A Background to Decline
Exhibition by Keith Allan (UK)
A Background to Decline is Scottish artist Keith Allan’s first solo show in Denmark. Consisting entirely of new sculptures and drawings, the show focuses on Allan’s recognition of the rapidly advancing Western world where the reliance upon single functional objects and spaces is steadily being replaced by multi purpose objects and technology upon which the owner becomes almost entirely dependent. Whilst Allan sees technological progress and development as an important advancement he is troubled by the steady decline of single purpose functional design and a passage away from specialist creative spontaneity.
His nostalgia for the ‘hard copy’ sees him create a series of sculptures using traditional functional objects such as storage shelving units, a carpenter’s bench and a construction site cement board. The elements of the objects’ construction appear to have a “logical” relationship to one another within the context of function, even though we no longer know the exact purpose of these objects nor how to employ them.
We are given only hints at space; the materials, mostly found objects, do not fulfill their intended function. In the compositions of simple, found materials, worn by use, these primitive structures recall ramshackle creations on the outskirts of large cities that have grown to form cities in their own right, settlements of the displaced, of those who subsist below the subsistence level, and places that continue to demonstrate the indestructibility and near inexhaustible, spontaneous creativity of the poor.
Allan’s use of architectural details and fragments, of building elements and materials, implies that he is particularly interested in the objects dialogue with architecture. The structures become the stage for quintessentially human activity, for a return to the principle of the narrative with its archetypal stories of ability and power, poverty and wealth, fear and happiness, belonging and displacement.
Keith Allan graduated from the Ba(hons) Fine Art Sculpture and Environmental Art course at the Glasgow School of Art in 2008. He has since shown extensively in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and other parts of the UK and was involved in the creation of the Clydebrae Studios network in Glasgow before moving to Copenhagen in 2011.
www.keithallan.info
Exhibition by Keith Allan (UK)
A Background to Decline is Scottish artist Keith Allan’s first solo show in Denmark. Consisting entirely of new sculptures and drawings, the show focuses on Allan’s recognition of the rapidly advancing Western world where the reliance upon single functional objects and spaces is steadily being replaced by multi purpose objects and technology upon which the owner becomes almost entirely dependent. Whilst Allan sees technological progress and development as an important advancement he is troubled by the steady decline of single purpose functional design and a passage away from specialist creative spontaneity.
His nostalgia for the ‘hard copy’ sees him create a series of sculptures using traditional functional objects such as storage shelving units, a carpenter’s bench and a construction site cement board. The elements of the objects’ construction appear to have a “logical” relationship to one another within the context of function, even though we no longer know the exact purpose of these objects nor how to employ them.
We are given only hints at space; the materials, mostly found objects, do not fulfill their intended function. In the compositions of simple, found materials, worn by use, these primitive structures recall ramshackle creations on the outskirts of large cities that have grown to form cities in their own right, settlements of the displaced, of those who subsist below the subsistence level, and places that continue to demonstrate the indestructibility and near inexhaustible, spontaneous creativity of the poor.
Allan’s use of architectural details and fragments, of building elements and materials, implies that he is particularly interested in the objects dialogue with architecture. The structures become the stage for quintessentially human activity, for a return to the principle of the narrative with its archetypal stories of ability and power, poverty and wealth, fear and happiness, belonging and displacement.
Keith Allan graduated from the Ba(hons) Fine Art Sculpture and Environmental Art course at the Glasgow School of Art in 2008. He has since shown extensively in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and other parts of the UK and was involved in the creation of the Clydebrae Studios network in Glasgow before moving to Copenhagen in 2011.
www.keithallan.info
Photographs: Rasmus Bæk & GREEN IS GOLD.
