11 1/8 x 11 1/4 x 5/8 in
Workplace Foundation is pleased to present Lockedgroove, a solo exhibition by Manchester based artist Noel Clueit.
Bringing together a new body of work, Lockedgroove continues Clueit’s exploration into the conflicts of value and meaning around the production of art. Employing a multidisciplinary practice the artist investigates the shifting relationships between art and non-art objects and the instances in which they collide.
An avid collector of records for many years, Clueit began to amass LP’s for the sleeve design rather than the musical content. Drawn to an element of a design that evokes an echo of abstraction, Clueit undertakes an elegant and meticulous process of slicing, inverting and re-positioning to create new compositions, arrangements and possibilities.
The majority of the records are from the 1970s, the height of production and consumption of the album format. The cover designs of this era often appropriated forms from high art produced in the preceding years, most evidently the abstract expressionist works of the New York School. The relegation of these forms to the cover of a Reader’s Digest easy listening boxset, exemplify this lowbrow mass market appropriation. Through a rigorous methodology, Clueit’s works seek to return these borrowed forms to the canon of art.
This exhibition is presented online inside a detailed virtual rendering of our first gallery space: Workplace Gallery, 34 Ellison Street, Gateshead, which opened in 2005 within the British Brutalist masterpiece Trinity Court designed by Rodney Gordon for Owen Luder Partnerships, and which was demolished in 2009.
Noel Clueit (b.1984) lives and works in Manchester, UK. He completed his BA in Fine Art at Cumbria Institute of The Arts in 2007. Recent exhibitions include: The Lights, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; Everything Must Go (Part 2), Workplace Foundation, Gateshead; AND A 123, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester; and : /, a solo presentation of new works for Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool.
Clueit has undertaken residencies with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Airspace Gallery and participated in the first iteration of The Syllabus, a ten month residency programme initiated by Wysing Arts Centre. He also co-founded the collaborative gallery programme titledateduration with Maeve Rendle.
