It's Only Words

Terry Atkinson, BANK, Fiona Banner, Dave Beech, Cedric Christie, Adam Dant, Richard Dyer, Simon English, Cerith Wyn Evans, Peter Harris, Inventory, Elke Krystufek, Simon Martin, Liz Neal, Janette Paris, Douglas Pars, Ben Pruskin, Sophie Rickett, Georgio Sadotti, Bob and Roberta Smith, Johnny Spencer, Georgina Starr, Jessica Voorsanger

Mirror
10 Back Hill
Clerkenwell
London
EC1R 5LQ

Curated by Esther Windsor

22 April – 17 May 2002

‘It’s Only Words’ is an exhibition of artists using art and text. Words rent to be inadequate. Love letters, lyrics, artists statements, job applications, slogans, certificates, press releases, graffiti, pronouncements, polemics, stories, diaries, names contracts, obituaries, police reports, tabloid confessions, rumours, jokes and slips of the tongue. Many monumental and incidental moments of life are codified in speech and in the document. We are committed to speech and at the same time lost for words.

Art and text arouses anxiety at the expectation for coherence and representation within the image. Text as image can act as a defence, in doubling and repetition of the same features or as an act of defilement, adulteration, corruption, counterfeiting or debasement.