Tristan Hoare is delighted to present Paper, an exhibition curated with Flora Hesketh and Omar Mazhar. Exhibitions focusing on paper often look through the lens of ‘works on paper,’ but here the material comes to the forefront, bringing together artists who use paper to make the work itself.
The existence of the word papyrophilia, meaning the 'preoccupation or love of paper,’ hints at the role it has played in the history of mankind. The invention of paper in China in the first century changed the course of history, this new technology superseding all others and allowing for the preservation and dissemination of knowledge. Once printing as we know it was developed in Japan in 770 AD, this light and inexpensive material became indispensable. The importance of paper is undeniable, and today, despite the omnipresence of the digital in the world, we learn to write on paper, books are still printed, we continue to read news from it and we package and transport our goods in it. We all have a relationship to paper and this communal experience of the material is the point of departure for the exhibition.
Paper is full of paradoxes; robust yet fragile, light but has great strength, humble yet its impact on our civilisation is huge. There are so many different qualities of paper and it can be made from a large number of plants and trees. Each one has its particular properties, smell, sound, feel. It can be manipulated in extraordinary ways; cut, folded, burnt, glued, assembled, layered, printed on, painted on. Artists who work with paper are often fanatical about hunting for the perfect paper, and have a cult admiration for this natural material.
The exhibition celebrates a material which can easily be taken for granted. By bringing it centre stage, we are able look at artists’ relationship with paper, the way is has been employed, and how it continues to be actively used today.
Artists included in the exhibiiton are as follows: Sydney Albertini, Manolo Ballesteros, Parme Baratier, Rana Begum, Astha Butail, Sussy Cazalet, Paolo Colombo, Robyn Denny, Piers Jackson , Ann-Marie James, Y. Z. Kami, Radhika Khimji, Minjung Kim , Tarka Kings, Alice von Maltzahn, Kathryn Maple, Ben McLaughlin, Francesca Prieto, Emilie Pugh, Jean-Charles de Ravenel, Georgia Russell, Kurt Schwitters, Orsina Sforza , Richard Smith, Alexis Soul Gray, John Stezaker, Kaori Tatebayashi, Maria Thurn und Taxis, William Turnbull, Alison Watt and Lucy Williams.
