A Wasp Killed by Magic

Notice
171 Deptford High Street
London SE8 3NU

Press Release

A Wasp Killed by Magic
Simon Davison
with
Charlie Woolley

17 February - 18 March 2006

Private View 16 February 6 – 9

A Wasp Killed by Magic is the inaugural exhibition at Notice, a new gallery in South London directed by Nicola Oxley & Nicolas De Oliveira. It begins a year-long project in which all exhibitions will revolve around a dialogue between two or more individuals. The first participant is chosen by the curatorial team, who, in turn, selects further collaborators; they may be other artists, curators, writers, architects or musicians. The aim is to foster explicit links between different practices, and to investigate how a common language can be established.

A Wasp Killed by Magic begins the series by linking the artist Simon Davison and the writer Charlie Woolley.

The work of Simon Davison is at once unique and familiar; familiar in that all the works in the exhibition are made up of the stuff that surrounds us – records, clocks, maps, string & fluff, balls, buildings and the city itself. Unique in the way Simon Davison re-presents these things.

In fact there are no actual works of art in the gallery at all. Only fragments, bits and pieces, which, when put together work as storytellers that point outwards, back into the city where all these things are commonplace. The hand of the artist is absent when these stories are told. What Simon Davison does is tell you where to look and when.

The objects seen in the gallery are just props, the titles are the works:
A Wasp Killed by Magic is what it says it is, but the words make the works portable so we can carry them with us. Each piece is compact, and reads like a book or a poem, or even a joke with a potent punch line that resonates and makes us smile again later when we are alone.