Barry Sykes retrospective at Plymouth Arts Centre

Plymouth Arts Centre is holding the first major show by artist Barry Sykes, and

The first major solo show by artist Barry Sykes is at the Plymouth Arts Centre from Saturday January 15, which is the result of his residency there in 2010.

The exhibition includes a variety of works from the last 10 years of his practice, including early pieces made at art school to new works produced in Plymouth. It borrows artwork back from private collections, plucks site-specific works out of their original context and presents other pieces that have never left his studio.

Although his diverse practice includes videos, watercolours, found objects, text pieces, social experiments and performance, Sykes considers all his works to be sculptural gestures.

Barry is always keen to explore contradiction and counter intuition and has chosen to use the galleries to present his first formal retrospective.

This exhibition has particular focus on his fascination with appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. He incorporates other people into his work, including friends, strangers, colleagues and members of his own family.

In The Dad Directives,  2008, Sykes emailed enigmatic instructions to his father to take certain photographs for him. The self-explanatory Impersonating A Part-Time Police Community Support Officer, 2007 – 2010, was recently enacted at Tate Modern, London. Untitled (Questioning Adults), 2007, was a private commission that lead to his forgery of a valuable Karel Appel painting from 1948.

Barry has described the opportunity to stage a retrospective at this point of his career as ‘a gesture to reclaim this valuable exhibition format from the more elderly, dead or successful artists who normally get to have them’.

The new works made in response to his time in Plymouth include a commissioned black and white photographic portrait with instruments he can’t play; a dubious YouTube inspired performance around the city centre, and an expanding talks programme compiled at http://keephimtalking.blogspot.com

As in its title, Barry sees this exhibition as a kind of visual anagram of his back catalogue so far. Simultaneously cryptic and candid, Recreate A Nervy Pistol? (An Early Retrospective) is an opportunity to see an overview of Sykes’ diverse output and intriguing working methods.

• Barry Sykes’ Recreate A Nervy Pistol? (An Early Retrospective) is at Plymouth Arts Centre from Saturday, January 15 to Sunday, February 27

(image: Barry Sykes, Impersonating A Part-Time Police Community Support Officer, 2007 – 2010. Performance work enacted at Tate Modern, London. Photo: Kevin Sykes.)

(from a press release)