In O Fontana, we encounter some of the mongrel artefacts and unstable categories of the Institution. We are introduced to a series of sculptures, presented as photographs, under the heading Monuments to United Artists & Other Record Labels. Each of these sculptures is extrapolated from the emblematic logo of a record label, possibly identifiable, but occluded somewhat by other recognitions. The sculptures are assembled as stacks using found and made things (broken, defunct, expendable, mimicked). Arbitrary points of contingency are exploited so that categories can bleed (Fontana Records becomes related to Lucio Fontana via a fountain of chocolate). The first of a series of paintings is exhibited, under the heading (Flawed) Paintings of Surface Patterns, in which the signature monochrome design of the Black Magic chocolate box is refurled over the front and sides of a stretched canvas.

Price draws upon the history of the readymade, the surrealist photograph, the documents of conceptual art and the rhetorics of institutional critique, but is interested in collapsing remainders of these back into a mess of social history, as ghostly, damaged detritus, impossible to distinguish amongst the stuff of an unredeemed world. Ideas of grotesque assembly are borrowed from Gothic literature, whilst the cinematic construction of space ships (Dark Star, 2001) - fictional places we know in common - inspires the conceit of ‘building’ a parallel place, an Institutional habitat which might be both recognisable and estranged.

Price finds a point of connection between John Carpenter, Andrea Fraser, JG Ballard, Marcel Broodthaers and Fritz Lang in identifying what the space inside an institution feels like, which shapes the atmosphere of this Institutional structure – a tense, airless zone. In a video entitled “WELCOME” we are invited to enter in. The first in a planned series of videos, this work opens in the ‘Atrium’, and features the Monument to Fontana Records, a fountain: a heap of shoddy and beautiful things, spouting glistening bile.

Elizabeth Price lives and works in London. She recently exhibited in Strange Events Permit Themselves the Luxury of Occurring, curated by Steve Claydon at Camden Arts Centre; and The Affirmation, curated by Andrew Hunt at Chelsea Space. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include At the House of Mr X, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston, 2007; and A Public Lecture & Exhumation at Studio Voltaire, London, 2006. Price has a forthcoming solo exhibition at Spike Island in May 2009, and is represented by MOT International.

This project has been generously funded by The Elephant Trust and the Arts Council.