Testament
group show Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in London, UK
January 21 — April 3, 2022
![]()
Gossip does not want to be monumentalized. It slides between mouths, leaving no permanent mark, its authorship always unclaimed. At the same time, its residue is everywhere: in systems of belief, turns of phrase, and the physical infrastructure of information systems. Copper plates used for newspaper printing are one of the most tangible traces that gossip leaves behind, yet even these were generally melted down for reuse after their fleeting task was done. “Blind Item” imagines one such plate being preserved, not as a record of any particular piece of information but rather as an archive of the notion of rumor. The text, written by Asa Seresin, and image engraved on it are signs with no referent, an assemblage of glitches dedicated to rendering gossip as an end in itself.
![]()
Copper plates with emulsion etching, edition of 200 single-colour double-sided risograph prints on 120 gsm recycled paper, tabloid size.
![]()
Text by Asa Seresin
group show Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in London, UK
January 21 — April 3, 2022
Gossip does not want to be monumentalized. It slides between mouths, leaving no permanent mark, its authorship always unclaimed. At the same time, its residue is everywhere: in systems of belief, turns of phrase, and the physical infrastructure of information systems. Copper plates used for newspaper printing are one of the most tangible traces that gossip leaves behind, yet even these were generally melted down for reuse after their fleeting task was done. “Blind Item” imagines one such plate being preserved, not as a record of any particular piece of information but rather as an archive of the notion of rumor. The text, written by Asa Seresin, and image engraved on it are signs with no referent, an assemblage of glitches dedicated to rendering gossip as an end in itself.
Copper plates with emulsion etching, edition of 200 single-colour double-sided risograph prints on 120 gsm recycled paper, tabloid size.
Text by Asa Seresin
The exhibition features ‘proposal’ artworks by 47 artists, including those who are either resident in the UK, and those who are abroad but hold an understanding of the UK’s complex relationship with the past and present. Their contributions unambiguously or indirectly address the idea of a monument, or allude to the treatment of monuments in the UK in 2022, and seek to magnify a multitude of conversations, from discussions about decolonising institutions, fallism, dislocation, memorialising, remembering and forgetting, to our current relationship with history, along with some intimate and personal responses.
photos by Rob Harris, courtesy of Goldsmiths CCA