JOANNE TATHAM AND TOM O’SULLIVAN AT THE MODERN INSTITUTE

A FEE TO AVOID OUR EXPENSES

Saturday 19 May until Saturday 23 June 2007

Preview: Friday 18 May, 7pm until 9pm

From Saturday 19 May until Saturday 23 June 2007, The Modern Institute presents

A fee to avoid our expenses, a new work by Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan.

A fee to avoid our expenses continues Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan’s investigation into the meaning of objects. The gallery takes on the feeling of a stage set in which each work behaves as a prop; a wall painting, a photograph, a sculpture and a text.

Working collaboratively since 1995, Tatham and O’Sullivan have developed a variety of systems for looking at and interpreting objects, investigating how we and objects attribute and acquire meaning. Absurdist texts, primitivist looking sculptures and enigmatic installations reuse the same objects and motifs, building a language as a device through which they can question the very status and meaning of the objects themselves.

In the second gallery a series of black and white documentary photographs contextualize the various forms that the objects have taken, the photographs serving as another tool to remove and distance the subjects from their original place and form.

Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan live and work in Glasgow. Recent solo shows include: Art Now Live Work: Rory Macbeth, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, and Sue Tompkins, (live performance), Tate Britain, London, 2006; Rhetoric Works & Vanity Works & Other Works, (public commission), National Collecting Scheme for Scotland with the Contemporary Arts Society, Newhailes, East Lothian, 2006; The Pyramid, (with Studio Voltaire), The Watchie, Catterline, Aberdeenshire, 2006; Is this what brings things into focus?,  Galerie Francesca Pia, Bern, 2005; Oh We Will, We Will, Will We, Studio Voltaire, London, 2005; Thing Thingamijig and Other Things, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland, 2003. Recent group shows include: Half Square, Half Crazy, Villa Arson, Nice, 2006; Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better., Momentum 2006, 4th Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss, Norway, 2006; Selective Memory, Scotland & Venice Biennale, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2005; Echo, echo, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2005; Art Sheffield 05: Spectator T, Sheffield Contemporary Art Forum, Sheffield, UK, 2005; Selective Memory, Scottish Pavillion, Venice Biennale, Venice, 2005.