The Institute of Contemporary Arts announces Remote Control: Art & TV in the Analogue Age an exhibition on view 2 April – 10 June 2012.
Institute of Contemporary Arts
Television has had an enormous impact on the work of visual artists since its arrival on the domestic landscape. The visual arts and visual culture have also played their part in influencing and shaping the content and values of TV. At this pivotal and crucial point of the nationwide switchover from analogue to digital signal, Remote Control celebrates this relationship.
The exhibition offers a timely insight into the impact of television broadcasting on cultural and socio-political phenomena. It looks at the physical shift in news and entertainment consumption, from the public social space of the cinema to the private and enclosed space of the home. It probes the psychological impact of daily engagement with television, the corresponding expansion in consumerism and the inexorable manufacturing of image, and the role of TV as a voice of authority that reflects and subconsciously controls the desires of its audience. It examines the aesthetics of the television itself as an object.
New and older works, some on loan from international collections, will be commissioned or selected for the show from artists including, Ferdinand Kriwet, Mathias Faldbaken, Hilary Lloyd, Julia Wachtel, Jessica Diamond, Tauba Auerbach, Michaelangelo Pistoletto, Harun Ferocki, Adrian Piper, Taryn Simon, Martha Rosler and Simon Denny. Their work follows pioneers of TV related pieces by Keith Arnatt Ian Breakwell. David Hall, Andy Warhol, John Latham, Michael Smith and from the 1990s and 2000s, Mark Wallinger , Steve McQueen, and Lis Rhodes.
The exhibition will feature rarely seen archive footage, a major new installation by Simon Denny featuring works made for TV by artists, and will be complemented by a full related programme of events and film.
Remote Control coincides with some important television anniversaries: 80 years since the BBC began broadcasting its television service; 55 years since the first colour television broadcast; and 50 years since the first broadcast from the US to the UK. It also takes place during the momentous period of national switchover from analogue to digital signal. The London region, one of the last few to embark on the process, commences switchover on 4 April, the same week that Remote Control opens at the ICA.
The ICA was founded by a group of radical artists in the 1940s and exists to challenge the foundations of contemporary art.
We are uniquely positioned on The Mall in central London in a Regency period building designed by John Nash. Since moving to its present location in 1968, the ICA has become the home of the British avant-garde and continues to foreground interdisciplinary art practice.
Entry to galleries and bar events before 11pm is free.
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Tickets and Information
020 7930 3647
www.ica.org.uk