Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.
– Jasper Johns

Gifted takes the premise of the seasonally popular tradition of the Secret Santa to create a self-reflexive and playful assessment of the gallery and its roster. Secret Santa is a way of unifying colleagues in a workplace by obliging them to buy each other Christmas presents with a particular price limitation. The recipient of your gift is randomly assigned, resulting in varying degrees of delight, relief, or anxiety for both parties. The preparation for this show has taken the same approach, with the geographically disparate gallery artists made to play office colleagues participating in a game of seasonal gifting. Each artist was asked to submit one work of art to be randomly assigned to another. Everyone gave, everyone received. These gifted works were then altered to whatever extent the recipient wished. Some have undergone only minor changes or none at all taking the inspiration of the received work as a gift in itself. Others have been transformed almost beyond recognition. In the final stage of the process, ownership of the work has passed to the recipient. As with all the best parlour games, the absurdity of the premise allows for a relaxation of formalities and the revelation of unexpected patterns, kinships and meanings.

A roster of gallery artists creates a kind of virtual community of individuals, united under common approaches and attitudes. Yet that community (like that of the art world as a whole, as well as online communities) is just that: virtual. Divided by geography, these individuals are being asked to think and operate as a corporate body. This exhibition is a way of thinking about the communities in which we all, in some way, participate. Each work in Gifted is a token of a real interaction between constituents of a nebulous community.

A gift is a small impingement into your world by another person. It's something they've left in your life. Its strangeness, the way it doesn't quite sit with the rest of your stuff, is a reminder of the strangeness of other people, their weird tastes and unusual smells. Making a received gift palatable to you means changing it to suit your world, just as accepting a new friend into your life requires a bit of amiable attrition. That alteration might be tiny (wearing your own smell into a new shirt) or large (dyeing that shirt bright blue). The works shown in this exhibition are a reminder of how objects passed between people accrue a provenance that transforms them into things of unexpected power. It's through apparently minor personal interactions — playing games, giving gifts — that new meanings and ideas suddenly make themselves known.

Analia Saban (b. 1980, Buenos Aires, Argentina) studied at the University of California Los Angeles, LA, CA.

Nick Goss (b. 1981, Bristol, UK) completed his MFA at the Royal Academy Schools in 2009.

Sarah Dwyer (B. 1974, Cork, Ireland) graduated from the Royal College Art, London, in 2004, winning The Sheldon Bergh Award.

Belén Rodriguez (b. 1981, Valladolid, Spain) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, under the tutor Heimo Zobernig.

Carla Busuttil (b. 1982, Jonannesburg, South Africa) received a Masters in painting at the Royal Academy Schools, London (2005-2008).

Matthew Musgrave (b. 1985 Torquay, UK) studied painting at the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 2011.

Rebecca Nassauer (b. London, UK, 29 May 1951 - 2010)

Vicky Wright (b. Bolton, UK) graduated with a Masters in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London in 2008.

Clara S Rueprich (b. 1970, Germany) received her MA in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London.

Benedetto Pietromarchi (b. 1972 in Rome) studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti de Carrara, Italy in 1998.

Michael Huey (b. Traverse City, Michigan, 1964) graduated from Amherst College in 1987 with a degree in German Studies and received a master's degree in art history at the University of Vienna in 1999.

Christof Mascher (b. 1979 Hannover, Germany) studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (HBK), Braunschweig, under Professor Walter Dahn.

Dedicated to Rebecca Nassauer

Ben Street is a teacher of Art History and a lecturer at the National Gallery. He is a former lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York. He writes on contemporary art for Art21, Artnet, Saatchi Online and Artreview.com. He is currently working on a monograph on painter Andrew Sendor and a catalogue essay for the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.