INTERIOR LABOUR, OVERLAPPING UNDERLAID.

OPENING: FRIDAY MAY 27, 2016 6-8 PM

May 28 - August 13, 2016

British artist William Hunt (*1977, London), whom we proudly present for the fourth time at Rotwand, has disrupted our office with an architectural intervention raising the floor and thus creating a stage. This puts the focus on the gallery’s staff as actors and the roles they play out at work; addressing multiple questions of performance.

Seen from the street, looking in through the window, the gallery staff go about their business. Contained in this curious box, satting at a table or walking about, they perform their tasks. A scrolling text panel offers narrative suggestions to accompany their actions, hinting at what they might be up to. But as we are outside, on the other side of the glass, we can never be certain.

William Hunt chose to lift the floor of the office in order to elevate the status of the labour and the actions of what is taking place in there. To celebrate the jobs that are done but to call into question the values attributed to things we do and are labelled “Work”. The design of the new space moves away from "Office" to something more like "Study". In a study, like a library, the tasks performed become more internalised, more for the self, and possibly have a self improving quality. Borrowing from the higher morals of reading a book over watching television, moving away from drudgery, from doing a job. The tasks again become like play. The scale and angles of the room speak of the theatre and mimic a stage; placing all the movements and gestures carried out by the inhabitants within this context. Abstracting life into a theatrical role, playing and dance. Even allowing the possibilities for the existential anxieties of "bad faith" through the self consciousness that comes with feeling like you are on stage, on view. The clumsiness of the space causes ruptures in the natural flow of the working processes. Climbing the stairs, walking up and down the slope all go against the tenets of invisible good design that aid productivity. This space will be noticed and cause it's own pauses and punctuations during the working day.

In all of William Hunt’s performances there is an element that thwarts the natural process of being - A bucket over the head, being upside down, being underwater - that serves as an obstacle to be surmounted. Getting around this problem precludes the need for acting as you are really solving the problem in real space and real time. The “Art” at work here will function like this for the gallery staff; they are now forced by this new stage floor to act.