PASSING THROUGH @ James Taylor Gallery

The James Taylor Gallery is pleased to present Passing Through, a group exhibition featuring the work of sixteen emerging artists and collaborators, creating works of art which are interactive, responsive, user aware and audience led.

The progression of Interactive art is not a recent phenomenon, originally explored in the 1960's; it's visibility in the art world has often been shrouded, seen as a fad created by artists whose principal concern is in producing works of technically trickery, rather than artworks that pursue an intellectual and referential meaning. However, in society and indeed culture we are forever forging stronger relationships with technology. Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI), GPS, iPhones and the Internet are all examples of the daily influences of digital media. This interaction has and is continuing to shape the way we live, how we perceive our environment, the way we communicate with each other, and importantly how we view our relationship with art.

This exhibition presented by TINT, an emerging arts initiative, providing a platform for open discourse and experimentation, aimed at breaking down preconceptions of interactivity and its relevance in contemporary art.

'Passing Through' explores the movement of the spectator turned interactor on a personal journey, engaging in direct conversation with the artworks in order to realise and complete the work that would not exist without his/her actions.

"By putting the user into the controls interactive technology could be claimed to have a strong liberating potential, as well, making it an effective means to analyze and deconstruct preexisting ideological formations." Erkki Huhtamo

Works such as Ben Faga's ScentScapes experiment with scent association through sound responsive aroma pods, whilst Lottolab Studios Music to our eyes uses the audience's presence to produce orchestral compositions from colour, contrast and brightness. Other artists create responsive installations from light, sound and kinetics, exploring notions of culture, media and memory. Artists include - Bulbcollective (Owen Bowden, Edward Holland & Suzi Tibbetts), captincaptin, Curtis Matthew, Stuart Dunbar, Jamie Elliott, Ben Faga, Peter Forde, Jon Garlick & Lawrence Abu-Hamdan, Richard Kendrick, Lottolab Studios (Ilias Bergstrom, Beau Lotto & Sam Walker), Parag Mital, Agelos Papadakis & Dave Murray-Rust, Artemis Papageorgiou, Tobias Revell, David Strang, Jamie Thompson.

Curated by captincaptin artist Gareth Goodison and Jonathan Hall

Diane Arbus @ Timothy Taylor gallery

Anthony Peskine @ The Wasp Room

Anthony Peskine - Who Do You Think You Are?

April 30th - May 17th 2009

Open Thurs/Fri, 3-7pm; Sat/Sun, 12-5pm or by appointment

Private View: April 28th 2009, 6-8pm

The Wasp Room is pleased to present ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, the first UK exhibition by Parisian artist Anthony Peskine.

Adopting and adapting the visual languages of advertising campaigns and with a keen sense of the absurd, Peskine’s work is concerned with the predicament of the loser, and how promises are rarely fulfilled.

Peskine seeks to satirise the way in which aspiration and hope are exploited as a manipulative device. He uses his own disappointment and disillusionment to drive a varied artistic practice that ranges from painting and photography, to text pieces, video works and installations.

Offering humorous alternatives to insincere pledges and conceited slogans, mocking intangible fears and superficial aspirations fed by media sensationalism, Peskine’s previous work has included large painted recreations of vouchers printed on ticket stubs which had offered “mega savings of 50p”, and a series of street-based interventions in which he adapted billboard slogans, including a political campaign by Nicolas Sarkozy, adding his own message “ou pas” (or not); rendering their ‘guarantees’ contentious and putting their artificial optimism in jeopardy.

Peskine’s sharp, sarcastic critiques, though cynical and perhaps even childish at times, offer a strategy to fight disappointment; advocating humour as an effective escape philosophy.

For ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, Peskine will be exhibiting a selection of recent works and new pieces, including the deadpan installation ‘My Weight in Potato Crisps’ and a series of manipulated photo works with bizarre and prophetic narratives.

The Wasp Room

at Tether Studios

17a Huntingdon St 

Nottingham

NG1 3JH

For more about Peskine, visitanthonypeskine.com

JONATHAN HOROWITZ - FREE STORE

In Jonathan Horowitz’s third show at Sadie Coles HQ, 'Free Store', everything is recycled. A new video titled Apocalypto Now is made entirely from found documentary footage and fragments of TV shows and films. Scenes from classic movies are interspersed with obscure bits of media detritus, forming pointed critical connections between disparate fictional and historical accounts. Out of this montage approach, Horowitz constructs incisive new narratives which powerfully reflect on important and topical cultural and political issues. The star of the piece is Mel Gibson, a figure whose avowed Catholic faith is at apparent odds with his public relation catastrophes. The presentation of the film is carbon neutral, with a solar panel just outside the gallery space harnessing energy to fuel the piece. The second work in the show is a modular sculpture titled ‘Free Store'. The piece consists of a series of pedestals built out of recycled plastic planks, which when turned upside down become bins.

source: Sadie Coles HQ
30 April 2009 - 30 May 2009
9 Balfour Mews, London W1

two way communication

Seen in Brighton, 7.4.09

Dan Graham at Lisson Gallery, London (until 09/05/09)

Model for Pavillion Influenced by Moon, 1988 Two-way mirror and glass, aluminium 51.5 x 73.5 x 74 cm


Lisson Gallery presents a major survey exhibition of work by American artist Dan Graham. Theatre brings together works that illustrate Graham's diverse practice throughout his career; from the early performances to photography and the influential pavilions, including his architectural drawings and models.

The exhibition presents photographic, video and audio documentation of seminal early performances such as Like, 1969, Lax / Relax, 1969-1995, and Past Future Split Attention, 1972. Theatre also features architectural drawings and photographs that, across decades, have documented American vernacular suburban architecture. Architectural drawings and photographs accompany four of Graham's models for pavilions, visionary works that bridge his interest and understanding of architecture, pop sculpture and visitor interaction and experience within the exhibition space. Two of the models on show were never realised, but maintain their visionary charge, conceptual clarity and sculptural beauty: Model for Swimming Pool/Fish Pond, 1997 and Model for Portal, 1997. Model for Ying Yang Pavilion, 1991 and a new model for the Novartis Campus Pavilion, 2009, are accompanied by videos documenting the pavilions, installed in public settings.

source: art rabbitt and lisson gallery

lisson gallery
52-54 Bell Street London, NW1 5DA - 020 7724 2739
Open Weekdays 9:30am-6pm; Sat 11am-5pm

G20 Protest 1st April 2009, London

G20 Protest, Climate Camp Police Charge

1 April 2009, 21.30. Bank of England, London.

1 April 2009, 21.46. Bishopsgate, London. 

1 April 2009, 22.50. Bishopsgate, London. Police charge pacific protesters.

...the thought of the day...

JEAN-PIERRE COUPÉ // Wifi

“Can't I be left alone?”
“I'm sorry, but if you don't want to be bothered then switch off your mobile phone”
“I will feel cut off if I switch it off”
“Stop complaining then!”
“Ok. Anyway it's nice to hear form you, what's up?”
“Nothing really, I get free top up for my mobile when I call telephone numbers ending with 8.”

"This project aims at exploring how the new technologies influence and change - by making everybody reachable anytime anywhere - the relations between people.
The phones on the crosses were ringing at each call, and their blue lights were transforming the area in a very strange “cemetery”. I had given the phone numbers to some friends who couldn’t travel to Cuneo but were given a chance to partecipate to the event this way."

Artist's blog

POSt-PRODUCTION

For all the poor students and/ or  those who, for whatever reason,  can't get hold of a copy of Nicolas Bourriaud's POST-PRODUCTION: Have a look at this. A pdf of the entire book is available online. Also have a look at the pdf search engine for more online literature resources.

Diogene Urban Bivouac

Really interesting opportunity for artists interested in working within the urban environment. If you win this residency, you will really work from the inside of the city. For more info and for the application visit the website.

Susy Oliveira

It is tough not to stare at Susy Oliveira’s clunky, 1980s-video-gamish polygon sculptures. Of course, sculpture is created for gawking, so clearly Oliveira has reached at least one of her goals with these large-scale pieces made of color photographic prints (c-prints) on archival card and wrapped onto foam core. In her description of her 2008 solo show at Toronto’s Peak gallery, Oliveira wrote about examining “our preoccupation with replacing nature with fabricated versions of itself.” Fittingly, she adds that these sculptures express an “opposition between the round aspects of sculpture and the flat aspects of photography, much like bringing a virtual model into a real space.” Oliveira is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design (2000) and the University of Waterloo (2006).

(source: The Cool Hunter Newsletter: 09/03/2009)

her website

Let's go and see 'nothing'

Vides(Voids), A retrospective
@ Centre Pompidou, Paris

"Vides" (Voids) is a retrospective of empty exhibitions since that of Yves Klein in 1958. In almost a dozen rooms of the National Museum of Modern Art, it assembles in a totally original manner exhibitions that showed absolutely nothing, leaving empty the space for which they were designed.

For more information about the exhibition read this article published in the Independent.

3 Trees, 3 Months

3 Trees, 3 Months

a participative (art?)event 

bY SilvIo PallaDinO

"The only method we have to elude forgetfulness is to keep memories, in form of mental or tangible images..."(continue)

SAt 7 March 09 // h 11-18

Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park

London

map +info

Please come!You can bring friends if you like!

The use of camera/camera phones and recording equipment during the event is encouraged. Snap it, video it, blog it and e-mail it to me! I will use all the sent material to edit one final video that will be exhibited in June @LCC, London

Advertising, the strange couple

I have just found these photographs I took few months ago in the Underground.