A sequence which corresponds
Union Gallery Before / After
94 Teesdale Street, London, E2 6PU

13/05/2016 - 30/06/2016
Curated by Rosanna Puyol



'A sequence which corresponds' is an act of re-allocation.
A question of space as a value and a subsequent aim to divert the viewer into a situation where this becomes an evident focal point.

"Don't leave bulk storage as a last undertaking and forget it. Place it somewhere in the building where it costs less than other rooms - because, of course, it doesn't need a finish."

The sequence performs an action. By re-allocating the content of the gallery's storage room back into the gallery, Berger frees up space. An otherwise utilitarian prosaically functional room is re-appropriated as the exhibition space.
Is the pre-determined standardised circumstances within which we normally view art a prerequisite for an optimal experience?
By diverting the flow into a cellar storage Berger makes room for a new active work, where artworks were once resting passive, existing only as a commodity in waiting. These works are activated again by their removal and re-housing, brimming in the gallery, still in a wrapped, sheltered state. This is an act that helps pose the question of correlation between a value of a room and its direct assumed value, by default, assigned to any matter placed in this room.

Can the gallery ever really become a resolutely practical room?

Berger both removes and adds to the main gallery space. Removal of the former identity, the gallery's recognisable graphic vinyl covering the street view window, now shows a void between glass and and the unfinished facade of the back of the parallel wall. What once was a statement in covering is now equally so in the material reveal of something considered imperfect and lacking in appropriate finish.

'Adhering to normative standards' is a performance as presence. The Director and her assistant. The evident hierarchy between the two roles lends itself to strengthening the questions posed. The stilted interactions between the two and the visitor and the lending of this illusion of authority to securing the first question. Is the initial appreciation that of installation or accumulation?
As a consequence Berger asks the visitor to take an alternate route, diverting the flow in limited numbers next door, down a few flights of stairs into a new mode of viewing.
By removing the viewing en mass she aims to place emphasis on a spacial awareness removed from a socially heavy labour.

"In a circle one can become intensely aware of oneself"

Here, you can tune into the new circumstance, allowing an unexplored situation, both architecturally and intellectually to heighten the senses. Now ready for a two-take commentary on the situation in which you stand. The actor is a temporary mediator as she delivers a monologue with the artist as the unseen but present author. An easily overlooked artefact in the shape of a shirt hangs outside the most private of domains, a door which remains locked; Berger's temporary residence.

Documentation






































I discreetly increase the awareness of your own body in this space, feel free to individuate myself as a key focal point in your reception. Depart from an accepted standard.

Condensed interiors make for frequent minor bruising. Especially in the folds of arms and knees. Small discolorations in shades of greens and blues.


This is something observed. As a result:
 A method of molding, a ledge of rock or protruding strip of land.

I’m on the periphery.
 I skirt around the circumstance. The paths may be straight but I pass in a wide and ample loop providing a short respite from a ho-hum situation.

The movement I make is not only a going through of motions but an action, the action of turning something aside from its course.

There is a wealth in this skill.
 A facility. 
A complex whole; an indirect heading.


I don’t specify but signify the importance of a broader emphasis on myself as a mileage; An activity that diverts the mind from altruistic etiquette.

I lounge outside, in a new, revised set of principles.

I place something roughly in the middle.
Lay out the space so that they create a sequence which begins with an entrance but eventually leads to the most private of domains.

I re-route the standard, disregarding the method according to which something is done proper. A just-post potential passes by. A service which I could provide.

Instead here; now; an awkward presence and the scandalous absence of the work whose place a domestic utility took.

I too quickly confirm this erasure of work. What I once saw as my advantage; the full control of my surroundings, now seems like a perfection of action by thought only.

I gravitate naturally towards the edge of this space. Traversing the point of the center which neatly organizes what I perceive as errors around it and make it to the cusp which puts it roughly to rest.
 I don’t linger in the open.

I don’t delight in generous movement or feel secure in a providing of pathways. In a circle one can become intensely aware of one’s own self. In relation to the periphery

I try to refrain from roughly in the middle.

I skirt.

I have no reason for this seeming grand analysis of a mundane practice of this cohabitant. It is an experimentally open situation.

What are my assumed responsibilities? 
Sensory trips undertaken in isolation from the shared social work? A labor? 
Is this a table setting? Is there another act coming?


I circulate this space.

The middle is still empty and it needs to be embellished.
The sound of glasses, whispers and laughter enlivens a room.
Resisting the impulse to either chime in or remove myself, I leave it exactly where it falls. Off center.

A still water. Paths fixed with obvious informality.

The most intuitive way to describe the need for this room is to say that the space must follow suit as I swell with respect for the outside of these walls, located just behind this door, down that long corridor towards the outer perimeter of the room.

Under a series of given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of rooms closely connected turns from a structure into a sentiment.

A presumption.


Recognize that you are not assembling your existence from components like an erector set, but that you are instead weaving a structure which starts out globally complete, but flimsy; then gradually making it stiffer but still rather flimsy; and only finally making it completely stiff and strong.

Leave behind a viewed mode of experience and react openly to this setting. I am a form of subjectivity. An analysis of the typical. A stock-take.

Completely disregard the pre-existing knowledge or types of normative standards.

I know it is difficult to render yourself as a basic but allow a little stillness in this preexisting condition which is so filtered through norms and aims and standards that it is lost in utterance in a void of spectatorship.

This is not a flat surface.
 Combine this convention with aware viewing. Awake, face sunned in au fait.

There are no pre-conditions which you cannot overturn in co-existence.

Comment on the language. Comment on the commentary of the language. precision stunts the possibility of delivery in the building plan. Ornamental needs have spread so widely, that very often people forget their instinct for the things they really want to keep around them.

Remain basic; Soft baked.