This September Riflemaker in London will be hosting one of its most ambitious and exciting shows to date. Working separately, with occasional correspondence by mail and a common title, artist Francesca Lowe and writer Alasdair Gray have created 'Terminus', a padded room of 130 of Lowe's ink on linen canvases with Gray's experimental narrative, 'Lanark', laid edge to edge across the gallery's uneven walls. Dafydd Jones visited Francesca Lowe in her studio to give us a sneak preview of this forthcoming exhibition.
Alasdair Gray, born Riddrie, Glasgow 1934, is one of the most respected novelists of modern times. Answering a Q&A for her debut solo exhibition at Riflemaker in September 2004, Francesca Lowe, who was born in London 1979, was asked about her favourite book. "Lanark" she replied without hesitation. Gray's masterpiece, thirty years in the making, four books in one, a book in a million, provided inspiration to a generation of young novelists including Irvine Welsh, A.L. Kennedy, Will Self and Ali Smith.
'Terminus' depicts the fairground of life. A journey with a beginning, occasional stopping points and possibilities of an ambiguous end. It fuses Victorian preaching-maps and art symbolism, investigating the potential of a secret moral guidance system at work within the structure of a fairground. The exhibition encourages the viewer to indulge visually and mentally in a game of symbolic unravelling, as they grapple with what it means to be human. Lowe describes the possibility within this interior mural, almost a 'second skin' on the gallery's walls.
Alasdair Gray's 1981 masterpiece 'Lanark' established him as a major literary voice. 'Lanark' is a satirical, subterranean novel, a coming-of-age story set within a 'world' with echoes of Dante, Kafka, Blake and Lewis Carroll. Idealistic and fantastical, it is one of the key novels of the 20th century. It takes a moral viewpoint as it does its own unravelling, but 'Terminus' may not. Lowe's canvases depict a distracting, visually stimulating journey full of thrills and temptation, while Gray makes his contribution via a series of specially written texts on the same philosophical proposition.
There will be a series of events to accompany the exhibition. On Tuesday 2 October the curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist will be in conversation with Alasdair Gray followed by a reading by Gray from 'Terminus', 'Lanark' and other work. On Monday 8 October the critic and former Time Out visual art editor Sarah Kent will talk to Francesca Lowe about the making of 'Terminus'.
A special commemorative book has been produced and we will also celebrate the publication of Gray's new novel, published by Bloomsbury in October.
All Events cost £8 - doors open at 6pm. Advance booking essential: T: +44 (0)207 439 0000.
FRANCESCA LOWE & ALASDAIR GRAY: 'Terminus
18 September - 12 December 2007
Riflemaker
79 Beak Street
London W1F 9SU
T: +44 (0) 20 7439 0000
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