A Threepenny Opera

Martin Boyce
Claire Hooper
Cara Tolmie
Mark Wallinger

Curated by Thom O'Nions

The 1931 film of Bertold Brecht's The Threepenny Opera exists in two versions. Made by GW Pabst in the early years of sound it was filmed in its first version with a German speaking cast. The set was then reused with a different cast recording the film in French (a planned English version never happened due to budget restraints). What Pabst produces is a film in two formations, which are parallel in their landscape and sets. What becomes interesting however are the slippages and fluctuations in meaning between the two casts and languages, with each film having its own identity, nuance and ambiguity.

The exhibition A Threepenny Opera brings together a set of works that use the idea of staging to articulate a multiplicity of languages and interpretations. The exhibition takes the idea of different languages or casts existing within one set as a way of looking at how certain artworks deal with the idea of the stage or prop as a setting for multiple vocabularies, readings or narratives.

Mark Wallinger's The Magic of Things (2010) consists of scenes edited chronologically from every episode of the 60s television show Bewitched. The film is made up entirely of the scenes that feature magical acts without people. Wallinger extracts his own narrative that is both within and parallel to that of the original series, a narrative in which the sets themselves become the actors.

Sets becoming participants is also key to Cara Tolmie's Room Studies (2010). The film presents a series of interior sets that are projected as images on stage while Tolmie performs corresponding texts and sound tracks for each. These layer up a variety of possible interpretations and meanings upon each projected stage set, with the viewer left to weave and infer their own narratives upon the empty sets.

Martin Boyce's installation Our love like flowers, the rain, the sea, and the hours (2003) stages an urban landscape in which the materials of the industrial world become representational props to suggest a site of social interaction. Boyce constructs a web of associations around these urban sites through a sculptural process of abstraction. These prop like sculptures inhabit the exhibition space as bare, staged representations of the forms of trees and benches that they stand for.

Auditorium (2005) by Claire Hooper exists as a set of 'frames within frames'. It was shot in the Musee National de Beaux Arts de la Ville de Dunkerque, in the 1960's Modernist auditorium. The action takes place in this empty auditorium, the camera moving and occupying the space, heightening the set like nature of the location. The sound of a slide projector punctuates the film, introducing each new character into the cryptic and seductive interior and entering them into a play of narrative ambiguity. This ambiguity shifts the attention to you as viewer with the realisation that the film is staging the audience itself in a complex interplay of seduction and reflexivity.

Martin Boyce (born 1967, lives and work in Glasgow). In 2009, Boyce represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale and has been short-listed for the 2011 Turner prize. Selected exhibitions include: night terrace - lantern chains - forgotten seas - sky (2011) The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Modern British Sculpture (2011) Royal Academy of Arts, London; Out of This Sun, Into This Shadow (2008) Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and Our Love is Like the Flowers, the Rain the Sea and the Hours (2006) Tate Britain, London. Martin Boyce is represented by The Modern Institute, Glasgow. The work has kindly been loaned by the Cranford Collection.

Claire Hooper (born 1978, lives and works in London). In 2010, Hooper won the 12th Baloise Art Prize at the Art 41 Basel along with Simon Fujiwara. Selected exhibitions include: Young London (2011) V22, London; MUMOK (2011) Vienna; The Gate Cinema (2010) Serpentine Gallery, London; Nach Spandau (2008) Hollybush Gardens, London; The Blessing (2007) Sketch, London. Claire Hooper is represented by Hollybush Gardens, London. The work has kindly been loaned by LUX, London.

Cara Tolmie (born 1984, lives and works in Glasgow and London). Tolmie was a Transmission Gallery Committee member from 2006/08 and selected for the 2009/10 LUX Associate Artists Programme. Selected exhibitions include: Read Thou Art and Read Thou Shalt Remain, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (until July 31st) 2011; Young London (2011) V22, London; Grey Matter (2009) Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh and Event Horizon (2008) as part of GSKcontemporary, Royal Academy, London.

Mark Wallinger (born 1959, lives and works in London). In 2009 Wallinger was awarded the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project Commission and the My City commission in Canakkale, Turkey. He won the Turner Prize in 2007 and represented Britain at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. Selected exhibitions include: State Britain (2007) Tate Britain, London; Out of Place (2006) New Art Gallery, Walsall; Sleeper (2004) Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Ecce Homo (1999), fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square, London; The British Art Show (1995) Manchester & UK Tour and New Contemporaries (1981) ICA, London. Mark Wallinger is represented by The Anthony Reynolds Gallery, who kindly lent the work for this exhibition.