Outset supported Brazilian artist Alexandre da Cunha's solo exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, bringing together a series of new works completed during his residency in June 2009. The installation incorporating both mop heads and coconut casts, functioned both as sculpture and social space.
In his works da Cunha improvises on the concept of the readymade, reusing everyday objects such as job lots from pound shops, surplus fabrics and recycled goods to reflect on their specific histories and aesthetics. Da Cunha often employs craft based techniques, collaborating with wool spinners and dyers for example, to transform his materials from their humble beginnings into sculptural objects. Yet throughout this process the materials maintain a definite sense of their original identity. Their inexpensive nature combines with the contingent, apparently casual functionality of the sculptures themselves, suggesting a wider critique of a world built upon the cheap and the disposable.
The artwork Red Fountain was donated to the Arts Council Collection, UK, on behalf of Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
