17 Jul 2012
Objectspace is delighted to present Reading Room: an installation of new work by Tessa Laird and Peter Lange. Laird’s considerable library of clay books scattered atop and around Lange’s brick furniture will form the basis of this site specific installation created for the Objectspace Window Gallery.
Nodding to the clay tablet origins of the printed word, Tessa Laird has spent the last three years making clay copies of every book she reads. The desire to create facsimiles of inspiring tomes began while Laird was undertaking doctoral research at the Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland. While the books are humorous homages that are knowingly “useless”, they simultaneously operate as exhortations to go and read the “real thing”, their form frustrating the impulse to turn the page and read. Without a function, the books become fetishes. Reading Room is the first public exhibition of this impossible bibliography in clay.
In their inaugural collaboration, Laird has teamed up with ceramic veteran Peter Lange, who will be presenting a new range of brick furniture created for this all-ceramic reading room. Lange’s brick furniture, unlike Laird’s books, is gloriously, surprisingly, functional. The art deco style brick armchair invites the viewer to sit awhile and become immersed in contemplating this ceramic reading room, surrounded by a brick bookcase, table and pouffe. While Lange’s works are designed using computer technology and the utmost precision, Laird’s are handmade and full of subtle “imperfections”. Together these two very different responses to clay underline its protean possibilities.
What: Reading Room: Tessa Laird & Peter Lange
Where: Window Gallery, Objectspace, 8 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland
When: 3 August – 26 September 2012
Gallery hours: Mon-Sat, 10:00am – 5:00pm, free admission
Public Programme: Saturday 11 August, 11am
Exhibitors Tessa Laird and Peter Lange will give a floor talk about their collaborative installation for the Objectspace Window Gallery.
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