Lacuna Tom Duggan

Exhibition opening dates and times:
18, 23-25, 30 April 2010 and 1 May, 12-5pm Crate Project Space
19-23 April 2010, 9am-5pm Herbert Read Gallery, UCA Canterbury, New Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 3AN


“Wherever art appears, life disappears." Francis Picabia

Crate presents Lacuna, which documents the actions of a series of personas inhabited by the artist Tom Duggan.

The exhibition, which will take place at Crate Project Space in Margate and at the Herbert Read Gallery at UCA in Canterbury, comprises performance, installation, found objects and text works.

Lacuna portrays ‘an artist who isolates himself for our spectacle’, regarding the tradition of disappearing artists like Bas Jan Ader and Lee Lozano, while considering, perhaps ironically, how such artists have entered into art history.

In some instances we see Duggan proposing fantasies; in others he seems to be preparing to disappear from the world. Seeming to exist both in fiction and in reality, these works reflect Duggan’s apparently simultaneous desires to be known and to be invisible.

Several of the works make attempts at declaring something. In one instance, Duggan claims to have put everything he owns into cardboard boxes. In another work, that the object exhibited is an item stolen from an undisclosed location somewhere in the UK. These claims are either supported with some kind of proof (if the action took place in the past), or presented as a promise (if it is yet to take place); with each, some aspect of the work is either unseen or unspecified.

In contrast to these declarations and promises are the suggestions of imagined exhibitions curated by the artist, for which he has created a series of press releases and floor plans.

Lacuna considers the presentation of the Tom Duggan artist-persona through this institutional framework and its capacity for revealing truths. It asks whether the viewer will accept the disparity between the Tom Duggan who speaks through the institution and the Tom Duggan who, we are told, carries out the series of secretive, isolated and contemplative acts documented in the work.

Lacuna is part of Bad Translation, Crate’s programme for 2009/10. It is supported by Arts Council England and Kent County Council.

Tom Duggan graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2009.

He once arranged for a follower to follow viewers upon their departure from an exhibition space. Elsewhere, he arranged for actors to visit an exhibition only to pretend to be genuine viewers of the exhibition. Partially in an attempt to question the authority of the artist, these potentially invisible gestures play with the notions of consent inherent to gallery dynamics and etiquette.

Recent exhibitions have included Project Biennale (2009), Nottingham Trent University Fine Art Degree Show (2009) and Defunct (2008), which he co-curated at Backlit Studios in Nottingham.

Crate is an artist-led organisation based in East Kent supporting contemporary visual artists’ research and practice. Crate promotes critical debate and the exchange of ideas without prescribed outcomes.

Based in an old print works near the sea front in Margate, Crate’s building has been bought and refurbished with major support from Arts Council England South East, East Kent Partnership and Thanet District Council. The building opened in July 2006.

The building combines working and project space and is designed to give artists access to dedicated, affordable space for experimentation, production, documentation and research. There are three floors of studios, and two project spaces on the ground floor. The project spaces are available for short-term use by practitioners, alongside a programme initiated by Crate.

Also in East Kent:
Limbo Arts: Walpurgis Night – Music from improv noise group Ampersand: 30 April
Turner Contemporary: Tracy Enim – I never stopped loving you: From 30 April
The Old Town Gallery: Sarah Stokes 26 March-2 May
The Community Pharmacy Gallery: Children of Haiti: 30 April-2 May
Margate Harbour Arm Gallery: May Day Open Exhibition: 30 April–31 May
Ingoldsby Gallery: Portraits and a little bit more: 30 April – 31 May
Pie Factory Creative Spaces: Artist Studios: Open Studios & Upon Margate Beach: 30 April
Marine Studios: Peeling Layers: 30 April-3 May
We Make Margate: Empty Shops Initiative Seminar:30 April 12.30-5.30pm