Installation shot, Andy Stagg, 2022.
Céline Condorelli’s work addresses the boundaries between public and private, art and function, work and leisure, in order to reimagine what culture and society can be, and the role of artists within them.
Condorelli’s exhibition at the South London Gallery will explore themes of labour, play and public space. In 2019 the South London Gallery commissioned Condorelli to create a playground for the nearby Elmington estate (one of three estates with which the South London Gallery has a long-standing relationship).
The process of making this playground, titled Tools for Imagination, is the starting point for a reflection on the relationship between work and free-time, highlighting the hidden labour of the production of culture both inside and outside the gallery. The exhibition includes a film by Condorelli made in collaboration with artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers, a poem written and recited by poet Jay Bernard features on the film’s soundtrack. The installation also includes a sculpture which functions as seating from which to view the film, in keeping with Condorelli’s interest in support structures and forms of display.
The exhibition will feature further work which relates to inspirations behind the project, specifically the work of Italian/Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi and Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck who, between 1947 and 1978, used play to transform public spaces in São Paulo and Amsterdam respectively. The exhibition on a whole will investigate the relationship between exhibition-making and public art, reflecting on the artist’s interest in connecting the gallery space with the world outside.
BIOGRAPHY
Céline Condorelli (IT, UK, FR) is a London-based artist, and was one of the founding directors of Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK; she is the author and editor of Support Structures published by Sternberg Press (2009). Condorelli combines a number of approaches from developing structures for ‘supporting’ (the work of others, forms of political imaginary, existing and fictional realities) to broader enquiries into forms of commonality and discursive sites. Recent exhibitions include Our Silver City, 2094, Nottingham Contemporary (2021-2022), Two Years’ Vacation, FRAC Lorraine, France and TEA, Spain (2020-2021), Céline Condorelli, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Switzerland, Equipment, Significant Other, Austria, Host/Vœrt, Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark, Ausstellungsliege, Albertinum, Germany (2019), Zanzibar, permanent installation for the Kings Cross Project, United Kingdom, and exhibition at Vera Cortes, Portugal (2018), Proposals for a Qualitative Society (spinning), Stroom Den Haag, Netherlands, Corps à Corps, IMA Brisbane, Australia, including a sculpture garden which won Australian Institute of Architects Art and Architecture Prize (2017), Gwangju Biennial, Liverpool Biennial, Sydney Biennial, and Concrete Distractions, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Portugal (2016), bau bau, HangarBicocca, Italy (2015), Céline Condorelli, Chisenhale Gallery, United Kingdom, Positions, Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands, with Bookworks (2014). Her first monograph, bau bau was published by Mousse (2017).
