Spencer Finch

Gravity Always Wins consists of both new and existing work that transforms the gallery spaces at DCA. The exhibition merges scientific method and poetic sensibility. Finch has continued to develop work that explores the tension between the objective investigations of science and the subjectivity of perception and lived experience.

A starting point for the exhibition began through conversation around the Scottish Enlightenment. Finch was particularly drawn to the writing of philosopher, historian and economist David Hume. Hume considered the scientific method of the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton and work around the nature of knowledge developed by the English philosopher John Locke. Furthering these ideas Hume attempted to describe how the mind works in acquiring knowledge.

Gravity Always Wins is largely investigative. Two new works: SKY (OVER FRANZ JOSEF GLACIER, APRIL 8, 2008, 10:40 AM), 2008and 8456 SHADES OF BLUE (AFTER HUME), 2008 are genuine but inherently futile attempts to re-create and investigate natural sciences and perception. In the first instance a machine re-creates the colour of the sky over a glacier while in the second, a large drawing by Finch considers the many variations of blue that are capable of being perceived in a work that references Hume’s philosophy of sensory experience.

This, his largest exhibition in the UK to date, has been supported by Yvon Lambert, Paris and the Lisson Gallery, London.