TateShots: Adam Chodzko
Adam Chodzko (born1965) works directly with the people and places that surround him, often peripheral communities that define themselves through their own rituals and folklore. Tate St Ives is the first public gallery in the UK to present a selected survey of Chodzko's work from the past seventeen years – over half of which has never been seen in the UK – alongside a major new commission produced especially for this show.
Chodzko uses a wide variety of media including video, performance, posters, sculpture, sound, photography and installation. His highly imaginative works draw on narrative, cultural and filmic traditions, often using the seductive but slippery device of storytelling to create a space pitched somewhere between documentary and fantasy, the extraordinary and the everyday.
Chodzko has produced a new installation especially for the Heron Mall at Tate St Ives that engages directly with the architecture of the building, as well as various communities living in and around the town. Other rooms are devoted to the multifaceted Design for a Carnival, an ongoing project that charts the evolution of a ritual event set in the future and which includes elaborate, handmade 'masks' for video and photographic cameras; a dub plate recording of the music from a future carnival float; and a burning pyre of baseball caps.
In addition, a selection of Chodzko’s recent video works will also be on display. A graduate of the MFA course at Goldsmiths, University of London, since 1991 Chodzko has exhibited widely all over the world. He lives and works in Whitstable, Kent.
