Unusual Supports

In art history we often talk about a painting on canvas or wood, a marble engraving, drawings on papyrus, a fresco on plaster, or even a “body painting" on skin. Art has often been defined by its medium and support. In plastic art this support can be passive (a statue on a socle), active (where it modifies the work it supports) or productive (the fold in paper that gives the artwork its shape). Therefore supports are integral to artworks, they accentuate the piece like a frame

Even during the Paleolithic, clay was moulded and then fired; changing its colour and material. This method increased the number of “accidental" artworks in the 19th century, like Gauguin's ceramic self-portrait which became a “pot de tabac" (tobacco tin) after the clay sagged during the firing process. Designers, painters and watercolourists also explored various supports for their artworks. This exploration can also be seen in marginalia, where monks would draw in the margins of the manuscripts they were transcribing, therefore providing vital insight into relevant or lost texts. Nowadays artist collectives like Bad Ass, explore more unique supports for their artworks like the surface of skateboards. The skateboard is engraved, painted and stripped of its wheels; turning into a conceptual design, piece of furniture or playful decoration. As plastic art practices developed so did the the attitude towards it, making it increasingly popular in the domestic sphere.

However art isn't supposed to be convenient, especially contemporary art. “Found object" is an art concept initiated by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, where his “ready-made" work Fountain, continues to affect contemporary artists and the art world even after a century. Such thinking raises the question that if a found object can be labelled an artwork by an artist, then does this apply to all objects from our daily lives?

Art and creative expression is everywhere: on traffic signs, on walls, across pavements, filling  public spaces and buildings. Daily life is transformed when these objects are graffitied or mocked, and are often met with strange feelings of enchantment and transformation. Therefore what would happen if objects like receipts, drink cans, fire extinguishers, even suitcases, were tagged and turned into derisions? Does this reinvent their purpose and meaning? One thing's for sure, it would certainly upset the established order and social chaos would probably ensue.

However there is no chaos or panic surrounding the following selection of works, just an emergence of new meanings that can be derived from these abstract pieces. Petros Chrisostomou invites viewers to reevaluate the importance that material objects, like a pair of shoes or a phone hold in their lives. Meanwhile Guillaume Lamazou questions what exactly clothing is through abstract photography. Is it a way to establish our identity in society? Simply a means to make people laugh like the caricatures and clowns written about by Bergson? A weapon of seduction if we are to believe the infinite makeover programmes that adorn our television screens? Or simply a work of art or an unusual support for an artwork?

Overall, it's not so much the art that questions its support but the support that questions the art. The artists displayed below explore the contours of art, sculpture, painting, photography and drawing: demonstrating how the objects that support the art also create new forms of art themselves.