What You Need to Know: This fall, London-based gallery Alma Pearl will present “Cullinan Richards: Retrospective.” Opening on September 27 and on view through November 2, 2024, the show is the first by the two-artist group since the gallery announced their representation. The exhibition, overlapping with Frieze London, will be accompanied by two collateral events, both taking place on October 6 coinciding with Frieze East End Day, set to celebrate the city’s vibrant and dynamic art scene. At 11 a.m., the artists will be in conversation with curator and writer Lisa Le Feuvre at the gallery. Later, at 1 p.m., Cullinan Richards will welcome visitors to their studio for a “Social Sculpture with Spaghetti and Ice Cream,” wherein the artists will act as hosts, as both they and the participants will be part of the new artwork via dialogue and collective experience. RSVP is required for each event.
About the Artist: First collaborating in 1998 under the name ArtLab, artist duo Cullinan Richards is comprised of members Jeanine Richards and Charlotte Cullinan. The duo mine prescient themes around lived experience, personal and collective histories, and interpersonal relationships to create works that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. Using their work to question the power dynamics and inherent structures—real and conceptual—of exhibiting art, their practice challenges commonly held assumptions around reality and out place within it. Their work has been exhibited widely within the United Kingdom, and internationally, as at the 6th Sharjah International Biennial (2003), and is held in several public and private collections, including the Arts Council Collection, U.K., and the Imago Mundi Collection, Italy.
Why We Like It: Staged across the entirety of Alma Pearl’s exhibition spaces and featuring both new and historical work, the “Retrospective” offers an unparalleled, immersive look at the duo’s wide-ranging and materially diverse practice, as well as insight into the evolution of their visual language. Whether working in painting, sculpture, or performance, their material vernacular reflects a deep commitment to the thematic, experiential elements of their work, such as family, social, political, and geopolitical concerns, or psychological states. In effect, the themes become as much the medium of their work as the tangible or performative elements. And true to their practice, the retrospective itself on the whole interrogates “the politics of display and the production of art in a post-studio context,” bolstered by the accessory event to be held in their studio; no moment or vignette within the exhibition is neutral. Together, the retrospective plays with line between reality and make believe, ultimately spotlighting the mutable nature of each.
See featured works below.
Cullinan Richards, Competition for women’s team pursuit is turning into a clash of generations (2011-2024). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
Cullinan Richards, Ghost Technology (with dust sheet) (2024). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
Cullinan Richards, Formal Effects (2024). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
Cullinan Richards, Vertical Realism Lamp (2009). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
Cullinen Richards, Collapse into abstract (black) (2007). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
Cullinan Richards, Ian Poulter wore shocking pink (2010). Photo: Reliant Imaging. Courtesy of the artists and Alma Pearl, London.
“Cullinan Richards: Retrospective” is on view at Alma Pearl, London, September 27–November 2, 2024.
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