For its 2001 summer show, Unique(s), Houldsworth is bringing together examples of unique artworks by a select group of artists. Unique(s) invites work in all media, but in particular photographs, prints and other works on paper.
Methods of mechanical and digital reproduction now mean that artists are increasingly issuing work in editions. Once the value of an artwork was understood to reside in its originality, now artists find the idea of the multiple, particularly in photography and sculpture, intriguing in itself. Unique(s) looks at this from another perspective: contrary to the nature of the reproduced and editioned photographic print, these artists still insist on producing quite singular, quite unique artworks. The idea of the reproduction has many attractions to artists, suggesting the inhuman, the mechanical, the mass-produced,it's a format that suggests modern life, and artists have increasingly incorporated the signs of this into their styles and procedures. Reintroducing something unique into this process might turn all these meanings on their heads.
Christopher Bucklow has exhibited widely in the US and in Europe, with solo exhibitions in Israel, New York and London. Public collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the British Council.
Susan Derges has had one person exhibitions at FIAC, the Photographer's Gallery, London and the Musee de l'Eysee, Lausanne. Recent group exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Adrian Lovis recently graduated from the Royal College of Art. Adrian's Weeping Fig, exhibited in Unique(s), involves an elaborate staging of a solitary event. The resultant photographs serve as records, marking the passing of time.
Tim O'Riley holds a PhD in Fine Art from the Chelsea College of Art and Design. His recent work can be seen in Signatures of the Invisible, an exploration of the relationship between science and art, organised by the London Institute and CERN, Geneva. The exhibition will be touring to the Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva and Gulbenkian Gallery, Lisbon. Tim O'Riley's first solo exhibition will be at Houldsworth this autumn.
Leon Steele was the winner of the 2000-2001 John Kobal Portrait Prize where his work was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. He has also exhibited with the Association of Photographers. Leon Steele lives and works in London.
