The Foundation is a major film installation
by Patrick Staff premiering at Chisenhale Gallery and co-commissioned
with Spike Island, Bristol; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Contemporary
Art Gallery, Vancouver. In this new work Staff explores Queer intergenerational
relationships negotiated through historical materials. The film combines
footage shot at Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles – home to the
archive of the erotic artist and Gay icon and a community of people
that care for it – with choreographic sequences shot within a specially
constructed set.
The legacy of Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991),
better known as Tom of Finland, spans multiple generations; his work
made a considerable impact on masculine representation and imagery in
post-war Gay culture. The Foundation was established in 1984 by Tom
and his friend Durk Dehner to preserve his vast catalogue of homoerotic
art, whilst endeavoring to – to quote the organisation’s
website – ‘educate the public to the cultural merits of
erotic art and in promoting healthier, more tolerant attitudes about
sexuality.’ Today, Durk runs the organisation and lives in TOM
house, along with a handful of other employees and artists.
Rather
than focusing on Tom of Finland’s work, Staff’s film evokes
the Foundation as a set of relations. He explores how a collection is
formed and constituted; the communities that produce and are produced
by a body of work; and ideas of intergenerational relationships and
care. Through observational footage of the House, its collections and
inhabitants, the Foundation is revealed as a domestic environment, a
libidinal space, archive, office and community centre; a private space
which is also the home of a public-facing organisation and the source
of a widely dispersed body of images.
Staff foregrounds his own identity and his personal
dialogue with the different communities of the Foundation to consider
how ideas of intergenerational inheritance and exchange are complicated
by gender identity and presentation; in this context, of a younger Trans
person within a context dominated by the overtly masculine, male identity
of an older generation. The documentary footage of the Foundation is
intercut with a series of scenes, which are shot in a set incorporating
aspects of the building’s architecture and technologies and operate
within the register of experimental theatre. In these sequences, featuring
his interactions with an older actor, Staff uses choreography and props
to explore the body as a site for the construction and deconstruction
of subjectivities.
Through
a varied, interdisciplinary and often collaborative body of work comprising
film, dance and performance, Staff considers ideas of discipline, dissent,
labour and the Queer body, frequently drawing on the historical narration
of counter-culture, radical activity and alternative forms of community
building. This new work is the product of several years’ research
and dialogue with Tom of Finland Foundation and is Staff’s most
ambitious and large-scale project to date, bringing together languages
of film and live performance with sculptural materiality to explore
the body as a political, living archive. The Foundation explores
the complexities of cultural artifacts and collective identities, via
an examination of ownership, appropriation, responsibility and desire.
Following its premiere at Chisenhale Gallery there
will be subsequent presentations of The Foundation at Spike
Island, Bristol in July 2015, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane in late
2015 and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver in early 2016.
Patrick Staff (born 1987, UK) lives and works in London
and Los Angeles. Selected exhibitions, screenings and performances include;
Scaffold see Scaffold, The Showroom, London; Art Turning
Left, Tate Liverpool; L’Heure Des Sorcieres, Le
Quartier, France (all 2014); Mental effort Before Action: 1-5A-5B,
South London Gallery; A Factory As It Might Be (Bournville),
International Project Space, Birmingham; Society is a Workshop,
Banff Centre, Canada (all 2013); The Passive Edge of the Object,
ICA, London; Chewing Gum for the Social Body, The Tanks, Tate
Modern, London (both 2012). Staff took part in the LUX Associate Artists
Programme in 2010/11 and was the inaugural White Building/Lux Collection
Residency artist (2014).
The Foundation is commissioned by Chisenhale
Gallery, London; Spike Island, Bristol; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane;
and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. Co-produced by Chisenhale Gallery,
London and Spike Island, Bristol. The Foundation is supported
by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, The Elephant Trust and
the Genesis Prize.
Patrick Staff’s exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery
is supported by Alastair Cookson and Haro & Bilge Cumbusyan. Chisenhale
Exhibitions Partner 2014: Fiorucci Art Trust.
Chisenhale
Gallery
February 20, 2015 - March 7, 2015
64-84 Chisenhale Road, Old Ford, London E3 5QZ ·
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+44 (0)20 8981 4518
Chisenhale Gallery
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