Lucy CoggleA.A.A.A.27 April – 16 June 2012

A.A.A.A. is the second solo show by British artist Lucy Coggle and marks Chert first participation in the Berlin Gallery Weekend. In a moment that specifically centralizes and challenges galleries’ communication systems, Chert is pleased to present a project that chooses the manipulation of language and its divulgence as the core of its interest.

The exhibition comprises several new drawings and a video piece, and is accompanied by an artist’s book, titled An Argument Against A/R/T/I/C/U/L/A/T/I/O/N.
The project is a simultaneous celebration and denunciation of the very principle of dividing things up and giving them meaning – an homage to exaggeration, over-statement, abundance and possibility.
Articulation: the point where two things make contact/meet. Linguistically this is an elision of sound and meaning: the slip through the ear into the brain and thence the body. Anatomically, it is the malleable point of a joint; what if this malleability of the one were to infuse the certainty of the other? The slippery tip of the tongue licks words into meaning, phrases into life, slaps the soul of the feet to start the system.

Coggle’s work shows a poetic interaction with language and its aesthetic representation. In her work, ideas centered on the nature and use of language are tested and proposed in what she has developed as a signifying practice. In the modeling of language, Coggle’s work tends to be the result of a connection between possible articulation and the tangible absence of a protagonist speaking. The desire for language is felt simultaneously with a frustration in its limitations; it becomes a conglomeration of images and texts whilst moving in different and contradictory directions.

Despite the promise of an argument, neither the book nor the exhibition offer a single point of view. Rather, the work argues with itself, disputing the possibility of certainty or conclusion and offering polyphony. Even its form asserts disdain for conclusion – read the book one way and you have to flip it over to start again from the other end. A.A.A.A. proposes a polyglottal mix of writing and images which refuse to be precisely defined or held to a distinct conclusion.