Yes And

Robert Cervera and Peter Lamb continue their collaboration by making new works in response to the MOCA London Project space for their September exhibition. Through a repeated process of casting, painting, photography, printing and layering, their works becomes hybrids between their two practices. Cervera pushes the materiality of concrete and has made a series of folded sculptures in response to the MOCA’s library. Conical forms are shaped from Lamb’s painterly prints that pick up pigments from his photographs. The pieces are worked and re-worked, in a repeated process of change. Digital images are assembled, photographed and reconstructed by Lamb. Lamb builds up his images from layered details of the sculptures, paintings, and various materials. Cervera then casts new sculptures on the prints leaving a thin layer of concrete as an imprint on the surface.

Yes And, a game of improvisation, is a continuous feed going back and forth where the “Yes” invites possibilities for continuous play. The ‘And’ further builds on the set forms. As Cervera and Lamb continue this play of “Yes and” their work develops into an endless shift of exchanges, permutations and structures. Through these dialogues, the line between their practices are erased and they become a third form, a merging of the two. It is impossible to tell where the starting point began, and which material shaped the other. Each photograph becomes sculptural as the concrete sets, like a veil on the surface, making a layered sculptured print from the 2-dimensional material. Their working method constitute a series of non-identical repetition of the same material. This “repetition of the same” (Geoff Bennington) gives the possibility of something new.

From a series of 19 photos they picked one to be re-photographed and upscaled to fill one side of the space. Taking over the architecture, the photograph over-powers the space (3.5 x 4.6 meters square) while drawing us closer to the finer details. The viewer oscillates between the macro photograph and the micro details of the sculptures placed within the books on the shelves. The photograph embodies the space and we become physically “immersed” by its presence. The enlarged image brings out details that would have been overlooked in its original print, but without stepping back we cannot see it in its entirety. The work was made specifically for the MOCA space and is not meant to be seen from a great distance. This forces us to shift ourselves in the gallery to take in the whole image but also to get closer to see the subtle nuances.

Just like texts are transmuted into stories of books, the pigments from the prints and cement have transmuted into conical folded sculptures. Sections of the MOCA books have been removed by Cervera and small sculptures positioned in their place. Like the spine of the books, the sculptures suggest unfolding narratives. The photographs have been transferred onto the concrete surface and are bringing new readings to the images. Shaped and folded, the complete sculptures can’t be seen from one angle and parts are concealed as they are folded into their own centre.

Placed on the floor are a set of hybrid sculptures of the prints and concrete. Here, the two opposite materials have become morphed with each other creating both a solid and fragile proposition of structures.

There is repetition of folds in the Yes And exhibition. Paints are folded on surfaces, prints marked with repeated folds and sculptures curved into flowing forms. There is a rhythmic momentum between these works suggesting an evolving dialogue between Cervera and Lamb where there is neither an end nor a beginning.