The Story of the RIO (Abridged)

6th May—6th June '10

Coinciding with three Latham shows in London this spring* Flat Time House presents two studies for John Latham's epic 20 panel work Story of the RIO.


The 'RIO' of the title is the 'Reflective Intuitive Organism' and the works describe the evolution of human knowledge and culture, beginning with a blank, white panel and ending with a complex book relief.

"In Story of the RIO (reflective intuitive organism) a sequence of 18 panels depicts the development of a complex universe containing RIOs from a proto universe. John used transparent glass, his third important medium/material, to signify an atemporal score or informing component of events. A transparent glass panel followed by a plain white panel represents the proto universe consisting of a state 0 followed by a state 1, or Least Event. And the remainng panels in the sequence represent highlihgted evenometric steps. The final panel is a book relief in which a reflective intuitive organism appears as one book cluster along with other clusters representing a merely reflective organism and a nonreflective organism."
Noa Latham, 'Quantum of Mark and Least Event: The interaction of John Latham's art and ideas', in Time-Base and the Universe, John Hansard Gallery, 2006.

Story of the RIO refers back to a series of works Latham made between 1959-60 called the Observer Reliefs. In these works, the three elements stand in for three states of human existence. Latham used the three protagonists of the Dostoyevsky novel 'The Brothers Karamazov' (1880) to explain these states. Mitya is the instinctive being, whose behaviour is genetically determined and non-reflective. The Ivan state is more ordered and represents the rational being, at once empowered and limited by their intellectual state and learnt knowledge. The most enlightened, Alyosha state, is the reflective/intuitive being who can encompass the characteristics of the other two but also has the ability to observe things as a whole and is capable of original thought - this person sees things from the perspective of a longer 'time-base'.

A library of catalogues and publications on John Latham and a video library of Latham's films and interviews will be available during the exhibition.

SPECIAL EVENT

OK - a play in five acts

Sunday 16 May, 4pm

Artist & curator Per Huttner and curator & art critic Fatos Ustek invite you to join them at Flat Time House at 4pm on Sunday 16th of May, 2010. Ustek and Huttner have been investigating the conditions of knowledge in a non-ordinary reality, imagining zero Kelvin (absolute zero) as a point of reference. Through a conversation examining their own artistic and curatorial practices they will share thoughts on black holes, traveling at the speed of light, being at 0 Kelvin, and time as a construct, mapping change in the course of knowledge as such.

This event is free, but please email us to book a place as space is limited.

info@flattimeho.org.uk

SEE MORE OF JOHN LATHAM IN LONDON

* This display of works by John Latham coincides with three other Latham shows in London this Spring:

John Latham: THE LISSON GALLERY DOES NOT EXIST FOR 100 YEARS
5 May - 5 June 2010
Lisson Gallery
http://www.lissongallery.com

John Latham: Anarchive
2 April - 5 September 2010
Whitechapel Gallery
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/john-latham-anarchive

John Latham works 1958 1995
5 May - 11 Jun 2010
Karsten Schubert
http://www.karstenschubert.com/exhibitions/_133/