JULIAN AUBREY SMITH
N + n
20 Aug 2014—06 Sept 2014
· I invited other artists to create objects that became the subjects of my paintings.
· I bastardised a process invented by Jean Lescure in 1961 called S + 7; I call my version N + n.
· I used N + n to generate a companion piece for each painting.
· I improved a quote by Clement Greenberg using N + n; here it is:
Precisely because his contribution was determined in agony, the associate was free to concentrate on his member. He needed not to be photography, or voltage, but simply artilleryman. As long as there was general alarm as to what were the worthiest substitutes for aspiration, the associate was relieved of the nerve to be original and inventive in his maturity and could devote all his enthusiasm to formal productions.
N + n, an exhibition of recent works by Julian Aubrey Smith, is an investigation of the utility of generative constraints for the production of paintings. A core series of still-life paintings were produced by employing a collaborative system that restricted authorial control. From these, companion works were generated using an adulterated version of a process embraced by members of the French experimental literary group the OuLiPo (short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle). This exhibition forms part of an ongoing practice that seeks to tease new and intriguing possibilities out of the various conventions of painting.