INTERVENTION/DECORATION
“Superb and quietly thought provoking” – Victoria MacDonald, Editor, Artworld Magazine
Intervention/Decoration was a major multi-sited contemporary art exhibition set in the historic market town of Frome, Somerset, featuring internationally recognised visual artists in May and June 2008. The project consisted of new commissions made specifically for Frome by Eva Berendes (Germany), Michael Dean (UK), Ruth Ewan (UK), Jim Isermann (USA), Cornelia Parker (UK), Lawrence Weiner, (USA) and Richard Woods (UK). The newly commissioned works were set in explicit dialogue with Frome’s historical context, social structures and diverse publics through the artists’ engagement with the town and its inhabitants in the creation of the works and through the curatorial strategies used to match specific artists with specific sites.
Although the terms intervention and decoration both have an established relation to ideas of public space, they would commonly be understood to be the opposite of each other. Intervention/Decoration seeks to collapse this polarity with decoration used as a radical intervention in the fabric of the town and interventions as celebratory as they are challenging.
Intervention/Decoration was sited throughout Frome, taking over both interior sites and declaring itself in the public outdoor spaces of the town. Artists were carefully matched with specific spaces in the town to produce work that would engage, challenge and inspire, transforming established cultural venues, re-imagining previously neglected sites and making the exhibition’s concerns legible within the everyday fabric of Frome’s public realm.
The commissions were accompanied by substantial education, outreach and interpretation programmes designed in collaboration with local partner organisations.
“The overall quality of the exhibition is of a standard rarely seen in a city let alone a town like Frome. A genuine engagement with and sensitivity towards its context is evident, and to attract artists of this calibre is an impressive achievement.”
– David Trigg, a-n Magazine, July/Aug 2008
“The division between intervention and decoration is overcome by a form of poetic transformation of place…. In Frome this experience is translated onto the whole town, and is at once exhilarating and disconcerting.”
– Colin Glen, Art Monthly, June 2008
“The landscape of Frome has been transformed and it will never look the same.”
– Karen Wright, Phillips Art Expert.com, May 2008
Learning, Interpretation & events
2488 people participated in an extensive range of activities in the education, outreach and interpretation programmes in 60 sessions.
5000 copies of a substantial children’s guide were distributed, including 2700 directly to every child in a first or middle school in Frome directly by their school.
39 volunteers participated in formal work placements and volunteering opportunities varying between a commitment of 3 days to 5 months.
Intervention/Decoration was also accompanied by an in-depth Learning programme designed to create exciting activities for young people in education, community groups and excluded and disadvantaged sections of the local community. Activities included guided talks and practical workshops, extended projects with artists, new contexts for national curriculum subjects for schools and placements to increase skills, confidence and community contribution. This programme was designed and delivered in partnership with a diverse range of partner organisations in the statutory education sector and in social provision.
For further information and full coverage of the Intervention/Decoration project, follow the link here
