Consequences. Whitehall Waterfront, Leeds, 29th March - 11th April, 2006.

Press Release:

After a departure into art interventions, performance and publications, Leeds based art group Black Dogs revisit the exhibition format with a fresh and ambitious hat on. Using the terrifically Manhattan-esque K. Linfoot gallery space on Whitechapel Rd, artists Andy Abbott, Eleanor Johnson, Lawrence Molloy, Jon Slight and Dave Ronalds will create a series of works that feed in to one another to create a holistic art experience that the viewer can not fail to engage with through to the end.

Thanks to the space's generous size Black Dogs are able to capitalise on the opportunity to up the ante (and size) of their work. Those familiar with the group's populist everyday-politics and pro-participatory focus will not be disappointed to find that the viewer plays an essential role in the functioning of the exhibition, despite its formal setting. In fact, the exhibition can be seen as an 'art production line' where the audience are responsible for setting the wheels in motion and share responsibility for its maintenance during their 'viewing'. This is anti-passive art; don't expect to find any leather contemplation coaches.

Upon entering the exhibition the viewer is first asked to write down a secret to be entered in to Abbott's 'Patented Secret Machine'. The note will be hidden in a ball and placed in a vending contraption. The participant pulls a lever and is magically provided with an identical ball containing an earlier participant's secret. It is now time to don Dave Ronald's special fluffy shoe covers and walk over a thoroughfare of waxed metal to take position at a golfing tee, inadvertently polishing the artist's floor-based piece. Participants get their chance to putt the secret-filled ball on Lawrence Molloy's extravagant and deceptively difficult, purpose built, crazy art-golf course. Success is inevitable and the player's next step is to enter Eleanor Johnson's bureaucracy corner, where the secret contents of their ball will be transcribed and filed. A sealed duplicate copy is handed over to the participant and the general subject will be divulged aurally. The final act of engagement requires the audience member to broadcast the subject of their secret in one word on John Slight's giant text display board that adorns the opposite end of the gallery. They leave the gallery with a sealed secret whose value will be destroyed once opened, but whose subject may be too intriguing not to.

"In this exhibition we wanted to work together on something that demands the viewer's attention rather than politely requests it" explains Andy Abbott. "Our experiences with events and interventions have brought us to a point where we realise that the best way for an audience to understand (an art) process is to do it. It's meant to be fun and simple. We like the absurd and believe it can reveal greater truths easily skipped over in today's culture. Hopefully everyone will enjoy themselves, engage with the work and leave feeling like they've had an opportunity to do something that they can apply to their everyday lives. Obviously polishing, playing, and writing is just the start of that."