Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė at Cell Project Space

Artists: Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė

Exhibition title: YGRG14X: reading with the single hand

Venue: Cell Project Space, London, UK

Date: June 7 – July 22, 2018

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Cell Project Space, London

Initially organised as a weekly event, ‘Young Girl Reading Group’ was established in 2013 by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė referencing Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials For a Theory of the Young-Girl; a non binary and ageless protagonist identified as a product of consumer society. Organised around feminist inspired theory and fiction, Gawęda and Kulbokaitė first conceived YGRG as an intimate discursive space within the experience of collective reading then subsequently extending it into the domain of live performance and self-documentation mediated through the Internet, social media and immersive installation.

For their solo exhibition at Cell Project Space, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė present the fifth iteration of the performance YGRG 14X: reading with a single hand along with a new video installation under the same title. Initially conceived for the 13th Baltic Triennial-Prelude, CCA, Vilnius in September 2017, the performative installation investigates the act of reading as an intimate experience, holding the potentiality to become public performance through the « outlouding » of words. Shown on screens of varying scales throughout the installation, the new video work will become the framework for installed elements and commissioned sculptural interventions alongside a staged performance at the opening and closing of the exhibition. The group will perform Young Girl Reading Group’s manifesto interspersed with paragraphs from the third part of Paul B.

Preciado’s Gender, Sexuality, and the Biopolitics of Architecture: From the Secret Museum to Playboy.

Essential to the artists’ output is the increasing technological mediation of the project’s activity. For YGRG 14X: reading with a single hand, Gawęda & Kulbokaitė will present YGRG Outlet. The store represents a branded material collapse of production into a gesture of social performativity using their recently patented fragrance BODY AI, newly commissioned limited editions and sportswear line. In the same way as the artists’ social media interventions, their branded unisex YGRG T-shirts and sweatshirts orientate their activities around collectivity and peer-to-peer circulation. The scent, as with ‘Young Girl’, embodies a conceptual notion of ‘non-place’, with or without location, class, or gender signification.

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, YGRG14X reading with the single hand, 2018, Installation View, Video, handmade carpet, Conipur Pro clay dust, handmade curtain, chroma sand, Dimensions variable

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, YGRG14X reading with the single hand, 2018, Performance, Performers: Jaana-Kristiina Alakoski, Elin Gonzalez and Javier Marquerie Thomas

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, YGRG Outlet, 2018, Installation View

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, YGRG Outlet, 2018, Installation View, T-shirts, Sweatshirts, YGRG14X Special edition of 6 T-shirts, handmade by artists

Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, YGRG Outlet, 2018, Installation View, Fragrance (30ml) produced in collaboration with Caroline Dumur from ‘International Flavors and Fragrances Inc’. Edition of 10