| RICHARD DUCKER ABOUT THE ARTIST |
Richard Ducker has been a practicing artist since completion of his MA at Goldsmiths'
College, London in 1991. He lives and works in London.
"The use of cement in Richard Ducker’s most recent sculptures emphasises a kind of
death, or a modernist monumentality, but the objects it coats and with which it is
juxtaposed evoke nostalgia, myths soaked in dreams, and fairy tales gone wrong. If a
domestic interior is evoked, it is one in which homely things have sprouted aggressive
appendages, grown unexpected textures, or multiplied into viral aggregates, as if to
embody the nightmares that commodity fetishes might dream of if they fell asleep. Like
Proust’s madeleine dipped in tea, they evoke memories and sensations according to a
logic that combines cultural association with phenomenological fantasies of sensual
experiences, often clashing within the same piece. In Death Star (and Baby), for
example, the familiar shape of plastic bottles is made strange by a coating of intensely
black flock, at once attractive and repellent in its soot-like impurity, contrasting the
smooth sensation of drinking ‘spring water’, with the gagging artificiality of spray-flock;
we are reminded with a jolt how toxic our obsession with purity and cleanliness really is.
Lots of fluids seem to run through the work: sucked in by a fur-lined, mouth-like
creature with the energy of a crack addict; apparently running between a suitcase –
travel, escape and refreshing holidays – and a concrete block that seems to be feeding
off (or to?) a tree that might have been killed or perhaps re-energised by artistic usage.
In Monument for England a bird, landed on a rather aggressive plinth endowed with too
many hooks, seems to have been petrified by its drink. Sculptural processes have
become the magic instruments of a post-Freudian fairy-tale, in which life and death,
pleasure and pain, nourishment and poison have become entangled in an exchange
that could lead to deadly battle, intense pleasure, or remain a secret.
Emotionally evocative without ever telling a clear story, affecting without being obvious,
Ducker’s sculptures seem to be there with the mute theatricality of minimalism, yet to
engage with notions of transformation. With simple formal means, they excavate fears,
anxieties and desires associated with the most visceral of physical sensations –
attraction and repulsion, pleasure and pain, need and self-sufficiency. The work keeps
referring back to the body, a missing body we as viewers cannot help but imagine filling-
in for with our own, transforming it into the ill-fitting piece of a jigsaw we are trying in
vain to complete with our presence."
Patrizia Di Bello, 2007
Professor
School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media
Birkbeck College
College, London in 1991. He lives and works in London.
"The use of cement in Richard Ducker’s most recent sculptures emphasises a kind of
death, or a modernist monumentality, but the objects it coats and with which it is
juxtaposed evoke nostalgia, myths soaked in dreams, and fairy tales gone wrong. If a
domestic interior is evoked, it is one in which homely things have sprouted aggressive
appendages, grown unexpected textures, or multiplied into viral aggregates, as if to
embody the nightmares that commodity fetishes might dream of if they fell asleep. Like
Proust’s madeleine dipped in tea, they evoke memories and sensations according to a
logic that combines cultural association with phenomenological fantasies of sensual
experiences, often clashing within the same piece. In Death Star (and Baby), for
example, the familiar shape of plastic bottles is made strange by a coating of intensely
black flock, at once attractive and repellent in its soot-like impurity, contrasting the
smooth sensation of drinking ‘spring water’, with the gagging artificiality of spray-flock;
we are reminded with a jolt how toxic our obsession with purity and cleanliness really is.
Lots of fluids seem to run through the work: sucked in by a fur-lined, mouth-like
creature with the energy of a crack addict; apparently running between a suitcase –
travel, escape and refreshing holidays – and a concrete block that seems to be feeding
off (or to?) a tree that might have been killed or perhaps re-energised by artistic usage.
In Monument for England a bird, landed on a rather aggressive plinth endowed with too
many hooks, seems to have been petrified by its drink. Sculptural processes have
become the magic instruments of a post-Freudian fairy-tale, in which life and death,
pleasure and pain, nourishment and poison have become entangled in an exchange
that could lead to deadly battle, intense pleasure, or remain a secret.
Emotionally evocative without ever telling a clear story, affecting without being obvious,
Ducker’s sculptures seem to be there with the mute theatricality of minimalism, yet to
engage with notions of transformation. With simple formal means, they excavate fears,
anxieties and desires associated with the most visceral of physical sensations –
attraction and repulsion, pleasure and pain, need and self-sufficiency. The work keeps
referring back to the body, a missing body we as viewers cannot help but imagine filling-
in for with our own, transforming it into the ill-fitting piece of a jigsaw we are trying in
vain to complete with our presence."
Patrizia Di Bello, 2007
Professor
School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media
Birkbeck College
Richard Ducker’s sculpture continues to surprise
the viewer and defy categorization; his ideas
and objects are influenced by diverse sources
and paradigms that he brings together with a
characteristic bravura. The sculptural objects he
makes are at times both somber and
mischievous, often imbued with a sassy
knowingness. Straying deliberately into various
genres such as the sexually charged fetish
object or metaphorically overloaded ‘memento
mori’, we encounter a rich conflation of image
and object that uses and abuses our notions of
taste and cliché and turns them upside down.
Just as humour and irony are integral keys to
understanding Ducker's work so is the process
of making that we compelled to consider in the
encounter with the work. Construction, selection
(of found objects /ready made/ assisted ready
mades), the combination of materials and
eventual deployment in a space are the main
considerations in Ducker's sculpture.
Ducker’s sculptures seduce us with their
convincing surfaces of concrete or fur, glitter
and plastic; sometimes the pieces are absurd,
other times they are sober suggesting loss and
vulnerability; the incongruous arrangements
inspired by collage and assemblage refer to the
biographical and domestic background of the
ideas and inspiration.
Success in Ducker's work lies in use of process
and skillful manipulation of these diverse
physical elements that add up to a kind of
dyslexic personal poetry and grabs us by the
collar with both humour and pathos.
Matt Franks, 2008
the viewer and defy categorization; his ideas
and objects are influenced by diverse sources
and paradigms that he brings together with a
characteristic bravura. The sculptural objects he
makes are at times both somber and
mischievous, often imbued with a sassy
knowingness. Straying deliberately into various
genres such as the sexually charged fetish
object or metaphorically overloaded ‘memento
mori’, we encounter a rich conflation of image
and object that uses and abuses our notions of
taste and cliché and turns them upside down.
Just as humour and irony are integral keys to
understanding Ducker's work so is the process
of making that we compelled to consider in the
encounter with the work. Construction, selection
(of found objects /ready made/ assisted ready
mades), the combination of materials and
eventual deployment in a space are the main
considerations in Ducker's sculpture.
Ducker’s sculptures seduce us with their
convincing surfaces of concrete or fur, glitter
and plastic; sometimes the pieces are absurd,
other times they are sober suggesting loss and
vulnerability; the incongruous arrangements
inspired by collage and assemblage refer to the
biographical and domestic background of the
ideas and inspiration.
Success in Ducker's work lies in use of process
and skillful manipulation of these diverse
physical elements that add up to a kind of
dyslexic personal poetry and grabs us by the
collar with both humour and pathos.
Matt Franks, 2008
| Richard continues to exhibit and curate shows in London and elsewhere and has work in a number of private collections internationally. Education: Goldsmiths College, University of London M.A. Fine Art Reading University B.A. Fine Art Selected Exhibitions: 2011 'Richard Ducker and Philip Hausmeier', Angus-Hughes, London 2010 'Surface Warp Factor', The Aubin Gallery, London 2010 'Null and Void', Oblong Gallery, London 2010 'Object-Culture', Red Gallery, London 2010 'Miniscule', Obolng Gallery, London 2009 'Dumb Waiter', James Taylor Gallery, London 2009 'Concerning Matter', Collyer Bristow Gallery, London 2009 'Saxon', Schwartz Gallery, London 2009 'Big Deal Botoxed 69', C22, London 2009 'First', Oblong Gallery, London 2009 'The Space Between', Crypt at St. Pancras, London 2009 'The Big Deal No. 2', Biscuit Factory, London 2009 'The Sculpture Show,' V22, London 2009 'Cooler Warmer', Standpoint Gallery, London 2008 'Heart of Glass', Concrete & Glass, London 2008 'Trace', Schwartz Gallery, London 2008 'Fluid Foundations', V22 - The Wharf Road Project, London 2008 'Words Fail Me', Gone Tomorrow Gallery, London (solo show) 2008 'WasteState', BearSpace, London 2008 'Matt Franks, Sheena Macrae, Richard Ducker', Fieldgate Gallery, London 2007 Gone Tomorrow Gallery, London, 'Durty Turkey' 2007 Fieldgate Gallery, London, 'Intervention' 2007 Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, 'Enchanted' 2006-7 Studio 1.1, London, 'Santa's Grotto' 2006 Fieldgate Gallery, London, ‘Houses in Motion’ 2006 Fieldgate Gallery, London, 'Beauty and the Beast' 2006 sevenseven contemporary art, London, 'No-ship' 2006 Fieldgate Gallery, London, 'Kamikaze Blossom' 2006 sevenseven contemporary art, London, ‘MCTwo’ 2005 Flowers Central, London, ‘Small is Beautiful’ 2005 The Crypt @ St. Pancras, London, ‘Memoire Collective’ 2005 Cell Project Space, London, ‘Hard Labour’ 2004 21 New Fetter Lane, London, ‘Sonya’s Office’ 2002 The Yard Gallery, Nottingham, ‘Growth & Form’ 2002 London Art Fair, London, Mark Jason Gallery 2001 The Kitchen, New York, ‘Art for Plot’ 2001 TWO10 Gallery, London, Wellcome Trust 2000 Royal Academy, Edinburgh, SSA Annual Open 2000 2000 Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, ‘New Art 2000’ 1998 Cable Street Gallery, London, ‘Store’ 1997 Commercial Too, London, ‘WheNever’ 1996 Commercial Too, London, ‘Nicepace’ 1994 Shad Thames, London, ‘Inflation Saints’ 1994 IAS, London, ‘Mix Fiz Spin’ 1993 ICA, London, ‘Art for Equality’ 1993 Clove Gallery, London, ‘Contingent’ 1992 Kettles Yard, Cambridge, ‘Face Values’ 1992 Serpentine Gallery, London, Barclays Young Artist Award Artwork in private collections in Britain, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Australia and Singapore |
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