Fergal Stapleton

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Fergal Stapleton (b.1961, Eire) is a contemporary artist living and working in London. Stapleton studied at Middlesex Polytechnic and graduated from the MA Programme at Goldsmiths College, London in 1993. Between 1994 and 1997 he collaborated on a number of works with Turner Prize nominee Rebecca Warren A retrospective of their work Material Culture; Sculpture from the 80s and 90s was exhibited at London's Hayward Gallery in 1997

Stuart Morgan on Stapleton’s 1993 show "His manner of entertaining us…the worst thing I have ever done." (Frieze, No. 10, May 1993): ‘The logic of dandyism as a mode of conceptual art assumes a view of the dandy not as engaged in a foppish, decadent pursuit but as an attempt to get over class distinction by creating one’s own aristocracy, doing what aristocrats do but doing it better, secure in the knowledge that their order and the natural superiority it implies is on a false premise.’

JJ Charlesworth on Stapleton’s 2007 show, "And a Door Opened", (TimeOut No. 1924): ‘Stapleton’s excellent show… produces a rare insight into the difference between images and objects, and how mere junk changes into art… They’re inches away, but seem to inhabit a distant, unattainably parallel universe. Stapleton is an often overlooked talent… often eclipsed by the raucous posturings of his YBA contemporaries. Compared with the tired bombast of Damien Hirst’s animal vitrines – pictures masquerading as objects – these extraordinary experiments in material transfiguration show how sculptural poetry is still alive and well… Stapleton’s great skill lies in showing how art works in the reordering of things known, producing new, unexpected value out of the slightest of means.’

Stapleton has been an occasional lecturer on the MA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has contributed to the art review section of TimeOut magazine (Nos. 1418 & 1421-1425).

Stapleton is represented by Carl Freedman Gallery, London, where he has had three solo shows, I Shall Arrive Soon in 2003, Stapleton Grey ( which he described as an exhibition of paintings of interior twilights, ash atmospherics, hope expressed in loose change, woozy surface mix-ups, semi-curious squints at uncertain shapes and irrelevant light-sources ) in 2006 and And a Door Opened in 2007.

[edit] Solo Exhibitions

And a Door Opened (Carl Freedman Gallery, 2007)
Stapleton Grey, (Counter Gallery, London, 2006)
I Shall Arrive Soon (Counter Gallery, London, 2003)
Crack Whore (Five Years, London, 2002)
Bad Ape Report (Neon gallery Billboard, London, 2001)
This (Platform, London, 2000)
Rank Cheeseboard (Five Years, London, 2000)
Riutsu Centre (Tokyo, 1996)
Tonight (The Agency, London, 1995)
His manner of entertaining us...the worst thing I have ever done, The Agency, London, 1993