Tate Britain:The Sleeping Congregation - Richard Wright

Richard Wright (born 1960), who lives and works in Glasgow, is the third and final artist to respond to the invitation by the Contemporary Art Society to curate a display for Room 1 of Tate Britain. Establishing a Platform, the title for this series, began with Elizabeth Price’s installation, Perfect Courses and Shimmering Substances, (5 February-3 May). Followed by Ponder Pause Process (A Situation) by Yane Calovski (16 May - 30 August).

Taking the title The Sleeping Congregation, from William Hogarth's 1736 engraving, gifted to the Potteries Museum in Stoke on Trent by the Contemporary Art Society in 1942, Wright is inviting the audience to view this satirical image as not so much a critique of an indolent audience as of a boring sermon. Hogarth's satire perhaps has its parallels in the condition of art - it could be understood as an indirect exhortation to more inspiring forms of address which could solicit attentiveness or even fervour.

Since the 1960's contemporary art has increasingly adopted the strategies of advertising in order to market instantly desirable consumer goods. The incidental, almost ephemeral pieces chosen for this exhibition may not be immediately persuasive in relation to this sort of intention for the gratifying of the spectacular. Instead, they address a more peripheral sense of vision: a vision which is less concerned with the artificial or exaggerated act of spectatorship (seeing and knowing from the outside) and more concerned with an osmotic relationship between the self and the world.

With this starting point Wright's selection of works from Tate's collection include those by John Latham; Samuel Palmer; William Blake; Edward Ruscha; Blinky Palermo and others, drawing unexpected links and relationships between artists across the centurie

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