‘Social Club’ brings together works on paper by Pavel Büchler, Dean Hughes, David Mackintosh, David Osbaldeston and Martin Vincent. This exhibition of drawings and works on (and with) paper presents a small sample of Manchester’s dynamic and diverse contemporary art scene.
The works exhibited share a poetic sense of “something dark” beneath the otherwise singular and highly individual approaches – from Martin Vincent’s reductive treatment of momentous issues in the form of sheet music and David Osbaldeston’s self-mocking hand-made art fanzines, to David Mackintosh’s bleak and disturbing ink sketches, Pavel Büchler’s illegible diary and Dean Hughes’s obsessive play with unremarkable everyday materials. This “darkness” contrasts with the economy, immediacy and formal elegance of the means by which it is expressed. It creates a tension between an existential pathos and anxiety and the often ambiguous humour which is equally characteristic of the work.
First shown at galleri s.e, Bergen, Norway in 2004, this Blackpool showing included new works and was supported by Arts Council England.
A catalogue published by International 3 accompanies the exhibition.