Irredeemable Skeletons

24 March–16 May, 1997
Shillam + Smith 3
122 Great Titchfield Street
London W1P 7AJ

Press Release

Irredeemable Skeletons – the ones that got away
Irredeemable Skeletons is the fourth show at Shillam+Smith 3, the gallery at Shillam and Smith architects, and features work by 24 artists and artist-curators from Europe and America.

This exhibition is an acknowledgement of a category of work that every artist has in their history but which is hardly ever made public. These are works that have remained hidden from view, perhaps buried in the artists’ studios. An example such as Joel Fisher’s block of lye soap made from butter is all that survives from an early project once documented in Avalanche magazine. Others, like Rose Finn-Kelcey’s architectural model for a cancelled installation at Dublin’s IMMA are unrealised projects that deserve to see the light of day.

Susan Hiller’s 1975 drawings of the aura around hands or Rut Blees Luxemburg’s self-portrait on a wine bottle label, may not have fitted in easily with any of the categories in which these artists usually work. The consistency of the artist’s main project might have been challenged while other works have been overlooked by curators and never shown.

Invariably these pieces are outside of the main current of their work but have for some reason been held onto, suggesting that they have value for the artists.

The artists exhibiting are: Carmel Buckley, Kathe Burkhart, Luca Buvoli, Fabian Cereijido, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Joel Fisher, Mark Harris, Denise Hawrysio, Paula Hayes, Susan Hiller, Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler, Charles Long, Peter Lloyd Lewis, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Suzanne McClelland, Steven Parrino, Simon Patterson, Amy Sillman, Kim Sweet, Amikam Toren, Sue Webster and Tim Noble, and Fred Wilson.
The exhibition unearths these works, and proposes that they deserve redemption.

Artists’ statements Irredeemable Skeletons_Artists’ statements