The London-based art group Discotheque was set up to provide a possible theoretical/practical framework for contemporary art practice. It provided a platform for the development of critically engaged artistic activity through an ongoing commitment to ideas-driven art.
By prising open a critical space between the poles of the social, the aesthetic, and the conceptual, Discotheque endeavoured to put into action rigorous and dynamic working methodologies specific to given sites of investigation.
Steering clear of any rigid notion of "membership" the group operated as a fluid gathering of committed individuals on a project-by-project basis.
In 2000 a group of artists from Derby with a similar set of concerns and a shared attitude to working practice came together and formed the collective "Disco". The group drew up and published a manifesto of intent, which was centred around the significant, if problematic, notion of "conceptual art". We felt that the legacy and foundations laid by the most radical artists of the 60s and 70s was largely being ignored; those critically engaged with ideas-based practice were increasingly being pushed to the margins by the wishy-washy, self-satisfied, lazily ironic, and blatantly commercial work of the mainstream. Disco, feeling it necessary to articulate our opposition to the complicitness and lack of rigour of much contemporary art, initiated a series of exhibitions, conferences, and publications.
In London in 2003 a regular series of meetings were initiated, attended by those who had responded to a notice calling for artists interested in "conceptually-based art". The participants engaged in discussions both on each other's work and on more general art issues, and after several months of meetings the regular attendees came together tentatively under the banner of "Discotheque". We then set about putting on two exhibitions, Flat, and Damn Fine Cup of Coffee, which took place in east London in 2004.
The backbone of this early manifestation of Discotheque remained enthusiastic, working together to build on those foundations, and to develop and refine our concerns. From 2005 onwards Discotheque operated as a fluid gathering of like-minded artists, all of whom to some degree engaged with a progressive, rigorous and challenging ideas-driven practice. Projects included:
Veiviseren: In the Dark, All Cats are Gray; mapping project employing a mobile research kit, proposed for 'Tou Works 1' in Stavanger, Norway, 2008.
Coryat's Crudities; tourism themed project utilising the motif of the suitcase; developed as part of NAN-NANA in Nottingham, 2006.
The Wisdom of Solomon; project based on the production of a series of collaborative works made by splitting and rejoining existing works, part of exhibition Normalife Unlimited at Neal's Yard, London, 2006.
The Glorious Twelfth; Deptford X project based on an urban recontextualisation of a traditional grouse hunt, with accompanying catalogue, 2005.
Strangers on a Train; travel and exchange project based on the London to Newcastle train route, funded by the a-n NAN bursary, 2005.
One and Three; collaborative interactive work, shown at Euroart Gallery in London, 2005.
Discotheque effectively ceased activity in 2007, although the group continues to remain open to the possibility of further projects.
[Visit Discotheque archival mini-site.]