Dan Howard-Birt is an artist and curator in pursuit of answers that never seem to come.
An articulate and energetic presence, his presentation of his work began with an image of Georges Braque's "The Studio (V)" remarking on the presence of the bird in the chaotic hum of objects as a continuous narrative that he relates to in his own practice. What followed was a series of images of other painter's work, leading the audience into his ongoing enquiry of what picture making may be, and the idea of non human representation.
Howard-Birt recreated Poussin's "Dance to the music of time", painting a constellation of citrus fruit, with the insertion of a postcard of the original painting serving as a "key" to the meaning of the image. Bold and joyous, this playful interpretation of the image dances with the idea of the human presence inferred by objects rather than the human form. To illustrate this he offers Fischi and Weiss' 1980 photograph "An accident", in which frankfurter motorcar's collide in a humorous representation of a humourless experience, and leading into an exploration of Howard-Birt's interest in the embodied vs the disembodied.
He asks questions about weight, distance, and perspective, explaining that many of his paintings are made with a gaze from above, challenging the notion that looking at a painting at eye level is "Sufficient" to gather the information and impression that a piece of work could offer.
Howard-Birt has an interest in "the found narrative" rather than one created by the artist themself, leading to the use of book covers and postcards in his work, symbolic of potential, and the provision of a visual key to cerebral content.
As a curator, a holistic and spontaneous attitude becomes clear in the ever shifting dynamics of the shows Howard-Birt is involved in. The word "Potentiality" is often used to describe what excites him in an artist, space or piece, leading him to engage with the shifting space, the shifting piece, and shows in which the assembling or disassembling of the space becomes a part of the work itself. The show becomes an extension of a conversation between artists, rather than the culmination of it, and rejects the constraints of the "apparatus of the institution" including the restrictive white cube format.
Howard - Birt utilises his own uncertainty to make and curate work which is boldly performative, luring the viewer into a scene which may behave casually, but has a clear and intentional design. His energetic curiosity seems to fuel a practice framed by the double take, inviting an engagement with work that goes beyond the first glance, or the cover of a book.
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