Being-In-Common is an allegorical emblem which imagines a condition of socialised being as key to productive difference. Crystalline ‘heterogen-ores’ emerge from a figure who is laid upon a labyrinthine network of caves. The emblem is derived from a larger diagram and project, Metallurgy of the Subject, which sets ‘being-in-common’ against both capitalistic ‘privatised being’, and identitarian, proto-fascistic ‘common being’ – both of which determine modes of homogeneity (constrained either by the privatised self or by collective identity). Drawing on both political philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, George Bataille, Raymond Williams and Jean-Luc Nancy, and on the allegorical language of alchemical processes, Metallurgy imagines the transgression or ‘sacrifice’ of the privatised individual to a collectivity, which may take one of the two forms described above.

Being-In-Common screen print was originally shown at Matt’s Gallery for Kenning’s exhibition Psychobotanical. A copy of the print is held by the Arts Council Collection.

Each print is signed on the front by the artist.

A bespoke framing service is available.

For further information or to purchase a framed edition please contact info@mattsgallery.org or call 020 8067 3842.