Out Of Office
— Lisbon
2019




PADA studios are delighted to present Out Of Office, a group exhibition that brings together six international artists; Luke Burton, Mark Corfield-Moore, Adrien Missika, Teresa Braula Reis, Jamie Fitzpatrick and Thomas Langley. Comprising of painting, sculpture, weaving and moving image, the exhibition explores notions of leisure and labour within artistic practices.

Out Of Office starts from the simple observation that in our present society, confusion can be made between the notions of employment and work. Although both are closely related, employment is paid work subject of a contract, while work is an activity that contributes to the common good.

Nowadays, everyone might not be employed but the majority might be working. Thus, a person actively engaged in an association works, a volunteer who gets involved in the life of their community works, even a mother who raises her children at home works; but they won’t receive any financial contribution.

In the art industry this is something very common. Artists can spend days and nights working on a painting or a sculpture. As long as they do not sell one of their pieces they will not receive any remuneration. One could say that it is for this reason that art is often subsidized and that artists can be paid through public or private subsidies. Yet every year, the budgets allocated to culture are constantly being cut.

In parallel, employment is commonly seen as labour. To pay for the necessity of life and to be able to enjoy leisure time. But what happens when this line blurs? Are you working when you are enjoying what you are doing? Can you call it labour to be on holiday? When does your working day start when you are an artist? And when do you consider yourself ‘on annual leave’ or ‘out of office’?

Curated by Alice Bonnot, this exhibition invites artists whose practices illustrate these different points of view and explores what are the boundaries between leisure and labour within artistic work.




PADA
— 12 May to 9 June 2019

Artists

Luke Burton
Teresa Braula Reis
Mark Corfield-Moore
Jamie Fitzpatrick
Thomas Langley
Adrien Missika

Curator
Alice Bonnot

Assistant
Anouk Chardot




Exhibition views, PADA, 2019




Alice Bonnot  〰️ ➰