The Cube Gallery, ASC Art House. 20 May 2021 – 23 June 2021.
This installation is a response to the physical artefact of the ASC Cube Gallery[1], interpreting it as a 1:1 model sitting within the Art House double-height break out space.
Its status as both art object and work of architecture is then echoed in the response, and the works housed within it can be similarly considered to be an art/architecture hybrid.
Exhibited in each of the Cube’s four vitrine windows is a different type and scale of architectural model reconstruction of the Cube Gallery itself.
1:5
A large, realistic 1:5 model fills one of the vitrines, and then itself becomes a new “gallery” – in the main window sits a 1:5 replica of the larger model, and within that another replica, and so on until the model is just a few millimetres on each side. This starts to destabilize the reading of what is real, and what is model, and ultimately brings the full-sized Cube Gallery within the scope of the artwork. In the other two visible 1:5 model vitrine windows, a series of other “exhibits” are housed, all of which refer to Eleanor’s wider practice.
1:10
This 1:10 model explores light and structure – translucent cladding reveals the timber structure, and the m2 display windows are expanded to form full cubes, constructed out of arrangements of solid acrylic blocks. The bottom lighting makes the model glow, and the acrylic blocks reflect and refract this light.
1:20
This dissected 1:20 model sets up a relationship between solid and void. The open frame element demonstrates the tectonics of the original Cube gallery structure, its symmetry and repetition becoming an abstraction. The plaster cast model “mummifies the voids” (Whiteread) within the curtilage of the original object – this emphasises the “spire” roof, making a more explicit link back to the structure’s architectural precedent.
1:1
The fourth vitrine contains imagery generated from the 3d digital model (modelled at a virtual 1:1 scale) which had been made to understand the construction of the full-sized object and calculate how much balsa was needed for the various scales of model. A line perspective of the model with transparent boards has been manually traced onto the glass using four line weights. From just the right spot the lines give the viewer an “x-ray” view of the 1:1 structure.
- ASC’s exhibition structure “The Cube” is a unique and versatile exhibition opportunity for artists working in the Croydon Art House Grafton Quarter studios and aims to showcase the studio artists’ output.
The Cube Gallery is the latest instance of architect and artist Ken Taylor’s 4 x m2 Gallery Pavilion, whose design took inspiration from Le Corbusier’s Oratory at the La Tourette monastery. While having a strong sculptural presence the structure has a life of its own with its “interiority” allowing artworks to change in the m2 windows. Visit m2gallery.com to see other versions and what is on at The Cube’s sister space in Peckham.↩
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