Fraser Whiting (he/him)
Fraser Whiting is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. He is interested in how artists are depicted in contemporary culture and what objects can tell us about the world we live in.
Works
Fraser Whiting’s Undergraduate Degree Show 2022 [Install Images + Press Release]
Press Release
Fraser Whiting
31 May – 12 June
We are proud to introduce Fraser Whiting’s first show with The Gallery.
Whiting is drawing together objects and artefacts that refer to the display mechanisms of
spaces beyond the art institution, whilst critiquing those within it and what constitutes art.
To write about Fraser’s work is to inhabit these contexts and therefore be subsumed into
this meta-consultation with the viewing space and the act of assertion that is calling
something art.
Removing original contexts is a part of Whiting’s process – and so the coconut drink and
calendar are placed out of reach. Plinth-hood is doctrine.
Chroma is important to this exhibition too and Whiting’s paintings allude to subtle
selections, such as off-white. In this vein an academic approach to the activity of painting
also incorporates a trip to Wickes. These works are at once critiques of Modernism, colour
swatches and a foray into retail. The show is both trade fair and high art, with Whitings
paintings cradling objects and shelving that propose our consumership. To engage with
Whiting’s work is to code-switch.
In 1969, Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote the Maintenance Art Manifesto, in which she
described development as ‘pure individual creation’ and maintenance as keeping ‘the
dust off the pure individual creation.’
Just saying.
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This press release is available in multiple fonts on application. Please submit your request,
stating your preferred font family, in no more than 1000 words.
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This press release has been outsourced for several reasons:
– When a service is outsourced it allows for the ability to share risks and split responsibilities associated with the service.
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– Outsourcing allows more time and resources to focus on other aspects of an arts practice, while still meeting the expectations of a viewer in an exhibition space.
The above press release has been outsourced to Dr Zoë Mendelson by Fraser Whiting with the short criteria listed below:
– Minimum 200 words. No maximum word count.
– To be sent as a Word file or PDF.
– No restrictions on what form or content the press release may be.
Shelfie [creative writing]
There’s a riddle about a potato… I have eyes but cannot see.
My perspective of being in this show is muddied by this riddle. It’s hard to take a really good look at the work. And my potato-ness is also in question.
I am a compound noun of a thing. And have noticed new developments in this area. As potatobrush I am attuned to these things and developments of language that affect how I am discussed.
Housebarrassment is one of these compounds – an adjective – coined when we were all looking in at each others’ homes on zoom. I fix nailbarrassment, I suppose.
Last year, when I was still in retail and not yet art, I overheard a conversation about an ad for a jewellery designer. In this ad, the model’s nails were painted to look dirty. She was to be an at-work real-person with to-die-for dirt and gorgeous jewellery. We can all be tidied up for display.
It’s nearly opening time and my shelf is clean. I have no desire to be peered at but understand that this will relieve me from my prescribed purpose. It is unclear how I will, myself, be cleaned and preserved but I am aware that I no longer function as the cleaner and preserver of others. A status change perhaps and certainly a further remove from a potato.
I am not a working dog but a show dog.
Among us, when we were once a litter of potato-brushes gathered for sale, there was a smugness.
We could be dutiful. There were rumours of another type of non-potato, with sticky-out plastic
arms and legs, a hat and an impermanent tongue. It’s a relief to, at least, sit closer to the earth
than that.
