PALLET SHOW (SPAL)
Curated by Daniel Pryde-Jarman and Nat Pitt
Pallet Show is a curatorial project consisting of a number of handmade wooden pallets, which function as a platform or plinth for displaying sculptures or other curated works by invited artists.
The first iteration, PALLET SHOW 12, took place in the Sculpture Court of The Manchester Contemporary art fair, November 2023.
The pallets are themselves artworks, exploring the line between minimalist sculpture and functional objects. Sculptures that also have the capacity to perform a function, and an experiment in how art objects might be (re)purposed to take on the role of support structures or hosts for other works and ideas within an exhibition context.
Pallet Show is informed by the mass transit of artworks in the art market and global economy, and the logistics of their movement from, to, and between, sites of storage and display. Pallets are signifiers of trade that wear the markings of the workings of these interconnected systems.
Pallet Show blurs the distinction between the movement and storage of works and their means of display and aesthetic within an exhibition, which can appear provisional, in transit, and under construction.
The project is inspired by the forms and legacy of minimalist sculpture, including the furniture sculptures of Donald Judd, ‘simulated readymades’ of Fischli and Weiss, and Seth Siegelaub’s curatorial projects.
