Joshua Leon
Attendance(s) close to the close
4Dec 2020 – 19Feb 2021
Texts
Exhibition
More info
Exhibition
You have been invited to attend.
This exhibition is a record on the move.
A reflection upon this moment in time which feels like a train that starts and stops constantly.
Being in attendance even when there is no means for being present felt like the most important gesture I could make.
In a year where we have been asked to take greater care of our bodies, protecting them, distancing from one another, I ask you, what does attendance mean? I may never attend this exhibition, so I ask you to do so for me. Its production demanded I was aware of this, to think about how I can be in attendance to everyday life, in particular to relations with friends, family, strangers, the lost, historical events and the objects we use, touch, share, and take for granted. The date became regimen, but the days were fluid. These thoughts are not disparate but fragmentary. Every day offer(s)ed a new and a continuous thought. But these thoughts are a result of the flow of thoughts that have been circulating around me throughout the year. I said to my friend A.Z. “I am not trying to make work from a distance.” I said this so as to confirm that what I am doing is real, but also, so that these thoughts, these ideas, are given the space to flow out of me. Right now, feels like a moment of balancing the static and the fluid aware both are offering new depths.
J.L.
More info
42 letters sent by mail, 42 envelopes, objects, coffee
Daily Practice invited London based writer and artist Joshua Leon (London, 1990) to create a text installation reflecting on life during the lockdowns due to Covid-19. He decided to write letters and send them by mail. In an age when shaking the hands felt dangerous, sending mail was a way to shake hands with each other mediated by the hands of the postmen. It was an attempt to cross borders and to make an exhibition in another country when it was impossible to travel. Sending the letters also meant a lack of control, because of Covid-19 and the upcoming Brexit; some letters arrived within three days, others took six weeks without any logic. The installation of the exhibition depended on the arrival of letters. The lack of control was both annoying and a gift.
Joshua Leon hoped to travel to Rotterdam to see and install part of his exhibition, but soon it became clear that this would not be possible due to extended lockdowns. He gave instructions and freedom to play to Daily Practice. The result was an ever growing installation, a continuous displacement of letters and objects.
A poem in a pink envelope was a present for the visitor to take home.
The initial closing date of Friday 22nd January was extended to Friday 19th February 2021.
When the exhibition was finished the envelopes were returned to Joshua Leon, the letters stayed at Daily Practice. All the objects that were used were packed and also sent to Joshua Leon: the unwashed glass for the coffee, the candies, the tea lits, the broken pieces of glass, the apple and so on. In London Joshua Leon decided to make cider from the arrived apple.
‘Attendance(s) close to the close’ played with the structures of time. It showed the fragility of the mind and the body in the presence of a day, and then another day. It told about the basic need of communication in an isolated time. And that losing control over an exhibition is a huge present to investigate the notion of trust, to be attentive and to play.
See other exhibitions
