Locked Groove
Workplace Foundation
11 MARCH – 11 APRIL 2021

Further information

Workplace Foundation is pleased to present Lockedgroove, a solo exhibition by Manchester based artist Noel Clueit.

Bringing together a new body of work, Lockedgroove continues Clueit’s exploration into the conflicts of value and meaning around the production of art. Employing a multidisciplinary practice the artist investigates the shifting relationships between art and non-art objects and the instances in which they collide. 

An avid collector of records for many years, Clueit began to amass LP’s for the sleeve design rather than the musical content. Drawn to an element of a design that evokes an echo of abstraction, Clueit undertakes an elegant and meticulous process of slicing, inverting and re-positioning to create new compositions, arrangements and possibilities.

The majority of the records are from the 1970s, the height of production and consumption of the album format. The cover designs of this era often appropriated forms from high art produced in the preceding years, most evidently the abstract expressionist works of the New York School. The relegation of these forms to the cover of a Reader’s Digest easy listening boxset, exemplify this lowbrow mass market appropriation. Through a rigorous methodology, Clueit’s works seek to return these borrowed forms to the canon of art.

Installation view

Installation view