CURATORIAL PROJECTS

Ron Haselden, TROP VITE!, in Anxious Words

2001
mise en scene
Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London
artists: a Love Laboratory, barrett_forster, Neal Beggs, Paul Carter, Monika Duda, Lisa Fielding-Smith, Jane Henderson Mawby, Tim Meara, Anne Redmond, Roxy Walsh, Charlie Youle

This is not my story or yours, but it might be. Imagine this: a man walks into a bar, he sees a woman at the bar whom he thinks is very attractive, he remarks on this to his friends and declares his attention to approach, his friends tell him she is not a woman but a man, and his attraction goes no further. What happens to his desire? Where does it go? It remains, but cannot be acted upon, and must wait for another, a more 'correct' situation, if it is to be played out. Desire is always directed to another, object or subject. Sexual pleasure is intimately entwined with the Other, who is not always another individual, who may be no more than a prop for a fantasy (barrett_foster) . For a man, substitute a momentary relinquishing of masculinity (Tim Meara) or a tender mockery (Roxy Walsh); substitute a woman or a series of women (Monika Duda); for a woman or a man, put in place an object, a sequinned sleeping bag (Neal Beggs), an interminable coil of knitting (Jane Henderson Mawby) a re-presented text (Charlie Youle), a melancholy screening (a Love Laboratory), an indeterminate body in a poodle suit (Lisa Fielding-Smith); imagine the site of a missed encounter (Paul Carter) or the nostalgic failure of a love relation (Anne Redmond). This exhibition emphasises the foreignness of our fantasies, structured by a language that does not seem our own; indeed, our fantasies may be those of another, whom we can no longer recognise. All the works address the idea of a mise-en-scene in the engagement with an image at the level of desire. Something is played out, from a script that exists in the unconscious.

2000
Anxious Words
Waterstones, Piccadilly, London
artists: Neal Beggs, Mark Beever, Debbie Booth, Nathalie de Briey, Pavel Büchler, Thomas A. Clark, Tom Dale, Frédérique Decombe, Patricio Grosse Forester, Maria Fusco, Belinda Guidi, Liz Hall, Lucy Harrison, Ron Haselden, Julia Heinrich, Jane Henderson, Kevin Kelly, Tony Kemplen, Roberto Martinez, Tim Meara, Simon Morris, Georgia Russell, George Shaw, Nadine Stephenson, Joanne Strange

1999
there is no sexual relation
Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London

A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis
6 Feb 1999 - 6 Mar 1999
Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research
The 6th CFAR exhibition based on psychoanalytic inquiries & texts, curated by Sharon Kivland with Danuza Machado.
artists: Andrew Bannister • Ricardo Bloch • Lucy Harrison • Ron Haselden • Gill Houghton • Charles Jeffrey • Paul Kipps • Nayan Kulkarni • Enda Mullen • Juliette Soubrier • Benjamin Swaim • Steve Swindells • Peter Willis

A Disturbance Of Memory On The Acropolis is the sixth exhibition in the CFAR series. It is also the title of a paper Freud wrote in 1936, as an open letter to Romain Rolland, the French author and pacifist, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Freud is eighty years old at the time of writing and claims that 'his powers of production are at an end'. He recalls an event of 1904 which he did not understand at the time and has kept recurring to him. In Trieste with his brother, they determine to go to Corfu but are told by their host it will be too hot and they should go to Athens instead. They are depressed, any change of plan seems impractical, but they succeed in booking tickets for Athens. When Freud arrives in Athens and stands on the Acropolis he is surprised to find himself thinking: 'So all this really does exist, just as we learnt at school!' His surprise is twofold; firstly, that something unbelievable exists, and secondly, that its existence should have been in doubt. His depression in Trieste and the idea on the Acropolis seem to be connected.
Freud's pleasure in a journey to Athens - a journey he did not believe possible either while in Trieste or in the past, when he doubted he should ever see Athens - is marred by his arrival there. His sensation is one of unreality, a feeling he has somehow transposed to the past. He also feels guilty, his shame of a son who has surpassed the limitations of his father, and the shame of his assumption of superiority, for Athens would not have meant much to his father who lacked a classical education. The artists in A Disturbance Of Memory On The Acropolis have responded to the themes of Freud's text, to ideas of fraternal and filial relations, deferral and anxiety, memory and its (re)constructions, with new, specially conceived works.

1998
Ornament in the Field of Vision, CFAR, London
Disquieting Strangeness, CFAR, London
The Impossible, CFAR, London

1997
Lexicon, Centre for Freudian Research and Analyis, London
A little object, Centre for Freudian Research and Analysis, London

1993
Hôtel des Voyageurs, France (publication)
Les Voyageurs, Galerie du Chai, St. Brieuc, France

1991
The Centre of the World, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (catalogue)

1988
The Consumption of Elements, Chisenhale Gallery, London
Fragments of False Houses, Pomeroy Gallery, London (catalogue)
Monumental Works, with Ian Walker, St. George's Church,
London, (publication)

1987
A System of Support, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

1986
The Illuminations, Camerawork, London (catalogue)