BRISTOL, UK.- Spike Island presents Working Things Out: Richard Forster, Sophie Macpherson, Sara MacKillop, Jonathan Owen, Andy Wake, Haroon Mirza, Milo Brennan, on view through September 16, 2007. Working Things Out is the first group exhibition to take place at Spike Island since the re-launch of the galleries in February 2007. The exhibition brings together seven British artists working in the field of contemporary sculpture. They are not linked by a particular style but rather by attitude: their common commitment to reworking the everyday. All of the artists will present new works or a series of works that has yet to be shown in its entirety; some will also respond directly to the imposing architecture of the gallery, a newly created structure within a former tea packing factory, a space within a space.

Working things out, testing ideas against each other, is the stuff of artistic practice. Process is both a means to an end (the art work) and an end in itself (praxis). The artists in Working Things Out present us with propositions that have momentarily coalesced as material objects; sculptural works that imply on-going investigations into form.

These works are not, however, intended as hermetic objects, emptied out of references; they are like other things and are the product of familiar processes, be they hand crafted or manufactured. As art works they have undergone the same evolutionary journey as the design object, moving from concept to product, whilst refusing to follow the same logic, to become brighter, faster and more easily consumable. They regress or head off at tangents, proposing questions rather than supplying answers. They operate on us at an experiential level but deliberately fall short of practical function, that crucial differentiator between art and design.

The artists in Working Things Out present us with objects that can be read as prototypes; prototypes that suggest ways of imagining the world otherwise, rather than blueprints for living. This is ultimately not a show about artists assuming the role of designers or vice versa, but rather the productive space in between these categories. Marie-Anne McQuay.