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SENT/RECEIVED
illuminates the conditions of a proposed event or work but as part of an archive is understood or ‘identified in-relation to others’; as part of a specific community within art history. Glebe Place was on the other side of the King’s Road from Chelsea School of Art, then at Manresa Road. This close proximity facilitated connections with staff, including the librarian, Clive Phillpot at the time, and students. Several of these cards were collected in person, and have no addresses. The gallery moved to a new location at Sloane Gardens in 1971, still within walking distance from the School.
LIBRARIAN
London art colleges, known for hosting microcosms of collaboration and experimentation, often extend invitations to periphery practitioners. In 2009, Project Biennale, formed under the collaborative curatorial postgraduate community of Chelsea College of Arts, the University of Essex, and Sheffield Hallam University, employed these working relationships in the format of a publication. Project Biennale conjoined curatorial projects with critical texts examining biennale culture whilst hosting experimental debate and collaborative response from UK-based curators/art historians.
CURATOR
An image dominates one side of the invitation card to John Walker’s show, Black board pieces in 1973 (Fig. 12). Here the card is the canvas and although produced in standard dimensions, the object manifests and references Walker’s use of colour, surface texture and form. Here the artefact questions the value of ephemeral material. Gilbert & George had eight shows with Nigel Greenwood between 1970 –1974. All their invitation cards, created by the artists, display a distinct graphic style, also used in their pamphlets, books and magazine works, where typography, text, photographs, etc. are employed as performative elements. Although earlier cards were handmade and letterpress printed, most of these include photographic reproductions or other images and were printed using offset lithography.
LIBRARIAN
Gilbert & George transfixed the viewer into contemplating the artist as the object. The invitation card for Side by Side, 1972 asks the invitee to join the artists ‘Side by Side’ in their dark poetic journey by purchasing ‘a new book by the sculptors’ (Fig. 13). The sculptural object, Side by Side, proposes the readers intimately explore and experience the accessible material without necessary conclusion or definition. Perhaps it is also a cabinet of curiosities holding artistic ideas as artefacts and marvels composed to generate infinite discourse by means of tension in association.
CURATOR
Gilbert & George would also create cards as autonomous artworks under their imprint Art For All. The card itself, sent through the post, is the event:
LIBRARIAN
‘Gilbert: … Everybody sent cards out all the time, but they would just get thrown in the bin. So we had the idea of making cards that people wouldn’t throw away. Hans Ulrich Obrist: So the card was a medium, not a secondary piece of work. George: Yes, we called them postal sculptures. We felt that if we couldn’t show any of our works in public, we could at least go through the letterboxes.’ (Obrist, 2007, p. 44)