Augusta Vinall Richardson: Temporary Configurations

Temporary Configurations is a major new body of work by Augusta Vinall Richardson that examines the tensions between temporariness, permanence, autonomy and support. For the artist, these concerns are inseparable from both material and social conditions, operating within a socio-material field in which objects, bodies, and relations are entangled, propped up, sustained and understood through one another.

The exhibition presents sculptures in corten steel, bronze and stainless steel alongside wall-mounted works made of cardboard, rags, lunch bags, and glue. Once functioning as maquettes or templates for metal sculptures, these ‘temporary’ constructions are re-positioned here as fully resolved works, engaging with Celine Condorelli’s concept of the ‘fantasy of the object as freestanding’. [1] In a similar vein, the sculptural logic underpinning Temporary Configurations situates the provisional and the permanent in lateral dialogue, foregrounding support as both a legitimate subject and a necessary material condition, rather than something that ought to be concealed or withdrawn.

—Brigid Moriarty