Steven Claydon: The Archipelago of Contented Peoples: Endurance Groups

Steven Claydon is known for sculptural work that examines the changing value of objects—aesthetic, functional and financial—a theme that has become more pertinent against the backdrop of threats to cultural heritage internationally. Working with a range of carefully sourced, crafted and industrially fabricated components, encompassing technologies both arcane and contemporary, Claydon plays out the processes whereby objects come into being, accrue meaning, and endure and transform through environmental and cultural shifts.

For his exhibition at The Common Guild, part of our 10th anniversary programme, Claydon presents a group of new works spanning sculpture, installation and sound, in which he addresses the ideas of jeopardy and pressure. Claydon’s work often draws a parallel between physical pressures—such as those experienced at great depth, altitude, or in a vacuum—and the subtler kinds of pressures that are imposed on objects in terms of how they are used, viewed, presented or aestheticised within any given social or institutional context.

Within and between the works in the exhibition, Claydon poses the question of whether objects and concepts—emancipated from specific uses and contexts – possess a counterpart to the evolutionary survival strategies seen in humans and animals.

The Archipelago of Contented Peoples: Endurance Groups is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation. With thanks to Industrial Gases company BOC, leading subsea operations and manufacturing company JFD and their National Hyperbaric Centre.

In parallel with Claydon’s exhibition in Glasgow, The Common Guild is co-operating with Mount Stuart Trust (Bute) as part of its contemporary visual arts programme.

The Archipelago of Contented Peoples: Endurance Groups will be Claydon’s first solo show in Scotland, continuing the organisation’s reputation for bringing important international artists to Scotland for the first time. Claydon’s exhibition in Glasgow follows a new commission as part of The Persistence of Objects, an exhibition curated by The Common Guild for Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland, in 2015 and a series of major exhibitions in Geneva, Bergen and London.

Steven Claydon (b. 1969 in London) lives and works in London and has worked in music and video as well as sculpture. In 2016 he was one of four artists shortlisted for the first Hepworth Prize for Sculpture.

He has exhibited widely over the last 20 years, including solo exhibitions at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Centre D’Art Contemporain Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland (both 2015); Firstsite, Colchester (2012); and White Columns, New York, USA (2006). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions and biennales including Manifesta 11, Zurich and Solid Liquids, Kunsthalle Munster, Germany, (both 2016), The Persistence of Objects curated by The Common Guild for Lismore Castle Arts (2015); Busted, High Line Commission, New York (2013): British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Hayward Gallery, London; Glasgow, UK; Plymouth, UK (2011); and Rings of Saturn, Tate Modern, London (2006).

Claydon has also curated several exhibitions including The Noing Uv It for Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, together with Martin Clark (2015) and Strange Events Permit Themselves the Luxury of Occurring, Camden Arts Centre, London (2007).