Exo Exo, Paris – Mothership

Mothership
Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, free.yard, Monika Kalinauskaitė & Monika Janulevičiūtė, Kinke Kooi, Precious Okoyomon, Paul Purgas

curated by clearview, London
Exo Exo, Paris
July 12 - July 22, 2017

press release

Mothership, 2017
Exhibition view, Exo Exo, Paris

Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, Faces (without grimaces), 2017
Metal, solder, resin, paint, pumps

Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, Faces (without grimaces), detail, 2017
Metal, solder, resin, paint, pumps

Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, Faces (without grimaces), 2017
Metal, solder, resin, paint, pumps

Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, Faces (without grimaces), detail, 2017
Metal, solder, resin, paint, pumps

Kinke Kooi, Soft approach, hard approach (diptych), 2015
Acrylic, pencil, fineliner, gouache on paper

Kinke Kooi, Growing the seeds of Love (2), 2015
Acrylic, pencil, fineliner, gouache on paper

free.yard, TTWLG, 2014
HD video, sound, 1'59''

Monika Kalinauskaitė & Monika Janulevičiūtė, The Great Outdoors, first page, 2016
Online graphic novel

free.yard, (a conjuring kind of flirtation)///(ghost in the free yard)///(cruise the estate in a state) cum to me dnt cum for me - cum for me dnt cum to me, 2017
Sketchbook drawing digitally manipulated and printed

Simon Brossard & Julie Villard, I can boogie but you first, 2017
Metal, resin, paint, wax and LED lights

Precious Okoyomon, honest and high a new devotion, 2017
Poem on wall

Mothership, 2017
Exhibition view, Exo Exo, Paris

A. Attempt to redefine clearview as a Mothership: no show we have been doing in our headquarters in London were devised as discourses about clearview - except, maybe, the first event: ‘Presents’, which was more about the ambitions of clearview rather than on clearview itself.
B. Attempt to devise an exhibition as a Mothership: a launch rocket, a naval base, a shelter and a womb (a container and an impulse).

‘Mothership’ is the first of a series of events about clearview’s future and redevelopment programme happening under the name ‘Equators of Bad Organisation’ which is going to run through the summer. The aforementioned events will take the form of open group discussions and collective working sessions across London which will start soon after the Paris show and continue on previous conversations that happened in between clearview’s co-founders. The below fragment of texts are compiling remnants of meetings, notes and discussions which could be considered as the matrix of ‘Mothership’.

1) “Potential title of a publication coming back to clearview’s early history: clearview, 9 Months in the Making: From Headquarters to Mothership (November 2016 - July 2017)”
2) “...asking ourselves what it would mean to do a show in Paris, it was important to re-address our position and ambitions as a young/baby/newborn/foetus project space while asking ourselves what we’ve been doing so far. Mothership, however, is not a show about clearview - we consider it as a show at the nexus of past and future conversations - it is indirectly reflexive”
3) “clearview as a role play game?”
4) “...clearview is not a game (From our original description)”
5) “MOTHERSHIP MOTH HER SHIP MOTH ER (A formula)”
6) “Investigation - A found photograph - ??? - depicts what seems to be an indoor pool. The pool, however, appears to be filled with something that is not water, something that would be closer to some sort of ectoplasmic magma. It’s glowing. At the center of the image is a painting of two birds - two swans -, from afar, it looks like it could be an early Justin Fitzpatrick. Behind the painting are double staircases. They recall the very particular style of clearview’s stairs: a space in London whose activity has been kept secret for a long time. Situated in the confines of an industrial area full of converted warehouses and churches - Fountayne Road -, clearview has presented contemporary art exhibitions and events for several months now (9). But I recently discovered ‘Mothership’ was their real name and ‘clearview’ was a way to stay undercover and hide their real activity, which I suspect to be a...”
7) “All Mierle Laderman Ukeles”