ELSEWHERE 2

ELSEWHERE 2

Neil McNally - La Perruque
By way of small diversionary practices that speak of delinquencies, trickery and transgressions

OPENING FRIDAY 30th JULY 2010, 6-10 PM. The exhibition continues Sat 31st- Sun 1st August, 12-6 pm, 14, Felstead Road, Hackney Wick, London. E9.
La Perruque introduces recent work by five international artists, Cecile Emmanuelle Borra, Roberto Ekholm, Neil McNally, Adrian Navarro and Anna Ricciardi.
In the spirit of Michel De Certeau's writings around cultural practices and relationships, these artists exhibit recent work that looks towards a shared sensibility, one which De Certeau describes in the French term, la perruque. By way of small diversionary practices that speak of delinquencies, trickery and transgressions, we are incited to challenge the delineations that give status to the 'proper', the 'scientific' and the 'formal' with renewed energy.
Taken from French, and meaning 'the wig', la perruque is 'the workers own work disguised as work for his employer. It differs from pilfering in that nothing of value is stolen. It differs from absenteeism in that the worker is officially on the job. La perruque may be a matter as simple as a secretary's writing a love letter on 'company time' or as complex as a cabinet maker's 'borrowing' a lathe to make a piece of furniture for his living room... the worker who indulges in la perruque actually diverts time (not goods, since he only uses scraps) from the factory for work that is free, creative, and precisely not directed toward profit. In the very place where the machine he must serve reigns supreme, he cunningly takes pleasure in finding a way to create gratuitous products whose sole purpose is to signify his own capabilities through his work'. (De Certeau, 1984).
From the pedestrian observer in the cityscape, or as an embodied individual experiencing one’s life within dominant systems and frameworks, to the creation of verbal spaces through everyday conversation, it is a 'provisional and collective effort of competence in the art of manipulating 'commonplaces' and the inevitability of events in such a way' that is to make them 'habitable'. La Perruque expresses a kind of ordinary heroism in this pleasurable art of manipulation and enjoyment.

Features the launch of a new publication by Neil McNally.

As part of the Hackney WickED Arts Festival http://www.hackneywicked.com/

WATCH THIS TOO xxx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Dh50nzrZ0