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The Mall, SW1Y 5AH, London, United Kingdom
Open: Tue-Sun 12-8pm
Artist: Autumn Knight
I Can’t Complain is a solo exhibition by New York-based artist Autumn Knight. Featuring a new commission alongside recent work, this is the first major presentation of her work in the UK.
Knight’s interdisciplinary practice draws on theatre, psychology, improvisation and social exchange. Her exhibition at the ICA presents a new installation and performance work about the act of complaining: its pleasures, its frustrations, and its political potential. At a moment when questions of voice, authority, and participation are increasingly contested, I Can’t Complain opens a dialogue with audiences about how power is negotiated in everyday life, asking not how we can stop complaining, but what complaints make visible.
Across an audio and spatial installation and a selection of recent video works, Autumn Knight transforms the Lower Galleries into a space where complaint is given sustained attention. Characteristic of her practice, these works embrace humour, discomfort, and intimacy. The main gallery is dominated by a canopy of balloons, which are a recurring motif in the artist’s work, alongside architectural elements that frame a sound installation. For the latter, Knight recorded conversations with participants about their everyday irritations and grievances, revealing how seemingly minor dissatisfactions can expose larger social and systemic failings.
Knight studied drama therapy and theatre arts before pursuing performance practices within a contemporary art context. Her work often begins with a prompt or proposal that allows space for conflict and exchange. The video works in the back gallery present earlier iterations of her investigations into complaint that involved objects, collaboration with participants, and the prompt to share their annoyances. For I Can’t Complain, Knight extends this logic into new performance work that will punctuate the gallery space on dates throughout the exhibition’s run.
Solo performances by Knight will take place on 1, 12 and 15 October, alongside performances during November in collaboration with London-based artist Samra Mayanja, and the Brussels-based artistic duo Michelangelo Miccolis and nick von kleist.
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