Partial Presence

Now in its 7th year, Testing Ground for Art and Education is an annual season focussed on opportunities for the creative and professional development of emerging artists and curators. A continuously evolving programme, Testing Ground collaborates with educational and artist-led organisations to develop experimental exhibitions and events that facilitate a consideration and testing out of new ideas and modes of practice. This exhibition is the culmination of a three month collaboration with students of the MFA Curating courses at Goldsmiths College and The Cass, London Metropolitan University.

Partial Presence takes at its core the idea that artworks possess varying degrees of physical and conceptual presence during their lifespan. Journeying from the initial stages of creative conception and fabrication, an artwork enters maturity and self-awareness through exhibition in dialogue with other objects, then physically degrades over time and loses currency, before reconstituting through physical restoration, documentation and historicisation. Interpreting 'presence' as the materiality, affect and meaning that constitutes a work of art, the exhibition considers how an artwork's presence is in a perpetual state of flux. Exhibiting artists include Francis Alÿs, Ed Atkins, Miroslaw Balka, Matthew Barney, Laurel Nakadate, Wolfgang Tillmans and Gillian Wearing, alongside a selection of artists invited by the curators.

Partial Presence is collectively curated by Tamar Clarke-Brown, W. Giovanni Gonzales, Jen MacLachlan, Thandi Mbire, Eilidh McCormick, Cecily Rainey, Mateusz Sapija, Anna Viani, Emma Rae Warburton and Bar Yerushalmi.
The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme of weekly curator-led exhibition tours, family workshops, talks and film screenings.

Showing works from the Zabludowicz Collection: Francis Alÿs, Ed Atkins, Mirosław Bałka, Matthew Barney, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Walead Beshty, Vanessa Billy, Tom Burr, Ruth Ewan, Mauricio Guillen, James Ireland, On Kawara, Paul Lee, Melissa McGill, Mark Melvin, Enrique Metinides, Laurel Nakadate, Araki Nobuyoshi, Rosa Ruey, Erin Shirreff, Jack Strange, Gerold Tagwerker, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gillian Wearing, Nicole Wermers and Shahar Yahalom.

Invited artists: Oskar Dawicki, Noa Giniger, Nicola Rae, Gaby Sahhar, and Andrew Sunderland.

Exhibition Preview: Thursday 29 January, 6-9pm