interimshow:

Mina Bach & Nancy Fleischauer
‘Eastwing X’

“The brief set by the final year students of the Courtauld Institute of Art demanded the production of a book to celebrate this year’s 20th anniversary of biannual exhibitions. The Eastwing X book will be displayed at Somerset house for 18 months, taking its place amongst paintings, sculpture and pieces by emerging and well-known artists such as Peter Blake, Su Blackwell and Damien Hirst. After the exhibition, the book will then be archived in the Institute’s library and displayed again in the coming years with new content added every year.

Our response to the brief is this piece, the original now on show for ‘Eastwing X’ at the Somerset House until July 2013. We developed an alphabet based on our research of the architectural features of the building. The display book draws inspiration from a letter found in the Courtauld archive, a manifesto of sorts that called for free access to Art for all. Conceptually, it’s also to show how having art hung from the bare walls can be a life changing experience for everyone, a connection to a deeply meaningful statement. The content of our display book spreads as an X shape with all the pages hanging from perspex hooks. Those in turn are bound together via a long tube after the exhibition, with the rest of the hooks becoming the support for the structure. Therefore, the entire piece is sustainable and can be dismantled to be used again in the future.”