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<h1> Signals Gallery (1964-66): An Auto-Destructive Art History </h1>
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<p>Exploring the legacy of the radical 1960s London gallery in
a group show curated by kurimanzutto, Mexico City, at Thomas
Dane, London</p>
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<div class="article-header-author-image"><a
href="https://www.frieze.com/contributor/philomena-epps">
<div style="width:100%; font-size:15px;
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BY <a href="https://www.frieze.com/contributor/philomena-epps">Philomena
Epps</a> in <a
href="https://www.frieze.com/listings-and-reviews"> <span
style="font-family:boldArticleFont;"> Reviews </span> </a>
| 09 JUL 18 </div>
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<p>Thomas Dane Gallery’s exhibition ‘Signals: If You Like I
Shall Grow’ takes its title from a poem by the Russian Soviet
Vladimir Mayakovsky that was printed in the second issue of <em>Signals
Newsbulletin</em>: ‘If you like, / I shall grow
irreproachably tender: / not a man, but a cloud in trousers!’
It accompanied visual documentation of David Medalla’s bubble
machine sculptures, <em>Cloud Canyons </em>(1963–77).</p>
<p>Newsbulletin was an experimental publication produced by
Signals London – an influential gallery that ran between
1964–66 – as a way of documenting their exhibitions, alongside
critical essays, poetry and reports on science and technology.
This illusory encounter between Medalla and Mayakovsky
embodies the playful, interdisciplinary trajectory of Signals
(originally named ‘The Centre for Advanced Creative Study’).
Its diverse and innovative programme brought together
avant-garde individuals and networks located across Europe,
the US and Latin America. Group shows were favoured and each
exhibition was referred to as a ‘pilot’: a means to generate
new ideas. Conceived by kurimanzutto co-founder Jose Kuri and
curated by art historian Isobel Whitelegg the exhibition
embodies Signals’s generative, expanded approach. Assembling
more than 80 works borrowed from public and private
collections, the show traces the diverse constellation of
moments, conversations and synergies within Signals’ short
lifetime and beyond.</p>
<figure role="group"><img alt="" data-entity-type="file"
data-entity-uuid="ce2a78bf-d554-4944-aa7c-11331a98ed43"
src="https://static.frieze.com/files/inline-images/web-14-0.jpeg"
class="landscape-img"><figcaption
class="landscape-image-caption caption-text">Original
Signals exhibition pamphlets, 1964–66. Courtesy: William
Allen Word & Image, London</figcaption></figure>
<p>The first part of the show, at 11 Duke Street, brings
together early work by Signals’ three founding artists:
Medalla, Gustav Metzger and Marcello Salvadori. (The other
founders were the critic Guy Brett and curator Paul Keeler.)
It also includes the elongated, blinking electric light
sculpture by Takis that gave the gallery its name (<em>Signal</em>,
1964). Video footage of Metzger’s <em>Auto Destructive Art</em>
(1965) creates a productive material parallel with Salvadori’s
<em>Untitled (Trace Project series)</em> of the same year: an
intriguing sculpture made from layers of bubbling and
crackling Perspex treated with acid. While Metzger and Medalla
are collected by institutions worldwide, Salvadori faded into
obscurity after the late 1960s, only showing once (at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts) after Signals closed. </p>
<figure role="group"><img alt="" data-entity-type="file"
data-entity-uuid="e3fa7996-b5cd-4bae-ad4b-ed6853f02422"
src="https://static.frieze.com/files/inline-images/web-installation-view-of-signals-if-you-like-i-shall-grow-kurimanzutto-hosted-by-thomas-dane-gallery-london-2018-image-courtesy-kurimanzutto-mexico-city.jpeg"
class="portrait-img"><figcaption
class="portrait-image-caption caption-text">Installation
view of 'Signals: If You Like I Shall Grow', kurimanzutto
hosted by Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2018. Courtesy:
kurimanzutto, Mexico City; photograph: © Plastiques
Photography</figcaption></figure>
<p>Lygia Clark’s small folded-matchbox maquettes (<em>Estructuras
de caixas de fósforus / preto / blanco</em>, Black / White
Matchbox Structures, 1964) share a vitrine with <em>Tres
Torres</em> (Three Towers, 1963–70) by Mathias Goeritz. The
Brazilian Clark and Mexican Goeritz never met, despite their
shared interest in architecture, so this incidental pairing
materializes an imaginary and significant connection. The use
of collage, repurposed paper and unconventional materials by
Alejandro Otero and Antonio Asis sparks a dialogue with
Russian constructivism. Two works by Otto Piene, co-founder of
the Zero Group, highlight how Signals was engrained within a
wider experimental network of artistic exchange and collective
ideas. Liliane Lijn’s<em> Double Drilling</em> (1961)
indicates her interest in molecular structures, the
relationship between positive and negative space and the
vibrating energy of the void.</p>
<p>The appropriation of scientific and mathematical concepts was
a recurring motif in Signals’ output, bridging various forms
of knowledge production. Multiplied forms and material
connections recur, with artists exploring sequences,
inversions and permutations. Mira Schendel’s <em>Untitled</em>
(from the series <em>Crosses and Vertices</em>) (1964–65) and<em>
Droguinhas</em> (1965–66) open the space at 3 Duke Street,
indicating her engagement with alternative paradigms,
motivated by philosophy, metaphysics and spiritual concerns.
Dom Sylvester Houédard – known simply as dsh – similarly
engaged with profound ideas, such as dis-ontology and
para-art, creating concrete poetry that he punched out on his
typewriter.</p>
<figure role="group"><img alt="" data-entity-type="file"
data-entity-uuid="c5b26a97-fb75-4de6-ab07-531c00074a21"
src="https://static.frieze.com/files/inline-images/web-5-4.jpeg"
class="portrait-img"><figcaption
class="portrait-image-caption caption-text">Mira Schendel, <em>Droguinhas
</em>(Little Nothings), 1965/66. Courtesy: Bergamin &
Gomide, São Paulo; photography: Ding Musa</figcaption></figure>
<p>The last section of the show at Thomas Dane is a response to
‘Soundings Three’, one of Signals’ final exhibitions, which
brought together works by London- and regionally based UK
artists. John Wells and Ivor Davies, whose large abstract
paintings and sculptural wall pieces are included here, would
continue to have careers as as professional artists. Other
polymaths, who worked beyond these neat artist circles,
disappeared, choosing academia or other creative paths.
Malcolm Carder – whose large, clear acrylic <em>Box</em>
(1969–70) appears like a modular line drawing in space –
became a scientific illustrator, later collaborating with
Stephen Hawking. The history of Signals, too, is a story of
evaporation. An auto-destructive art history, perhaps, yet one
that leaves a constellation of fragments, ready to be sparked
once again. </p>
<p><em><a
href="https://frieze.com/event/signals-if-you-i-shall-grow">Signals:
If You Like I Shall Grow</a> runs at Thomas Dane Gallery,
London until 21 July.</em></p>
<p><sub><em>Main image: Gustav Metzger, A Collection of Six
Documents by Gustav Metzger and/or DIAS (Destruction in
Art Symposium), 1961–66. Courtesy: William Allen Word
& Image, London</em></sub></p>
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