System of display, T (THE/acceptera, 1931)

Adam Pendleton is a conceptual artist and writer who uses painting, photography, collage, film, and performance to recontextualise history and explore alternative ideas of the present, working toward ‘a future dynamic where new historical narratives and meanings can exist’.
In his series System of display Pendleton works with text and photographs drawn from an archive of found images. System of display, T (THE/acceptera 1931) features a mirror silkscreened with a black and white photograph and overlaid with a piece of Plexiglas printed with the letter ‘T’ in bold, black ink. The highly contrasted, grainy photograph depicts a tea set laid out with geometric precision, the arrangement of curved cups and saucers echoing the straight lines of a rectangular tray in the foreground. Speaking of his use of found imagery, Pendleton says, ‘I am working to establish a system of display, of organisation. I want to create a situation where we’re inclined to rethink notions of the past and the future, as well as our ability to understand them enough to make reductive statements.’