The artists Valentina Karga and John Reardon have developed a joint project as part of the exhibition modular 1-2. Until the beginning of September, visitors to the gallery can participate in the project and complete the work together with the artists in tufting sessions. Tufting is one of the most widespread and well-known methods for making carpets. Gradually, a soft surface is created, which we sit and stand, lie, sleep or eat on, it lies in our private retreat or at the front door of our house and it makes space more pleasant and warm. The layout of the gallery is reminiscent of that of a private home. Tucked away on the top floor of an old brick building, rooms of different sizes seem to offer retreat and intimacy alongside its public function as a communal gallery. These characteristics are seemingly contradictory, but we want to combine them as part of modular 1-2. We therefore invite you to help shape the space, both private and public. Everyone is welcome, because: we are happy that you’re here!
John Reardon was born in 1968 in Cork City, and studied at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee and Goldsmiths London, where he is artist in residence in the Politics Department. Reardon is a sculptor. His work explores how art is made public, and how a public is constituted through art. It is site specific through its engagement with questions of structure and infrastructure that frame, organize, regulate and contain things, and where things start and stop. His work takes the form of object, installation, performance, event and publication.
Valentina Karga was born in Chalkidiki, a peninsula in Northern Greece. She lives in Berlin and is a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HFBK) in Hamburg. A large part of her projects encourage engagement and participation, facilitate practices of commoning and are concerned with sustainability. She works across different media, often inviting a public or a community to literally complete the work. Sometimes, through dialogue and building prototypes in a DIY manner, they end up imagining alternatives for infrastructures and institutions that structure our reality.
