Clear Sight

The curatorial and editorial project for systems, non-objective and reductive artists working in the UK

Clear Sight | Sluice Art Fair, London | 2015

Clear Sight, Sluice Art Fair 16-18 Oct 2015 Oxo Tower, South Bank, London.

Clear Sight presents a reductive approach to art practice, by six artists working today in the UK. Their practices explore the tradition of international minimalism, which originated in the 20th century. Practitioners from that period left a significant legacy; their place in art history is acknowledged through their contribution to a new understanding of making and seeing art. Ad Reinhardt, whose reductive, almost all-black paintings anticipated a wider adoption of minimalist standards, reflected on the values of a reductive approach: “The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is. More is less. Less is more. The eye is a menace to clear sight.”

This exhibition shows a selection of work by contemporary artists who all adopt a reductive position in the context of current art practice. ‘Reduction’ as a term is not limited to defining a single artistic movement, but the threads or references contained within the semiotics of their work demonstrate a consistency - in the use of geometric metaphor, iconographic presence, systems-related elements, and a number of other characteristics associated with the methodology of constructivism and its stylistic/intellectual descendants. The exhibition seeks to demonstrate that this genre has a strong, ongoing presence and that its traditions continue to be developed and explored.