Feature

Super Farmers' Market, London

18.06.2010

Isabel de Vasconcellos



Super Farmers' Market is the second in a series of group shows that teases at the possible proximity of two forms of specialist consumption: fine food and fine art.

This year's produce comes from the following sources:

Rasheed Araeen, Phyllida Barlow, David Batchelor, Stuart Brisley, Richard Deacon, Braco Dimitrijevic, Mary Anne Francis, Martino Gamper, Lucy Gunning, Lucy Heyward, Susan Hiller, Andy Holden, Koo Jeong-A, Ian Kiaer, Sharon Kivland, Darian Leader, Sarah Lucas, Hayley Newman, Tina O'Connell, Lucy Orta, Nicolas Pope, Giorgio Sadotti, Saso Sedlacek, Jane Simpson, Bob & Roberta Smith, Rasa Todosijevic, Zlatan Vukosavljevic, Richard Wentworth, Franz West, Alison Wilding, Gerard Williams, Elizabeth Wright.

The first Farmers' Market took place in London's Wigmore Street in 2008, showcasing 24 producers, and was herded by farmer and de-curator Fedja Klikovac, Director of Handel Street Projects. And just as the weekly Farmers' Market offers the discerning customer informed selections of the very best produce, so this annual version does with art, combining the idea of a selected exhibition as an exercise in connoisseurship with the recognition that art is nevertheless also a commodity.

This year's show, curated by two experts in the field, Mary Anne Francis and Lucy Heyward, is themed around the idea of 'upcycling': the current trend for taking low-grade artefacts that might be destined for landfill and enhancing their value by means of hand-wrought interventions. To this end, 32 artists have been asked to produce artworks using low-cost supermarket goods: groceries, cleaning materials and discarded packaging. Continuing the Farmers' Market theme, artists are encouraged to resource their materials locally.

As part of the exhibition we will be showing Agnes Varda's film The Gleaners and I.

18th June - 17th July 2010
Private View: Thurs 17th June 6:00 - 8:00pm
Opening times: Tues-Sat 12:00 - 6:00pm

Handel Street Projects
at 19 - 21 Sicilian Avenue, Holborn, London WC1

Nearest Underground: Holborn


The Art Collective