Figure

Michael Schwab

26 January - 23 February 2008

Private View Friday 25 January 7 - 11 pm

Open by appointment only

The Tramdepot www.thetramdepot.org

info@thetramdepot.org

Michael Schwab's show 'figure' at the Tramdepot in London is not concerned with the human figure or figurative art. For him, the figure is an abstract, non-representational but organised entity designed to make thought move. His figures are often made in response to given spaces, which he analyses and conceptually re-works.
'Figure' in this exhibition refers to shapes derived from the architecture of the building, which has been measured and transformed. The measurements focus on the corners of the staircase and the upper gallery into which a conceptualised model of the staircase is inscribed using string and elastics.

What we think about architecture need not be as square as architecture itself. Depending on the way we see or measure and on the way we think or construct we can arrive at architectures that represent potentialities of spaces taking into account the way we move between its coordinates. In figure, the visitors will enter the gallery through the staircase, which they experience in advance of the work. The work in return makes tangible another possible experience of the staircase that now lies behind the visitor.