The Cookhouse Gallery is pleased to present Everything Must Go, a collaboration between Chelsea MAFA and RCA MA Contemporary Art Practice Students. Opening February 8, 2024 at 5:00pm at the Cookhouse Gallery, SW1P 4PS.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by the students' investigation on consumerism, commodification of artworks, and display. In an era of increasingly dematerialized consumerism, the gallery acts as a display system to contest and respond to. The artworks showcased follow dimensions that are no bigger than 25 cm in size and presented on varying platforms. Each work distinguishes itself through its materials prompting a spectrum of considerations on methods of making. Everything Must Go explores the provocation of urgently directing potential consumers to acquire all works on display. Ironic design cues lay claim to manic street posters canvassing for potential buyers to purchase existing artworks as affordable solutions to promote and invite.
In the communist manifesto, Marx writes: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe." Everything Must Go plays on the idea of the expanding market by both presenting commodities and commodifying alleged non-commodities. Through this process and the push for everything to go, the art market continues to chase visitors of all social classes.
