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Performing No Thingness

27 September – 29 October 2016

Tuesday – Saturday: 12 – 5pm, free admission. East GalleryNUA It is beyond the scope of any exhibition to deconstruct and investigate the many concepts that artists have meant by the terms void, nothing and emptiness. However it is the intention of this exhibition to revisit how the concept of nothingness informs the kinetic art work of Dom Sylvester Houédard, Ken Cox and Li Yuan Chia.

These three artists all knew each other, sharing, for a coinciding moment in the late 1960s an interest in the Eastern philosophies that present objects not as things but as relationships, events and actions.

The exhibition is curated by Nicola Simpson whose doctoral research is in this area, and it will show a selection works that demonstrate each artist’s interest in how the art object is dependent on performance to come into being.

This is a rare opportunity to see the iconic balloons made by Ken Cox in 1968, previously un-exhibited poem-scores by Dom Sylvester Houédard and magnetic reliefs or ‘points’ by Li Yuan Chia. Through the interplay of these works, the exhibition will examine the relationships between the three artists through correspondence, sharing of ideas and memorial.

Image credit: Double-sided black and white magnetics relief, 1969, Li Yuan Chia, UEA Collection of Abstract and Constructivist Art, photograph by James Austin.

Li Yuan Chia black magnetic wooden circle.