Palindromes: Exchanges between Barry Flanagan and John Latham

’Pataphysics provides a framework for dialogues between Barry Flanagan and John Latham. ’Pataphysics is defined by its inventor, Alfred Jarry, the Symbolist poet and writer, as ‘the science of imaginary solutions.’ It preoccupied Flanagan from the early 1960s before he enrolled on the Advanced Sculpture Course at St Martin’s School of Art in 1964, where he met John Latham who was at that time teaching in the painting department. The exhibition shows a range of work by the artists, including sculpture, painting, photography and also archival material from both artists' archives which demonstrate their shared preoccupations and friendship. Establishing the common ground between them is not difficult and it is logical that Latham and Flanagan would have gravitated towards each other in order to discuss paradoxes and contradictions of making art. Discussions of monetary and aesthetic value lead to considering how these systems are determined by time. This includes questions of labour cost, how much is time worth and by whom this is measured. These quantifications affect how we think – whether something is worthwhile or not worthwhile depends on criteria. Holding onto the concept of ‘not knowing’, of casting the yes/no and either/or paradigms aside, even if only temporarily as an impossible aim is hard. This is due to its slippery character as much as a self-conscious societal need for accountability. ’Pataphysics, is properly denoted with the apostrophe before the letter p, as if to close a previous speech mark and thus mark a metaphorical circularity, or to put it another way, an ending before a beginning. This circularity of intention is a primary characteristic of pataphysical thinking and which is frequently symbolised by the spiral form. The movement is similar to the palindrome, which is a paradoxical forward-backward relationship. This exhibition will illuminate their collaborative and shared concerns beginning with the notorious Still and Chew happening, when the formalist critic Clement Greenberg’s recently published collection of essays Art and Culture was systematically chewed to a pulp in 1966. Flanagan’s catch phrase ‘examine the facts’ provides a curatorial key. The private view card is based on an artwork advertisement Flanagan designed for the October 1970 Studio International magazine