Double agents and great refusers

Solo exhibition at The Agency Gallery, London.

1st November - 15th December 2017

theAgency. Gallery is pleased to present their first solo exhibition of works by the British sculptor Laura White in London. The exhibition title Double agents and great refusers makes a nod to Baudelaire's notion of "amateur reason". White's expanded sculptural practice explores materials and objects with their inherent and contingent qualities. Reaching across multiple formal platforms the work takes place in stable forms and ephemeral gradations. White's practice is a discursive negotiation of STUFF, involving performative interactions and reflections of process, tilting into the everyday and the politics of making.

"Research is an integral part of Laura's practice, where she continually explores what it means to handle/come up against stuff, material and objects, thinking about how we use our hands, how a skill is acquired, the relationship between materials, hand and cognition, and the rich experience of understanding through direct hands on engagement." She has been doing this through a number of different skill-based courses such as butchery, fish knife skills, sushi making, baking, bread making, glass blowing and blacksmithing.

White's online platform Tenderfoot contains recordings of acquiring said skills, applying them in group settings and observes materials in day-to-day production and as a base for conversational discourse. It is this expansion into a collective engagement with production which position White's sculptural explorations interestingly between the Art + Context philosophies of Nineties Conceptualism and the politics of production and consumption in the here and now. The openness to allow contextual contingency into personal intuitive processes makes Laura White's approach to sculpture intriguing.

The solo exhibition 'Double agents and great refusers' showcases a selection of White's sculptural works including process-based pieces in an open-ended curation, which invites the audience to engage in the conversation.

To accompany the exhibition was a panel discussion 'Art, Materiality and Making'. Panel: Kristen Kreider (Prof at Goldsmiths College), Fabienne Gassmann (fashion designer), Kelvin J Birk (jewellery designer) and Laura White. 20/1/18. This discussion explored the meaning of materiality and the process of creating from their respective experiences. Looking to interdisciplinary and future practices as well as the politics of making the panel rose questions in discussion with the audience.