Dismantling dichotomies:

Alan Alborough’s material conceptualism

Abstract

Alan Alborough uses industrial materials like cable ties, plastic bottles, clothes pegs and fishing gut to create intricate installations that explore art-making processes and challenge the conventions of display and spectatorship in the field of exhibition. As a result, Alborough is regarded as a leading contemporary South African conceptual artist. Despite Alborough’s deliberate use of specific materials and the close attention he pays to the construction of his installations, much of the writing on Alborough fails to explore the apparent disjuncture between the material and conceptual in his work.

In this article, I investigate the relationship between the material and the conceptual in Alborough’s works. I argue that his preoccupation with materiality challenges the construction of conceptual art as a dematerialised art. I begin with a discussion of one of Alborough’s artworks that characterises his interest in the conceptual and material. I then consider some reasons why the materiality of Alborough’s works is overlooked. This is followed by a brief discussion of some challenges materiality poses for conceptual art. I recommend social anthropological theories of materiality which, when applied to Alborough’s works, are useful in revealing the ways in which this artist challenges the dichotomy of materiality and concept commonly associated with conceptual art.