OXFORD.- Modern Art Oxford presents a survey of historical and recent works by seminal British artist Stuart Brisley.

This exhibition reveals aspects of Brisley’s broader artistic practice and includes early and rarely seen works, alongside more recent paintings, video and sculpture.

State of Denmark surveys the breadth and consistent inventiveness of Brisley’s practice over many decades, and asserts his influence as one of the most important and enduring voices in international contemporary art.

“All work needs content,” says Brisley, “without content there is no work”. Alongside a distinct formalism that underpins six decades of practice, Brisley has unflinchingly probed the political, cultural and social territory of our time. His work conveys a profound and singular voice that sharply resonates with a younger generation of contemporary artists working today.

State of Denmark includes film and performance photography of some of Brisley’s most prescient performances, including Before the Mast (2013 - 14) and the recently digitised Incidents in Transit (1992 - 2014). These works trace the artist’s enduring relationship with the body as site, tool and instrument for directly addressing the autonomy of the individual and fundamental notions of power, authority and freedom.

In the Upper Gallery, Brisley’s iconic sculpture, Hille Fellowship (1970) is presented alongside a new installation entitled State of Denmark (2014). Hille Fellowship comprises 212 interlocking chair frames to form a perfect circle. The work is a response to Brisley’s experience of working in situ at Hille International Ltd, a furniture factory in Suffolk, where he set about developing greater communication between workers and managers through a series of actions. State of Denmark is a large emblematic installation constructed from items of clothing, drawings and a crown around a wooden structure that invites visitors to respond to the precarity of seemingly permanent institutions like the monarchy.

In the Piper Gallery, the act of painting is explored through a series of works in which the surface of a canvas accumulates and aggregates over time as the artist systematically and violently throws paint from an oblique angle onto the stretched surface. Brisley initiated the self-institution - Museum of Ordure (1996) which evokes an ongoing and increasingly important concern in Brisley’s work, the tussle with societal and cultural detritus: rubbish, waste, faeces – real, metaphorical and imagined and its impact on the concept of the public sphere and civil society.

State of Denmark is curated by David Thorp in association with the Museum of Ordure. Modern Art Oxford will also publish text by the curator, David Thorp.

Stuart Brisley is widely regarded as a key figure of British performance art. He is best known for the series of key performance related works created in the 1970s and 80s that re-defined what “performance art” might be and encompass. Brisley used his body as a metaphorical and allegorical site to enact and comment upon how the individual situates him/herself between authority and freedom. Over the last 60 years, Brisley has been creating innovative and diverse work that engages with the most traditional of forms, alongside performance, of painting, photography, sculpture, video and drawing.