Outside corners (Number V)
Outside corners consist of 50 partly-glazed clay impressions of the external corners of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) building in London. They are connected to the geographic and physical place and materiality of the V&A, to the kinds of collections held by the V&A and to a large and diverse body of work undertaken by Bettina Buck between 2011 – 2018 that is framed by the V&A and includes Performance (V&A cycle) 2011, Age of Bronze 2012, Plinth drawings I, 2012, Inside corners (beautified) 2014, Plinth Drawings II, 2014 and Plinth drawings III (V&A cycle), 2018. At the time she was researching redoing the performance Streichezoo (from 1998) as part of Friday Late: The Postmodern Look, V&A, London, 2011. The V&A was undergoing renovation at the time so some of the galleries were closed to the public or there were signs of renovation work being done. This plus Buck’s increasing interest in the V&A’s Rodin collection and particularly the plinths they stood on connected her interests to the building and infrastructure as much as to the work it contains and to begin looking beyond the performance and how space was framed and organised. Outside corners also brings the city into the frame almost like a souvenir or keepsake or relic of London.