Immaterial Labour: Skatebowl/ Prounroom

Immaterial Labour: Skatebowl/ Prounroom

Installation view of
Pat Hoffie

Immaterial Labour: Skatebowl/Prounroom 2014 | in situ at the Ipswich Art Gallery.

This exhibition has past

27 Jun 2014  10 Aug 2014

Immaterial Labour: Skatebowl/ Prounroom

Installation view of
Pat Hoffie

Immaterial Labour: Skatebowl/Prounroom 2014 | in situ at the Ipswich Art Gallery.
DatesFriday 27 June 2014 to Sunday 10 August 2014
(This exhibition has past)

This installation draws its inspiration from El Lissitzky, a Russian avant-garde artist who believed that the future of art lay in its potential to be integrated into life.

In 1923 El Lissitzky designed what he called a ‘proun room’ – a meeting place of art and architecture.

He wrote:

"The space must be a kind of showcase, a stage, on which the pictures make their appearance as actors in a drama (or comedy)."

This installation continues El Lissitzky’s dream to connect art with life (and humour), and brings together recreation, sport, theatre, work and art in a way that transforms the gallery and that depends on audience involvement for its success as a work of art. In so doing it raises questions about what makes a work of art ‘work’? When does art cross boundaries into play and thinking and life and how important is the history of art to how we (can) see things today?

This is a collaborative work that would have not been possible without the cooperation and generosity of Michael Beckmann; Pauline Garner; Alexandra Merrick; Ian Thyssen; Emily Avila; Jen Davis; Eli Lillis; Danny Smith; Rainer Doecke; Tony Hamilton; Michael Wason (Wizac Ramps) and the skate-park enthusiasts of Ipswich.

– Pat Hoffie June 2014

Read more about Pat Hoffie’s art practice in this essay by Julianne Schultz.