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Article: The Conduit

Past exhibition
25 June - 18 September 2019
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Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Joe Clark, Black Box, 2012

Joe Clark British, b. 1982

Black Box, 2012
2 x C-prints, kappamount, mountboard (framed)
68 x 53 cm
26 3/4 x 20 7/8 in
edition of 1 plus 1 artist's proofs
JCL0082
Copyright The Artist
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I made the work during March and April 2012 in Brazil, the front image derives from my studio investigations there, while the background comes from a research trip for the...
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I made the work during March and April 2012 in Brazil, the front image derives from my studio investigations there, while the background comes from a research trip for the Marrakech Biennale in winter 2011. The work was fabricated in London, June 2012.

The title simultaneously refers both to Willem Flusser's conception of the camera and associated systems as a 'black box' - an amalgam of technical systems that escape the comprehension of the end user - and a more magical kind of black box. I think I was thinking perhaps of Islam's Kaaba as I had seen and photographed a derelict copy of it made for a film in the Anti-Atlas plain while I was doing research for the Asset Management series.

The image in front is a simple exercise in studio photography (creating tone and volume from a white styrene form via the careful placement of a single light and reflector), but also results in an iconic motif of sorts. This floats above a marble museum floor that I photographed in Marrakech. The specific juxtaposition of these elements was an intuitive one. The perspective of the two separately photographed pieces of floor converge as they have been flipped, contriving an infinitely receding space that the styrene form floats over. The framing completes the work as it provides a 'vitrine' to contain the spaces and lays on an additional allusion to the presentation of religious artifacts.

Joe Clark (Jun 2012)
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