Helen Marten

Peanuts . 2012

Helen Marten . + Sadie Coles

Entwining real surfaces with implied linguistic scenarios, Marten pokes humorously at questions of ownership and dishonesty in materials, the relationship of object to artefact, and of package to product. Interested in the grammatical approximations made in workmanship, Marten’s exhibition weaves constant conversations between counterfeit and camouflage. The idea of tracing around the outlines of substance – of hinting at recognisable information through disrupted form – is one that gives authority to the wonky, to the drunken and the misaligned. Image is continually tripped up by language, by a deliberateness of error that postures with all the concrete certainty of cultural re­cognisability. All plausible facets of the gallery space – walls, floor, circulation, aftertaste – are treated with equal consideration, with emphasis on the thought that the speed of delivery of an object can reveal different formal relationships, playing a crucial role.
Kunsthalle Zurich

Geologic amounts of sober time (Mozart drunks) . 2012

Falling very down (low pH chemist) . 2012

Panic Hardware (backside) . 2011