Ahmed & Carpenter: Aversion Management @ Rogue Artists' Studios & Project Space, Manchester, until 6 Oct

Review by Ali Gunn | 29 Oct 2013

Loss aversion theory and target-based pay scales are more akin to a sales environment than a gallery, but, for Aversion Management, Ahmed & Carpenter have created pressurised working conditions for artists Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, Adam Renshaw and Thomas Yeomans.

In Aversion Management the relationship between artist and gallery is analogous to that between employee and employer, with both parties working towards the shared goal of producing content for public viewing. Employed to create new work responding to the topic of ‘work', the artists had to meet targets outlined in their Payment Policies Document in order to earn the maximum fee for their labour.

Visitors to the exhibition literally step on to Adam Renshaw’s work. Instructed to create a site-specific piece that would act as legacy for Ahmed & Carpenter’s management of Rogue Project Space, he has used Tarmac to mark out the boundary of one corner of the Project Space, creating a physical manifestation of a performative action; interpreting ‘work’ as physical labour.

Thomas Yeomans’ film, Eternal September, which is projected on to a wall, is a collage of effortlessly edited found footage. The mixture of sports, creative and corporate imagery alights on the 21st-century quest to work harder and achieve more. Eternal September presents a hyperreality, a lifestyle embedded with stylised objects, social trends and competition between one another.

Taking a more transcendental approach to the exhibition topic, Hannah Dargavel-Leafe has created a large-scale sculpture. Tasked with creating an architectural structure that will exist in four dimensions, Dargavel-Leafe’s piece is a mass of geometric shapes and transparencies. A brutal form of converging lines and reflective space, the piece seeks to address the human need to make work become more efficient.

Without being able to read the Payment Policies Document or knowing whether they have met their targets, it is difficult to assert whether the artists have been successful in their contractual obligations. Performing the role of exhibition manager, Ahmed & Carpenter have instigated full control over the artists and the exhibition, authoring the whole action as an artwork in itself. By creating a corporate environment in a space that is normally autonomous, Ahmed & Carpenter are bringing the economic relationship between artist and curator/gallery to the forefront of the discussion.

Ahmed & Carpenter will release a full evaluation of the project and the artists’ contributions/remunerations once the exhibition opens to the public. [Ali Gunn]

Open by appointment http://www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk