David Rushton has constructed this exhibition with the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and with Lanchester Gallery Projects at Coventry School of Art and Design (CSAD). At the Herbert, Rushton presents a mixture of early work from the 1960s and 1970s and more recent work undertaken in the 2000s. The work at the Lanchester Gallery focuses on student interventions beginning in art education at CSAD and maintained by students in colleges across the UK throughout the 1970s. The work in print and distribution led to film and television production, initially for trade unions and campaigns and later in the development of local television channels.

As an art student, Rushton was a founding editor of the journals Statements (1969) and Analytical Art (1970) and joined Art & Language as its technical director in 1972. Art & Language was formed in 1967 by four artists who began collaborating while teaching art at CSAD. Their early work had an enormous influence on the direction of Conceptual art both in the UK and in the US.

This exhibition includes Lexical Items from 1973, an example of Rushton’s collaborative work with Art & Language artists Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin and Philip Pilkington. It also includes his interpretations of early Conceptual art, such as One and four/five chairs which challenges the work of another Conceptual artist, Joseph Kosuth.

Many of the elements in this exhibition involve Rushton’s meticulous 1/24th scale models of rooms and other interior spaces. Some of these reconstruct work-spaces – exhibition locations and artist studios – while others have broader political connotations, exploring conditions of factory labour and the representation of communism.

The exhibition provides an archive of publications and DVDs on art, film, trade union media and local television for visitors to explore.

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