Artist: Jack O’Brien
Exhibition title: The Answer
In collaboration with: Ginny on Frederick
Venue: Sans titre, Paris, France
Date: March 2 – April 15, 2023
Photography: Aurélien Mole / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Sans titre, Paris
Sans titre is pleased to inaugurate its new collaborative initiative « Sans titre invites ». Once a year, an other gallery or a project space will have the opportunity to conceive a show in our courtyard room. For the first collaboration, Sans titre invites Ginny on Frederick who is showing British artist Jack O’Brien.
For his debut solo exhibition in Paris, Jack O’Brien is pleased to present « The Answer‐». Drawing on the structure of a ‘fugue’ in musical composition in which a short melody is introduced by one voice and then taken up by a series of others, the artist specifically explores the device of the ’answer’, a technique in which a second voice imitates the opening voice after a short pause.
Across sculpture, drawing and painting, O’Brien makes direct, minimalist sculptures which combine industrial, fashion‐design and architectural techniques to consider the production of desire and histories of consumption and material culture.The artist has spoken of objects as “eloquent texts” that encode cultural and historical meaning. Veering between delicacy and violence, his constructions materialise an architecture of competing desires showing how queerness moves alongside late‐capitalism and ultimately present poetic, eroticised reconsiderations of possibility and power.
Jack O’Brien (b. 1993) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: To More Time, Lockup International, London, UK (2022); Chômage Technique, Lovaas Projects, Munich, DE (2022); Something is Burning, Kunsthalle Bratislava, SK (2022); An Insular Rococo, Hollybush Gardens, London, UK (2022); The Influence of Emotions On Associated Reactions, with Henryk Morel (1937-68), Polamagnetczne Gallery, Warsaw, PL (2022); Waiting For The Sun To Kill Me, Ginny on Frederick, London, UK (2021). Sky-blue and green, V.O Curations, London, UK (2020); Strange Messengers, Peres Projects, Berlin, DE (2018).
Ginny on Frederick was founded in Farringdon, London in 2021 by Frederick Powell. Focused on emergent art, Ginny on Frederick aims to be a space for experimentation and critical development. Ginny on Frederick has been featured in Frieze,The NewYorkTimes, ArtForum andThe Art Newspaper.
Sans titre invites Ginny on Frederick with Jack O’Brien, exhibition view, The Answer, 2023, Sans titre, Paris
Sans titre invites Ginny on Frederick with Jack O’Brien, exhibition view, The Answer, 2023, Sans titre, Paris
Sans titre invites Ginny on Frederick with Jack O’Brien, exhibition view, The Answer, 2023, Sans titre, Paris
Jack O’Brien, Fuga, 2023, broken cello, oak slats, rug, cellophane, chrome plated‑steel, cardboard, spray paint, fence post spikes, 149 x 221 x 45 cm
Jack O’Brien, Here and There, 2023, Inkjet digital print mounted on steel, spray paint, heat-formed PETG plastic, halogen light bulbs, chrome plated‑steel, 80 x 61 x 11 cm
Jack O’Brien, Here and There, 2023, Inkjet digital print mounted on steel, spray paint, heat-formed PETG plastic, halogen light bulbs, chrome plated‑steel, 80 x 61 x 11 cm
Jack O’Brien, Lure, 2023, chrome plated-steel, honey, glass, cellophane, 32 x 12 x 12 cm
Jack O’Brien, The already choking fields, 2023, chrome plated-steel, 17 x 15 x 15 cm
Jack O’Brien, There and Here, 2023, Inkjet digital print mounted on steel, spray paint, heat-formed PETG plastic, halogen light bulbs, chrome plated‑steel, 80 x 61 x 11 cm
Jack O’Brien, There and Here, 2023, Inkjet digital print mounted on steel, spray paint, heat-formed PETG plastic, halogen light bulbs, chrome plated‑steel, 80 x 61 x 11 cm