Please Queue Here‘s second exhibition LINGUA FRANCA proposes a study of the nascent trend of Neo-narrational practices in art. Steering away from the structuralist treatment of language in the art of the 1960s, the works included in this show emphatically and intentionally return to utilising language as a material through which narratives and storylines become the subject. Instead of deconstructing language and thereby highlighting its literal usage, they address metaphorical utterances that represent meanings and create narrational structures.
Building on and extending Please Queue Here‘s inaugural project Tactile Amnesia that examined how contemporary artists have developed a novel fascination with traditional materials, LINGUA FRANCA delves into the revival of the narrative in contemporary art.
LINGUA FRANCA shows works by James Sirrell, Miriam Naeh, Paolo Salvador, Phillip Reeves, and Rachel Cheung and is curated by Charlotte Knaup.
Download the full press release here.
From December 2020
I have made lots of mistakes but I have never been wrong reflects on the contradictory intentions and sticky nature of creating and participating in larger and smaller (creative) networks in which one may simultaneously exist in states of precarity and complicity. The show’s title is taken from a post by the Twitter user @GailWalden6, an example of a “shitpost” account, which derive their humour and efficacy from how they relate to the very specific context of the mediated online communication network in which they appear: A simulacrum of society, complete with mores and power dynamics that are naturalised to the point of invisibility. PQH has invited Rachel Cheung, Héloïse Delègue, Miriam Naeh, Phillip Reeves, and James Sirrell to participate in this group exhibition and posed the question of how relationships and networks play a role in their works, be it through means of intimate autobiographical references, reflections on societal and personal power relations, or the aesthetics of capitalism. Looking at how the practices of this core artist group that the platform has been built with are anchored in and simultaneously expand and uncover the networks in which artistic expression is conceived, shared, and capitalised on, I have made lots of mistakes but I have never been wrong finds the absurdity inherent in navigating a system that one is reliant on and at the same time profoundly critical of.
I have made lots of mistakes but I have never been wrong was originally conceived as a physical real life show and meant to open in March of this year. Due to the ongoing global COVID-19 crisis, the artists and PQH have translated this exhibition into an online format. When the show was cancelled, the artists found themselves at different stages in their work process, so that suddenly spread across six different countries (US, UK, Israel, Portugal, France, and Germany), we all tried to consciously engage with the challenges this transition has posed and documented the process in a small archival journal. The online space, which once was only a starting point of research and origin of the show's title, has now become the main means of communication and primary exhibition site.