Olaph the Oxman / 25 September - 2 November 2019

Ignasi Aballí, Ewa Axelrad, Jane Bustin, Felipe Cohen, Sean Edwards, Jacqueline de Jong, Marlena Kudlicka, Ryan Kuo, Nicolas Lamas, Alexandre Lavet, Adrien Lucca, Morten Norbye Halvorsen, Steve Press, Teppei Soutome, Camila Rocha, Oriol Vilanova.
Guest curator: Tiago de Abreu Pinto

Olaph the Oxman, installation view at Copperfield, London, 2019

Nicolás Lamas, Ways to disappear, 2018, Erased painting on canvas, 60 x 50 cm (courtesy of the artist and Meessen De Clercq) & Camila Rocha Mangueiris Venosa, 2015, Reproduced plant on A3 posters

Olaph the Oxman, installation view at Copperfield, London, 2019

Jane Bustin, From the mezzanine window, 2019, Wood, acrylic, polyurethane, silk, beetroot dye, 51 x 47cm

Marlena Kudlicka,Elements of Peaceful Engagement. index i0, 2017,Wall sculpture powder coated steel, glass, 66x92x5cm. Courtesy: the artist

"The posthumous considerations of Olaph the Oxman (1885-1935), shine a light on the reasons why he was mysteriously murdered. While some may be indifferent — owing to apparent lack of empathy due to personality disorder — for others it was an inspiration.
People became embroiled in all sorts of theories, lending a fantastical aura to the story and luring more people to try their own hand at solving this great mystery.
During the next half dozen or so years after Olaph’s death, some of these theories became part of the social sphere. One theory in particular, depicted in the exhibition —though virtually nothing is known about its author — seems to reveal in itself the methods by which murder mysteries are narrated and constructed.
Some artists were driven by this mysterious story try to raise some of the corpus delicti of one of the most remarkable crime stories of the first half of the twentieth century."
 

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Curator and writer Tiago de Abreu Pinto's recent projects are focused on art-writing by means of storytelling through the medium of the novel. For Copperfield he has used the unusual framework of a historic murder mystery to structure and unfold an exhibition.

Tiago de Abreu Pinto (Brazil, 1984) is an independent curator (Ph.D Art History, Complutense University of Madrid). Recent exhibitions curated by de Abreu Pinto include Amanhã à primeira luz, Casa Triângulo (São Paulo, Brasil, 2019); Below Blue Horizon, Rodriguez Gallery (Poznan, Poland, 2019); Armando Andrade Tudela, Nicolás Lamas and Sergio Verastegui, Salón (Madrid, Spain, 2017); Notes for a Shell. Art-O-Rama (Marseille, France, 2017); Proteo. Tasman Projects, collection of Fernando Panizo & Dorothy Neary (Madrid, Spain, 2017); A spear, a spike, a point, a nail, a drip, a drop, the end of the tale. Ellen de Brujine Projects (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2015); Meditaremos em silêncio a diferença entre nós. NoguerasBlanchard (Madrid, Spain, 2015); Retroalimentación, Sala de Arte Joven (Madrid, Spain, 2014); Marcelo de Andrade, Kunsthalle São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); The Sound of your Voice, Marrakesh Biennial (Marrakesh, Morocco, 2014); Parallax, The Goma Gallery (Madrid, Spain, 2013); This dialogue is fine but a decision is always an alone act, NoEstudio (Madrid, Spain, 2012). He is the author of various short novels and fiction pieces such as Terral: Ivan Grilo. São Paulo: Familia, 2019; Below Blue Horizon: Sreshta Rit Premnath. Poznan: Rodriguez, 2019; El enemigo de adentro/El enemigo de afuera: María Sosa. Ciudad de México: Parque, 2019 (co-author Dorothée Dupuis); Proteus. Madrid: Tasman Projects, 2018; Biblioteca Sin Títulos (Library without Titles). Madrid: Reina Sofia Museum Library, Centre d'Art Santa Mònica and La Casa Encendida, 2017; Notes for a Shell. Marseille: More Projects, 2017; This is Art Now vol.1. Madrid: Cristina Garrido, 2013. de Abreu Pinto is the curator of Opening at ARCOmadrid2020 and N.A.S at ArtRotterdam2020.



With thanks to:
AOYAMA | MEGURO, Tokyo
Dürst Britt & Mayhew, The Hague
Gaudel de Stampa, Paris
LMNO, Brussels
Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin,


Special thanks to:
Larry Achiampong
Borbála Soós
Jerwood Space


Extra special thanks to:
Richard Sykes and Penny Mason