OBTUSE (°): GROUP EXHIBITION

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

OBTUSE (°) is the inaugural exhibition of Obtuse Archive, bringing together thirteen artists and three performers working across painting, sculpture, installation, sound, performance, and food. Presented over two days, the exhibition proposed an alternative mode of exhibition-making, one that privileges sensation, atmosphere, and duration over fixed meaning, unfolding as a layered programme of exhibition, live performances, and culinary interventions.

CURATORIAL TEXT

OBTUSE (°), the first exhibition by Obtuse Archive, brings together thirteen artists alongside three performers working across painting, sculpture, installation, sound, performance, and food. Taking its title from the angle that sits between 90° and 180°, the exhibition uses this spatial relation as a metaphor for the space amid standing and extending, where a form begins to tilt beyond its own balance.

If a right angle (90°) is articulated, stabilising, and finite — the edge of a frame, the junction of walls, the point where structure finds rest — then an obtuse angle marks another order of relation. It stretches too far to be stable, yet not far enough to be straight. One hundred and eighty degrees is the flat line, the horizon, the absolute opposite, where everything folds into reversal and symmetry. Obtuse sits in the unsettled zone across these two poles: wider than structure, shy of resolution. It is the posture of hesitation, of drift, of leaning without ever arriving.

Within the exhibition, this condition is articulated through material tension, bodily presence, and acts of transformation. Works appear suspended between states: organic and synthetic, intimate and infrastructural, decorative and unsettling. Objects lean, bind, fracture, or accumulate; surfaces are glazed, coated, stitched, or cast; gestures repeat with variation rather than conclusion. Each work proposes its own angle of entry, its own degree of resistance or drift.

Rather than forming a unified statement, the exhibition unfolds as a choreography of partial alignments. Relationships emerge through proximity, and co-presence, rather than thematic consensus. Sound, performance, and food extend this logic into time and encounter, activating the space as something lived and contingent rather than fixed.

As the inaugural exhibition of Obtuse Archive, OBTUSE (°) reflects the archive’s broader interest in practices that linger, misalign, or refuse disappearance. It proposes obliqueness as a way of thinking and sensing — to look, listen, and gather from an angle that unsettles inherited structures of order, allowing meaning to remain productively unresolved.

CURATORIAL TEXT (PDF)

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Cas Campbell ( @hcascampbell )
Lola Dupre ( @loladupre )
Juntao Gao ( @juntaoism )
Yutaro Inagaki ( @inagaky )
Jon Kipps ( @jonkipps )
Irene Pouliassi ( @irenepouliassi )
Meitao Qu ( @mt_qu )
Alfred Francis Pietroni ( @exile______ )
Bo Sun ( @the98bo )
Yuma Radne ( @yumaradne )
Zeus Li ( @zeusinreality )
Abigail Norris ( @abigailnorris000 )

LIVE SETS & PERFORMANCES

PYTKO ( @juliapytko )
Vera Sacra ( @vera.sacra )
Waterbaby ( @waterbabytv )

CULINARY INTERVENTIONS

TROS London ( @tros.london )
Barney Pau ( @tros.london )

PRIVATE VIEW & DINNER (PROGRAMME OPENING) — 18 DECEMBER 2025

OBTUSE (°)
18 December 2025
Galleria Objets, London

The private view and dinner marked the opening of OBTUSE (°), welcoming participating artists, press, collaborators, and the wider creative community into the exhibition’s first evening. Conceived as more than a preview, the event operated as an encounter, introducing the exhibition through performance, sound, and shared dining as integral parts of the experience.

Performances by Vera Sacra and Waterbaby unfolded across the space, accompanied by a food intervention by TROS London that drew attention to presence, pacing, and informal exchange. Curated by Selin Kir and Yangrung Chen, the evening initiated the exhibition’s two-day programme and established gathering, live activation, and social intimacy as foundational to the curatorial structure of OBTUSE (°).

EXHIBITION PROGRAMME — 19 DECEMBER 2025

OBTUSE (°)
19 December 2025
Galleria Objets, London

The public programme extended OBTUSE (°) into a full day of open access, allowing the exhibition to be experienced as a durational structure shaped by live performance, sound, and a site-responsive food intervention. Time-based works were presented in dialogue with sculptural and spatial practices, foregrounding temporal awareness and sustained engagement.

Live performances by PYTKO, Vera Sacra, and Waterbaby were presented throughout the gallery, alongside a food intervention by Barney Pau that introduced another register of spatial and sensory experience. Curated by Selin Kir and Yangrung Chen, the programme formed the second movement of the exhibition’s two-day structure, situating visual art alongside live and performative elements as integral to the curatorial proposition of OBTUSE (°).

ARTWORK LIST:

ARTWORK LIST (PDF)

CULINARY INTERVENTION — BARNEY PAU

Conceived in dialogue with the curatorial framework of OBTUSE (°), the culinary intervention by Barney Pau engages with the notion of the obtuse as that which resists immediacy, clarity, and resolution. Drawing on unfamiliar pairings, darkened palettes, and slow processes of transformation, the work unfolded as an experiential extension of the exhibition, operating alongside the practices of the exhibiting artists rather than as a supplementary gesture.

Through fermentation, texture, and restrained composition, the intervention foregrounded duration, tactility, and sensory ambiguity, positioning food as a spatial and temporal medium within the exhibition.

Culinary elements presented within the exhibition:

- Black cocoa, coriander, and cumin cake -with fermented fig purée and caramelised pumpkin skin

- Spirulina and buckwheat shortcrust crackers with green pea purée and beetroot–miso cured pumpkin

- Puffed sweet potato crackers with tahini crème, pickled daikon, and sprouted sunflower seeds

PERFORMANCE — PYTKO

PERFORMANCE — WATERBABY

PERFORMANCE — VERA SACRA

EXHIBITION POSTER BY: HAGEN TANNEBERGER

Photography and video by Veronika Butkevich ( vmbut ) and Chen Lin ( chenlinopt )

NOTE FROM THE CURATORS

We extend our sincere thanks to all participating artists, performers, collaborators, and audiences whose contributions shaped OBTUSE (°). This inaugural exhibition marks the beginning of Obtuse Archive as an ongoing curatorial platform. Future exhibitions and programmes will continue to develop the questions, formats, and modes of engagement initiated here.