Adam Chodzko

Born in 1965 in London, Adam Chodzko lives and works in Whitstable, Kent. His artworks explore the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour in the gap between how we are and how we could be.

Working across media, from video installation to subtle interventions, and with a practice that is situated both within the gallery and the wider public realm, his work explores and invents a collective imagination through a poetics of everyday life. By wondering how, through the visual, we might best engage with the existence of others he reveals the realities that emerge from the search for this knowledge.

Whether assembling individuals around an unlikely event, or intervening within the social and imaginary fabrics of a local community, Chodzko’s works challenge orthodox modes of perception and predetermined expectations through the strategic use of fiction, ritual and folklore. For the 2004 Frieze Art Fair commission programme, Chodzko produced “Nightshift”, a map plotting out alternative routes through the gallery booths according to various animals’ (a deer, a snake, a wolf…) trajectory across the fair ground at night. Chodzko’s work “White Magic” (2005) consisted in buying up all the green clothing at a local charity shop in Kent, and swapping the lot for a Brooklyn thrift store’s entire collection of red garments, thus staging an exchange based on color and gifting rather than economical gain.

Intimate collections and ephemeral communities are frequently generated through his works; assemblies of owners of a particular jacket and a reunion of the children 'murdered' in a Pasolini film; a god look-alike contest; lighting technicians asked to advise on the light in heaven; a London gallery's archive given to a group of Kurdish asylum seekers to edit and hide outside the capital; the multi-faceted "Design for a Carnival", the evolution of a ritual event for the future including "Settlement", the legal purchase of a square foot of land as a gift to a stranger and "M-path", the collection and distribution of perception-changing footwear for gallery visitors. More recently a trilogy science fiction video and mixed media works, "Hole", "Around" and "Pyramid", have all explored, the idea of art becoming a vehicle for a community’s collective mythology, whilst "Echo", "The Pickers" and "Ghost" elaborate these themes through excavating processes of memory, empathy and the imaginary. "Because", 2013 (at Tate Britain) and "We are Ready for your Arrival", 2013 (at Raven Row, London) further develop these ideas through manifestations of the unconscious relationships between individuals and groups; their excesses and disappearances.

Since 1991 Chodzko has exhibited extensively in international solo and group exhibitions including: Raven Row, London; Tate Britain; Tate, St Ives; Museo d'Arte Moderna, Bologna (MAMBo); The Benaki Museum, Athens; Athens Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, Venice Biennale; Royal Academy, London; Deste Foundation, Athens; PS1, NY; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Kunstmuseum Luzern etc. Recent projects include commissions by Creative Time, New York, The Contemporary Art Society, Frieze Art Fair, and Hayward Gallery and Tate Britain.
In 2002 he received awards from the Hamlyn Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York, and in 2007 was awarded an AHRC Research Fellowship in the Film Department at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
His work is in the collections of the Tate, The British Council, The British Film Institute, The Arts Council, APT, Auckland City Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Society Collection, The Creative Foundation, Frac Languedoc-Rousillon, GAM - Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Turin, Grizedale Arts, MAMBo - Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Plains Arts Museum, North Dakota, USA, Saatchi Collection, South London Gallery, Towner Gallery Eastbourne, and international private collections.

For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art