Ram Lounge

David Burrows, Dick Evans, Ben Fitton, Babak Ghazi, Steve Klee, Bjarne Melgaard, Hayley Newman, John Russell, Dylan Shipton

CREW-SEEE-FICTION

MAT-TEER-REE-AAL-IZM AZ A FIK-SHUN.

FREE HUNN-DREAD DRIPZZZ OV BLUDD, FUR-TEEEE TEEERZ ON THE CHEEEEEKE;
REEE-FLECK-TED IN THU EYE. WEEEEEE SEEEEEE THU BACK-TEEEEE-ANN
REVV-ERR-LARS, WEE SEE THU BERNING SIT-EES, EEE-VAN THE HAREZZZ ON THEE
ARRRM ARR THE SIGHS OF TREEEZ LYKE FEEELDS OV YUNG KORN. STRANGE THAT NO ONE
THOUGHT TO INFORM THE STEWARDESS THAT THE DOORS WERE WELDED SHUT - IN KASE
OV EEEMURGENSEEEE

Ram Lounge presents the work of nine artists, woven into an immersive plastic structure that covers every inch of the gallery space. Art pierces the membrane, pinning new walls to old, it loiters in cavities and projects itself onto the glossy film. Monitors hang from elastic hammocks, pulling the cumbersome structure into tense compliance.

Ram Lounge is an attempt to picture the argument that normally precedes the final format of group shows: a challenge to any cultural authority that tries to smother these complexities. Not content with the safe curatorial gambit of inserting art into pre-defined or pre-constructed frameworks, Ram Lounge attempts to build itself from the work outwards, undermining overprescriptive modes of display.

Ram Lounge resists the temptation to either fetishise spaces like The Ship as sites of prior authenticity, or to make the pretence of blind neutrality. Ram Lounge aggressively interprets the given architecture, allowing a wilfully coloured perspective.

The artists in Ram Lounge share the shows unwillingness to uphold the opposition between aloof criticality and immersive submission, preferring to tread a more difficult path that exposes such false dichotomies as tiresome dead-ends. Positions are compromised, gates left unlatched, mistakes lie un-corrected and indefensible fantasies are upheld to the last.