Studio Project 13: December 2008

Niki Russell: Residency followed by an exhibition
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In Residency followed by an exhibition, Russell cleanses both terms of creativity. He sets out to erode the formal differences between them by exchanging them for ‘modal differences’. Akin to other works such as ‘Redrawn, string’ and ‘Moving Boxes’ in its reiteration of repetitive, pointless actions and sub sub actions, ‘Residency…’ continues Russell’s valueless, ‘un-creative practice’. Indeed, it is possible to imagine Russell’s ‘Residency….’ as an artwork that extends beyond the temporal and spatial frame of the gallery walls, into the reality show of Russell’s evolving body of work, becoming a mass adhesion of intertwined processes and knotty proceduralism.

Russell’s statement sets out the constraints under which work was conducted. This means that we understand before we encounter the work (if we ever encounter it) how the work came into being. Russell responds to the given structure of residency followed by exhibition by occupying the gallery space on a daily basis (specified days only) and constructing a wall dividing the space into two parts illustrating the bifurcation of terms, whilst simultaneously recording his own actions on a blog and on film. So while we apprehend the work, two narratives are likely to be present in our minds, the narrative of the work Russell is making and the narrative of Russell making the work. We can follow the procedural antics of the work and we can picture the drudgery of Russell’s life world of adjusting ladders and planks, day after day, then diligently taping and transcribing a long string of actions.