Opening Thursday 28 May 2009, 6.30 – 8.30pm
Open Thursday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm and by appointment
Open until Saturday 27 June 2009
Open Thursday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm and by appointment
Open until Saturday 27 June 2009
A ‘Rolling Stone’ review of Bruce Springsteen’s sixth album ‘Nebraska’ (1982) wrote: “After ten years of forging his own brand of fiery, expansive rock and roll, Bruce Springsteen has decided that some stories are best told by one man, one guitar.” Sean Edwards’ third solo show at the gallery, first solo show of 2009 following a busy 2008, and the first show inaugurating Limoncello’s new gallery space, sees Edwards making one work. In the songs of ‘Nebraska’ Springsteen shifted in his approach: though written to record with the E Street Band he decided to release the album as the solo four-track demo recorded in his New Jersey home. Abandoning his proven formula he put out the bare sketches; it was an honest, commercially risky but tactically knowing incongruity in his career. For some time Edwards has listened to the album, toyed with using it and researched the reviews, which now come to signify its original reception. In his new work using Sprinsteen’s reviews Edwards’ shifts the crux from the anticipation to the reception, pointing to the successes and failures of Springsteen’s decisions. Edwards’ exhibition corresponds; a point of reflection and a point at which to confound expectation, just as Springsteen stripped away his Phil Spectresque ‘wall of sound’, laying his song-writing and lyricism bare in ‘Nebraska’, Edwards cannot hide his ideas behind his frequently formal sculpture in this one-work show. Interest in the idea of practices – both art and beyond – and the use of small but great gesture underpins much of Edwards’ work, despite this reformulated approach which he has long-tussled with and about which he is politely shitting himself.
SEAN EDWARDS (B. 1980, Cardiff, based Abergavenny) gained his BA Fine Art at University of Wales Institute (2003) and his MA Fine Art from Slade (2005). Recent and forthcoming solo shows include Outpost, Norwich (2010); Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin (2009); ICA, London; Super, Paris; Limoncello, London, and MOOT, Nottingham (all 2008); and Associates, London (2007).