John Murphy

This catalogue was published alongside John Murphy's exhibition at Ikon, focusing on the artist’s practice of arrangement and intervention. He suggests that ‘the role of the artist is as much to find as to make work.’ Murphy has selected works from the The Barber Institute of Fine Arts collection and positioned these alongside his own works, in which he re-contextualised found images and text. Through juxtaposition, he creates subliminal associations and traverses disciplines such as painting, music and film.

Murphy draws on the process of accumulation, whereby the viewer retains memories of things that shape perceptions of other things yet to be encountered. For this exhibition, amongst other historical works of art, Murphy selected Gainsborough’s portrait of the celebrated singer and composer Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci and Manet’s etched portrait of Baudelaire. They were juxtaposed with work by him, referencing Federico Fellini and Marguerite Duras, in order to make poignant observations on the nature of human relationships. This catalogue includes colour reproductions of each of these works, as well as of other works from the Barber collection that featured in the show