There are ways in which pattern can be said to be soothing. Regularity is often comforting, after all, repetition predictable, any element of surprise omitted. The systematic doesn’t like anything out of the ordinary, though, and this can be limiting, unsettling even. When taught without learning, staying inside the lines can become tedious. What seems sensible to one can be something of nonsense to another. Pattern as Teacher (2021/2022) is representative of the guidance we seek and refuse. Connecting each image in the sequence, we pattern what becomes familiar, begin to understand which rules govern each series. In rapid succession: Dots of colours to streetlights, grids of fine lace to finely gridded paper, fields of yellow under blue sky to coloured bars of symbol, respectively.

But just when your mind begins to succumb to the repeated play between recognition and abstraction, two yellow lights appear, so pronounced they turn into eyes, into the Cheshire Cat’s eyes, and you are taken through the looking glass into another psychic space, into another logic, one further beyond the screen, of imagination. Such frolic is the counter of discipline, and, if lacking discipline – was the creed in the 19^th century – only after excessive self-confidence have produced error, can the adult – it was said – begin to teach themselves the habits of criticism and self-control which “should have been inculcated in childhood”. A polka dot dress could not be further away from this pedagogy.

Margaret Salmon’s Mm (2017) is less counterpart to Pattern as Teacher and more an opening, an annotation. All beginning with the letter ‘m’, a voice narrates scenes from a motorcycle sports event: “Memory – masterpiece – masterful”, we hear, associations that guide our reading, in a first instance, to a feminist critique. In a second the method becomes like a child’s learning tool for linguistic development. Patterning, here, is the attempt to establish a system of understanding, that will, as language always does, demonstrate its associative mechanisms, and might evoke a different, an unexpected set of responses.

Valentina Triet (b. 1991, Winterthur) lives and works in Vienna. Her work deals with techniques of orientation in space, architecture, infrastructure and landscape. End of 2022 she will have a solo show at Neuer Essener Kunstverein. She has shown with Tony Cokes at FELIX GAUDLITZ, Paris as well a solo show at the gallery in Vienna, with Kelly Tissot at Kunstraum Riehen, with Evelyn Plaschg at Canopy, Malmö, at Long Tang, Zurich, The Wig, Berlin,  and Les Urbaines, Lausanne, amongst other places.

Margaret Salmon (b. 1975, New York) lives and works in Glasgow. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at institutions including Tramway, Glasgow (2018), Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (2015); Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2007) and Collective Gallery, Edinburgh (2006). Her work has been featured in film festivals and survey exhibitions, including the Berlin Biennale (2010) and Venice Biennale (2007), the London Film Festival (2018, 2016, 2014). Salmon was shortlisted for the Jarman Award 2018 and the Margaret Tait Award in 2019.

OPENING: Sunday November 6, 5 pm

The exhibition is on view until December 4, 2022, and can be visited by appointment. For info please contact info@lateralroma.eu

There are ways in which pattern can be said to be soothing. Regularity is often comforting, after all, repetition predictable, any element of surprise omitted. The systematic doesn’t like anything out of the ordinary, though, and this can be limiting, unsettling even. When taught without learning, staying inside the lines can become tedious. What seems sensible to one can be something of nonsense to another. Pattern as Teacher (2021/2022) is representative of the guidance we seek and refuse. Connecting each image in the sequence, we pattern what becomes familiar, begin to understand which rules govern each series. In rapid succession: Dots of colours to streetlights, grids of fine lace to finely gridded paper, fields of yellow under blue sky to coloured bars of symbol, respectively.

But just when your mind begins to succumb to the repeated play between recognition and abstraction, two yellow lights appear, so pronounced they turn into eyes, into the Cheshire Cat’s eyes, and you are taken through the looking glass into another psychic space, into another logic, one further beyond the screen, of imagination. Such frolic is the counter of discipline, and, if lacking discipline – was the creed in the 19^th century – only after excessive self-confidence have produced error, can the adult – it was said – begin to teach themselves the habits of criticism and self-control which “should have been inculcated in childhood”. A polka dot dress could not be further away from this pedagogy.

Margaret Salmon’s Mm (2017) is less counterpart to Pattern as Teacher and more an opening, an annotation. All beginning with the letter ‘m’, a voice narrates scenes from a motorcycle sports event: “Memory – masterpiece – masterful”, we hear, associations that guide our reading, in a first instance, to a feminist critique. In a second the method becomes like a child’s learning tool for linguistic development. Patterning, here, is the attempt to establish a system of understanding, that will, as language always does, demonstrate its associative mechanisms, and might evoke a different, an unexpected set of responses.

OPENING: Sunday November 6, 5 pm

The exhibition is on view until December 4, 2022, and can be visited by appointment. For info please contact info@lateralroma.eu