EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS

English Lounge is a discursive and aesthetic space of words and journeys. A group exhibition of contemporary British art, it shows a range of works by well-known and established British artists, some of whose work has reached the pinnacle of recognition in the British and international art world. The show presents work which combines the aesthetic and the conceptual in new media, wall painting, neon, film, sculpture and installation.

English Lounge can be seen as a geo-linguistic space within which interactions and communications take place whether literally, virtually or symbolically. The works here delve into a vast range of contemporary experience from the constant interaction of people with places and spaces through global travel, to virtual whirlwinds of extremist chat-rooms in cyberspace.

Langlands & Bell’s practice is nothing short of extraordinary. Over the past twenty years and more, they have produced an impressive oeuvre which crosses a wide range of media, including film, design, architecture, installation and interactive media. Their work is held in museums and collections all over the world. In Beijing for Tang, they are producing a huge site-specific wall-painting entitled The Language of Places. In this vast formal grid in the neutral tones of black, grey and white, the three-letter airport codes from a range of airports in China are interlaced with international airport codes, linking precisely common routes of air travel within China with that of China’s connection to international routes. Multiple meanings emanate from this, as we are made to consider geographical experience as one of the most transformative aspects of contemporary life. Lying behind these codes are hidden divisions which places are lumbered with: wealth/poverty, sophistication and backwardness, East/West, North/South and old and new narratives of migration which are such a central part of China’s recent history.

Other works are the understated neon words of Martin Creed; Corby & Baily’s new media work which reaches into the socio-politics of cyberspace; Anthony Key’s sculpture which encapsulates complex juxtapositions of identity and history; Thomson and Craighead’s exploration of the global reach of human blogs, the Little Artists’ play on artistic branding in their sprawling installation; Mad For Real’s testament of humanity in their complex performance and installation; and Adam Chodzko’s futuristic mythological narrative in his film Pyramid.

This show aims to form a dialogue about art and curating between Britain and China by showing aesthetically and culturally stimulating works by well-known and established artists in China for the first time. As recent curatorial debates around ‘altermodernity’ and translocal motion continue the cycle of local and global modernities developed over the past twenty years, a return to the language of aesthetics and the aesthetics of language gives rise to a different set of questions. Transnational postmodernity has become an embedded concept in global art production and circulation. A return to form and concept usefully takes us away from the constant problem of how identity negotiates and is negotiated by modernity. As in the title of Langland & Bell’s work, it is a return to the ‘language of place’ and the place of language.