SIB is delighted to present Communal Juicing by Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau; an exhibition of new sculpture and drawings and his first solo show with the gallery.

Communal Juicing showcases recent work focusing on the connection between the concept of abjection and current discourse around objects, with the work sitting uncomfortably in the gap between things and representations of things; exploiting the inherent instability of cultural materials produced and maintained by language.

The Cheesedough Series (on the tables) and The Protuberance Series (on the wall) are sculptural objects made from materials designated as culturally abject, including cheese puffs, semen, the protein supplement Creatine, super strong cider, vegetable oil, ash, pubic hair, and grape soda. Displayed in groups, they reference bodily forms and monumental sculpture. Alongside these sculptural works are Drawings From an Infinitely Ongoing Series Cataloguing Every Object, both Real and Imaginary, in The Entire Universe. These pen on paper drawings are taken from a continuing body of work featuring "real" versions of objects ranging from Beef to Lars von Trier; Success to Minidiscs. Each drawing in this series claims to depict a “real” object – that being the inaccessible thing-in-itself rather than the phenomenological surface that we can access through our senses. According to this logic we may refer to a1970’s American soft rock band as “Steely Dan”, but Steely Dan is actually more like a lumpy ball topped with a fleshy antenna.

In addition to these works, and hiding from view under a table, is a cluster of glazed ceramic versions of the object drawings; acting as representations of the actual objects depicted. The shifting cultural designation of clay as a material (as functional or decorative, as craft or art) inflects the form of the objects – works unsure as to how they relate to both the thing they represent, and to the viewer observing them.

As a prelude to this show, de Kersaint Giraudeau presented Communal Juicing (preexhibition performance) - a durational performance work with two actors, a film crew and a masticating, cold press Omega 8006 juicer. Working through the relationships between desire, consumption and abjection, the performance formed a point of naked conceptual singularity from which the exhibition is trying to escape.

Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau (b.1985, Colchester) creates sculptures, drawings, performances and films. His work addresses abject materials, negative affective states, and the ambiguities of language and objects. Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau was an Associate of Open School East, 2013-2014. He runs The Bad Vibes Club, which is a research project into Morbid Ethics, writes a blog about art and ideas at ashortdescriptionofmypoo.co.uk and collaborates with Ben Jeans Houghton as the ARKA group. He lives and works in London.