Rhythm 69 comprises of seventy paintings measuring 22” x 16” made up of a representation of a Hans Richter/Kazimir Malevich storyboard painted onto wallpaper samples taken from a block printed William Morris wallpaper book produced in the 1960s.

• Mabb, David. 2010. Hijack: Morris Dialectically. In: Phillipa Bennett and Rosie Miles, eds. William Morris in the Twenty-First Century. (20) Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien: Peter Lang, pp. 153-166. ISBN 978-3-0343-0106-0 [Book Section]

FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE/METHODOLOGY

Rhythm 69 takes icons of artistic modernity and interlaces them, questioning the relationship between art and decoration. The work contributes to an ongoing reworking of Morris’ design work in my practice, where Morris’ heritage is placed under critical scrutiny.

Rhythm 69 uses a Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of dialectics, which he terms ‘dialectics at a standstill’ where two forms are brought together to create a new third form/meaning, which is however frozen at the moment of becoming.

DISSEMINATION:

EXHIBITIONS:

Rhythm 69 has been part of a touring two-person exhibition Commodity Form. First exhibited at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 14/3/08-10/5/08; toured to The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland 19/9/08-25/10/0; part of 4x4 Four galleries, four exhibitions, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool 5/3/09-10/05/09. Included in a one person exhibition A Miniature Retrospective and Rhythm 69 at Jugendstilsenteret/Kunstmuseet Kube, Alesund, Norway, 31/5/08-18/8/08; part of a group exhibition Serial Pursuits at Nature Morte Berlin, Germany 10/12/11-4/2/12 and part of solo exhibition 'Announcer' Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea 12/4/14 -12/7/14.

CATALOGUE:
“Commodity Form” essay by Colin Darke on David Mabb’s Rhythm 69 and also has all 70 paintings reproduced, published by Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast 2008. ISBN 978-0-9557469-1-8.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Commodity Form: Colin Darke The Capital Paintings, David Mabb, Rhythm 69, Gill Saunders, Wallpaper History Review, 2008.

Reading Matters, David Mabb, Rhythm 69, and Colin Darke, David Mabb’s Rhythm 69, a special issue on William Morris. AE Canadian Aesthetics Journal, Volume 15, Fall 2008. All seventy paintings reproduced.

Lucy Chapman, 4x4: Four Galleries, Four Exhibitions, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, Volume 7, Number 3, November, 2009.

Michelle Weinroth, Redesigning the Beautiful, Morris, Mabb, and the Politics of Wallpaper chapter 9, pages 241-273 in ‘To Build a Shadowy Isle of Bliss: William Morris's Radicalism and the Embodiment of Dreams’ Michelle Weinroth, Paul Leduc Browne, published by McGill-Queen's University Press 2015 ISBN 0773596984, 978-0773596986

Lectures:

Rhythm 69, Historical Materialism First North American Conference, York University, Toronto, 2008.

Rhythm 69, Bluecoat, Liverpool, 2009.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/2682