Making It

The Box’s first-ever contemporary art exhibition was staged from September 2020 until September 2021 across multiple spaces at The Box. It featured the work of five international artists: Leonor Antunes (Portugal), Christopher Baker (USA), Alexandre da Cunha (Brazil), Eva Grubinger (Austria) and Camille Walala (France/UK).

'Making It' referenced Plymouth’s history as a city of makers and crafts people and explored the labour intensive and wrought nature of manufacturing and fabricating works of art. It also included 'readymades', where artists re-appropriate existing objects to reveal overlooked form, beauty and mystery, inviting audiences to see them with a new perspective.

The featured artists

Leonor Antunes: sequences, inversions and permutations

Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes has represented her country at the Venice Biennale in 2019, a world renowned contemporary visual arts festival. Her practice explores the possibilities of sculpture to connect with architecture and design. Melding the unfamiliar with the familiar, the painstaking, considered nature of her work also provides a timely counter-balance to our increasingly digitised, fast-paced world.

Christopher Baker: Hello World!

Chicago-based artist Christopher Baker’s work addresses the complex relationship between modern society and its technologies. Originally trained as a computer scientist, Baker is inspired by the interconnectivities, both visible and invisible, present in the 21st-century human landscape and the practical implications of our increasingly networked lifestyles.

Alexandre da Cunha: Figurehead II

Brazilian artist Alexandre da Cunha’s practice is predominantly based around the “readymade”, whereby he appropriates and subtly changes found objects, revealing their inherent if overlooked form, beauty, and mystery, inviting audiences to see often quite mundane items from our day-to-day surroundings with a new perspective.

Eva Grubinger: Fender

Austrian artist Eva Grubinger is an internationally recognised sculptor and installation artist. For over a decade she has focused on the diverse signifying potential of everyday objects, drawn from spheres including seafaring and sailing, architecture, the stage of politics, minimal and conceptual art.

Camille Walala: Putting Things In Perspective