3. Dry Goods
Lucy Clout, Hans Diernberger, Ross Downes, Duncan Marquiss, Rehana Zaman
3 June to 9 July
Moltkestr 81, Cologne

Images / Text

Stored objects contain an innumerable set of outcomes, from manufacture, to purchase, eventual sale, and disposal. Amazon, perhaps the prototype of a contemporary general store, stockpiles consumer products in strategically situated fulfillment centers. Their warehouses are significant engines of retail activity, placed outside major cities for efficient worldwide distribution.

Alternatively, a freeport facility lacks an official location, an un-place at the fringes of customs law. These enclaves possess a wide range of specific trading protections outside daily government influence, and in some cases extend over entire cities, as in the case of Freeport, Bahamas.

While freeports and free trade zones were created to aid import and export dynamics, their use has notably spiked as a means for antiquities and art objects to remain invisible as financial assets. They facilitate a condition of perpetual transit, with possessions passing from owner to owner without ever officially arriving at a destination or becoming taxable property. The fluid state in these zones has allowed for external economies with their own businesses, security, and professional services existing entirely within its confines. This could suggest a form of value disassociated to statehood, objecthood, or capital; an economic approximation of the triple point of 0.01 Degrees celsius, where water molecules can co-exist as liquid, gas, and solid.

Dry Goods convenes five international artists within a parallel condition, working with reconfigured institutional flooring, accounts of social upheaval, bleached drawings, self-occupations, and industrial landscapes.

Lucy Clout was born 1980 in Leeds, UK and works in London. This year she presented the exhibition ‘Warm Bath’ at Limoncello, London and recently received the 2015 Jerwood/Film and Video Umbrella Award, exhibited at Jerwood Space, London and CCA, Glasgow.

Hans Diernberger was born 1983 in Munich and works in Cologne. He recently completed a residency at Villa Aurora, Los Angeles and presented at 68projects, Berlin. Last year he contributed to ’Checkpoint California’ at Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin.

Ross Downes was born 1978 in Luton, UK and works in London. This year he presented the exhibition ‘Publicly Ow(n)ed’ at KV, Leipzig, and in 2015 showed the solo project ’In on the Outside’ at Bruch & Dallas, Cologne. He is additionally a co-founder of Trestle Records, London.

Duncan Marquiss was born 1979 in Scotland and works in Glasgow. He is currently participating in ‘Renderuin’, part of the Glasgow International biennial, recently received the 2015-16 LUX/Margaret Tait Award, and exhibited at the 2013 International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen.

Rehana Zaman was born 1982 in Heckmondwike, UK and works in London. Over the last year, she completed a British Council-funded residency in Mexico City, alongside exhibitions and screenings at Joint Venture in Cologne, Contemporary Art Tasmania in Australia, the OFF-Biennale Budapest, The Showroom in London, and Konsthall C in Stockholm.