le Feuvre accompanies the show.

For more details and exhibition opening times contact 020 7188 2679
For images/more information on the artists: info@richardsquires.net, info@phillipwarnell.com