murmurART - International Contemporary Online Art Gallery

Mat Collishaw show at the BFI Gallery

dje — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:51:01 +0000

It’s a tough call to ask of an artist that he produce something in response to the work of the Armenian film-maker Sergei Paradjanov. Although relatively unacclaimed - compared with his friend and contemporary Andrei Tarkovsky - Paradjanov is one of cinema’s geniuses. His films are marked not only by their beauty, but also by an unusual stillness: much is conveyed and little is said. But of course Mat Collishaw has his own brilliance and technically he is innovative. Paradjanov would have been flattered by his homage at the BFI.

Ostensibly Paradjanov retells the stories of local folklore, fusing elements of traditional iconography with references to Western European Surrealism. Each shot is a tightly composed tableau, saturated with colour and often depicting unsettling or amusing juxtapositions. Yet in spite of his stylised, theatrical framing, there is also a very human quality to Paradjanov’s work. The director grew up in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide and as an adult he was tortured by the Soviet state.

“What do I lack as a director?” Tarkovsky once asked him, to which Paradjanov replied, “You lack one year in a Soviet maximum security prison”. Five years of imprisonment gave him insight into suffering, and his films are imbued with a deep empathy for the human spirit. Beautiful faces stare silently at the camera, their expressions filled with contentment, longing, grief or joy – reminiscent of Arshile Gorky’s The Artist and His Mother of 1926.

Mat Collishaw’s Retrospectre is an altarpiece composed of antique window frames with mirrored fronts. Onto these, sequences of footage (he filmed himself in Armenia) are projected, creating the effect of an animated stained glass window, and recalling the decorative partitions in Paradjanov’s films.

Paradjanov was an artist dealing with his own time, even if the stories he told have a timeless quality. The relentless human suffering of the twentieth century has a latent presence throughout his oeuvre. Collishaw is very much of the twenty-first century and he parallels the director by making art pertinent to today, taking the environment as his subject. He portrays Nature’s beauty - flowers opening slowly into bloom, a stag in mist; and her inherent violence - lava spurts from a volcano, water is ejected from a geyser. Most stunning is the slow-motion close-up of an owl swooping on its prey. The images are familiar, almost clichéd, but the message is clear – a great reverence for the forces of Nature.

References to Paradjanov are made with the depiction of Middle Eastern symbols and folkloric traditions. A single explicit quotation is made with Collishaw’s inclusion of the frightened white horse that appears at the horrifying close of The Legend of the Surami Fortress, when a man is buried alive inside a wall.

Beauty will save the world, said Dostoevskij. Perhaps not quite. But Paradjanov and Collishaw believe that it can humble us and make us think.

Gavin Turk, Jake Chapman and Piers Secunda in show at Zero10 Gallery

dje — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:40:49 +0000

Despite reports that we are slowly inching our way out of the grim economic climate, the realities of setting up a business at the moment remain daunting. Not to be discouraged, however, Zero10 Gallery has come up with an unusual and intriguing recession buster. Their living room.

In the absence of a suitable gallery space, Johann Bournot, Director of Zero10, decided to launch his venture from the comfort of his own home. This is by no means a conventional pop-up initiative. The Bournots’ life goes on as usual around the show, with none of their furniture or family photographs removed to emulate the clean lines of gallery display. Regardless of this, the works of Bournot’s leading artists including Adam Ball, Piers Secunda and Henrijs Preiss are shown to full advantage here.

Three small works by Preiss are hung in a triangular formation over the fireplace. The Latvian artist’s collation of modernist abstraction and medieval religious symbolism is exploited in this context. The domestic proportions of the work and space imply the personal devotion invited by the original culture of icons. Lit from above, however, the brightly painted surfaces and electric colours of the hieratic varnished patterns assert a contemporary reworking of their theme.

Similarly, Piers Secunda’s works are well suited to this intimate environment. His extraordinary treatment of paint as a material whereby it can be poured, moulded, set and cast, renders his works irresistibly tactile. The industrial components of paint are explored, addressing subjects and processes. Pennsylvania oil fields are hazily picked out in crude oil on a sleek plane of industrial floor paint. Anchored to the wall with a cast paint hook, Secunda’s exploitation of the medium shows paint to be alarming in its strength. We are invited to handle these works under the attentive eye of Bournot and even the artist, an allowance that larger spaces cannot monitor and therefore disallow.

The inclusion of two small prints by Gavin Turk and Jake Chapman owned by the Bournots before the exhibition, however, seem out of place. While in line with the ethos of including work that they admire, these small prints are interesting in themselves, albeit out of sync with the less well known, more substantially represented artists.

The contents of commercial exhibitions ultimately have the potential to wind up in someone’s house, so to see them installed like this shrewdly aids this visualisation process. The intentionally organic growth of Zero10 spread by word of mouth, should draw in a curious and well-targeted audience. While this concept suits the selected artists in this instance, notions of aesthetic autonomy or an artwork’s status beyond the buyer come to mind. The experience is flattering to the viewer but not easily accessible due to its lack of visibility. Zero10 openly admit their objectives of providing a personal and elite environment, which does not prioritise these anxieties. What is more, they achieve an effective presentation of art they respect, without the works losing credibility or bite.

This week

dje — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:48:14 +0000

As we enter mid March and the evenings begin to slowly draw out once again, this weeks preview proves to bring together a varied assortment of exhibitions and talks. The week consists of artists curating group shows, highly anticipated large scale exhibitions and artist run spaces operating on a shoe string budget.

MONDAY

If you havn’t managed to see For the Sake of the Image curated by Suki Chan at Jerwood Space, then tonight is the last chance. Go along between 6 - 8pm and hear curator and artist Suki Chan in conversation with exhibiting artists Asnat Austerlitz, Richard Bevan, Juan Fontanive, Paul O’Kane and Dan Walwin. Discussion chaired by Sarah Williams.

If you were also caught unaware of today being ‘International Women’s Day’ then opening this evening to mark the occasion is At Home an exhibition of seven artists work exploring ideas of the domestic at Rollo Contemporary. Artists include: Karla Black, Natalie Gale, Paula Rae Gibson, Sarah Lederman, Agatha A. Nitecka, Angela Reilly and Michelle Souter.

WEDNESDAY

Having opened last week now the crowds have past why not go and see for yourself what all the fuss is about and visit Richard Hamilton at the Serpentine Gallery. This major exhibition will reassess the nature of the British artist’s pioneering contribution, focusing on Hamilton’s political works.

SATURDAY

If you have not done so already take this weekend as an opportunity to see A K Dolven at Wilkinson before it closes tomorrow. Showing two major works, ‘the day the sky became my ground’, a 16mm film and a video installation entitled ‘ahead’ with a third ‘Self portrait Berlin February 1989 - Lofoten august 2009’, the exhibition explores the poetic relationship to the particular environments behind Dolven’s work.

SUNDAY

Opening with an exhibition towards the end of last year ShopAt34 is a new artist run space occupying an old Edwardian shop at 34 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden. Closing today Say What What Way is a group exhibition bringing together a number of artists from London and Glasgow to examine the different languages of painting.

Green Hill Zone at Hannah Barry Gallery

dje — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:10:46 +0000

Level 1 from Sega’s original Sonic the Hedgehog computer game has moved. It’s now in Peckham. If you’re looking for magic rings, however, you’re probably best off sticking to the nearby street markets - this Green Hill Zone, in the Copeland industrial park, doesn’t contain any (not that I could find, at least).

OK then, the link with Sega’s early work is pretty tenuous, but there is one. Mike Allen and Tim Bouckley’s installation at the Hannah Barry Gallery explores the idea of modulating a sensual experience, so suggesting a connection between the artwork and computer games seems reasonable, even interesting. The exhibition flyer makes a quality of this relationship explicit by illustrating Sonic’s computerised landscape as one divided into different levels and platforms. If those images look like they’d be at home on a computer screen, the art instillation has made itself look every bit at home in the cold, barren, warehouse space of the Hannah Barry Gallery.

Three platforms, simply constructed out of plywood and topped with cheap grey carpet, sit side by side in the centre of the room. Six smaller wooden islands sit on top of these with ventilation grills on their sides releasing warm air. Above each platform hangs a single speaker playing a selection of spoken-word audio clips. Above the lot are strings of dimly glowing lights. And that’s it.

To say that this instillation is visually underwhelming is an understatement. But that’s not the point. Green Hill Zone isn’t really about what things look like so the artists seem to have spared us the distraction. And, if you just stood and stared at this work of art, it would never make any sense anyway. You have to use it. Sitting on the islands for a few moments, being warmed up whilst listening to some random sound-bite is unexpectedly engaging. With no allusion to comfort except the most minimal use of heat, light and a hard seat, Green Hill Zone distils elements that, imaginably, already existed in the space it occupies. By uniting them around three focal points in the centre of the room it achieves a sense of gravity, quite literally. Often art of this ilk presents itself as a bewildering obstacle demanding analysis. That’s not so much the case here, as using the objects articulates the ideas behind their creation. It’s minimal, paired back qualities actually help this interaction along, exploring concepts more calmly than coldly.

For me, Green Hill Zone encouraged an inner dialogue about how, with the subtle modification of a few basic sensual elements - space, heat, sound and light - we can profoundly alter the human experience and reaction to something. This is an idea that’s been around the block many, many times. All too often, artists let the idea of creating a sensational piece of art get in the way of their original idea.

Green Hill Zone is confidently stripped down to it’s essential elements and has a refreshing faith in audience interaction. For all that, it’s an admirable effort. However, for some of the same reasons, it’s could also be accused of being a tad dull.

Collier Schorr at Stuart Shave/Modern Art

dje — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:16:14 +0000

On entering the first room at Stuart Shave/Modern Art, the viewer is greeted with two colour saturated still life photographs of flowers in the German countryside, creating a gaudy brightness and sense of festivity that belies the ambiguous, dark undertones of the exhibition as a whole.

The collection forms a retrospective of Collier Schorr’s photographs taken over the past 18 years in and around the small town of Schwabisch Gmund in Southern Germany. As an American Jew travelling to a remote part of Germany each summer, Schorr has assumed the role of participant observer within a small community. Referencing August Sander as an obvious influence, Schorr has documented the lives of the locals, yet by working through questions of national identity, gender and landscape which transcend the specifics she brings the tradition into the contemporary sphere.

Schorr’s photographs portraying the awkward transition of adolescence, the theme for which she is best known, are displayed in the second gallery. Depictions of traditional boyhood activities, such as tree-climbing, are undermined by the subject wearing bright red lipstick, creating an uneasy sense of fantasy, while a traditional portrait of a boy wearing a tight shirt over his clothes blurs the boundaries of gender stereotypes.

Images of notions of Aryan beauty juxtaposed with a photograph of a Haywagon in the second gallery highlight the dialogue between Schorr’s Jewish identity and that of the German landscape, clearly setting the tone for the third room. Displaying Schorr’s photographs of (boys dressed up as) German soldiers, the room subverts both gender and social hierarchy with an ironic gaze. A German soldier standing in a wood to attention looks like a lost, lonely adolescent, while in another traditional military portrait the subject is shown holding a helmet full of fresh fruit. The strong sense of surveillance in the images is heightened by Schorr’s own place as an outsider and intruder.

As well as being drawn to the emotive themes that Schorr raises, the viewer can also marvel at the level of craftsmanship in the creation of her images. Black and white photographs of visual ciphers – such as a porcelain eagle and fawn – are striking for the mastery of light and shadow and the deep texture created through the printing process. Her portrait Kate in Bed in the second gallery delicately captures vulnerability and resolve in equal measures, while the same subject Kate Asleep in the final room has a sculptural feel, referencing surrealism. It is these exhibits rather than the mixed media collages and drawings that really display her skill as an artist, securing her position within the contemporary photography canon.

Frances Young, Sites of Transition

dje — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:30:27 +0000

A rainy afternoon means a movie to me and I was lucky to have an entire gallery to myself earlier this week with not even an intimidating ‘gallerina’ at the door, which only exaggerated the intensity and impact of Frances Young’s series of video projections.

Black Hills sequencer/Bridge 1/Wyoming, Always’ inspired by an all girl American road trip effectively negates all clichés and contrivances that one immediately thinks of – no motels, swinging saloon doors or sultry coyotes. Instead Young has effectively extracted the finer elements from darker, more ominous scenes – think more Blair Witch – oncoming headlights, looming telegraph poles, black silhouettes of tree branches. The narrative is dissected though by shots of the medium itself so flickers of grain sludge serve to quash our desire to sit back and relax. Instead the jumping screen and changing landscape add to our own sense of physical movement – as though we are travelling with her right there and then peering through window frames attempting to gauge a sense of our own whereabouts.

Aware of my utterly unfounded cynicism for ‘abstract audio works’ I made a concentrated effort to let go of my own conscious thought and allow the sounds and moving composition of Oscillate 01 to wash over me or rather jolt into me. I really was struck by Young’s technical ability – to be able to correlate different coloured and sized ‘slats’ of movement with beats at ever changing tempos requires a deep understanding of the merits and sensory impact of fusing audio/video means.

Young’s Song of farewell which traces a swarm of flying starlings to and from their rollercoaster of a roost, is the strongest, most original work in which her subtle train of thought, sensitive imagination and contemplative, understated approach come together to eerie but stunning effect. The rhythmic slow pace, the choice of black starlings, the deserted setting and foreboding light have all been cleverly considered and acutely cohered. The relationship between sound and sight though is critical once more. The crash of waves on the shore, the marching of foot soldiers, the flapping of bird wings – so suggestive is the whirring of the vinyl loop that it boosts the work into another multi – sensory realm in which one’s own ideas, imaginations and narratives can be tacked onto.

Sites of Transition showcases Young’s ability to fuse audio/video, sever automatic readings and upset one’s own sense of whereabouts whilst encouraging you to imagine another alternative. As long as she retains her sophisticated visual vocabulary her ability to tap into you more ways than one will remain.

Preview of the week

dje — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:19:31 +0000

MONDAY

“One day it was clear to me that my hands and tools were no longer sufficient to work with the colour. I needed the model to paint the monochrome painting” Yves Klein

Tonight Monotone Symphony is at GV Art at 7pm. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Yves Klein’s Monotone Symphony and Anthropometries of the Blue Period (March 1960) in which Klein tried to distance himself from the creation of his work, this new performance will utilise the latest in interactive video projection and sound design technology; using light instead of paint to recreate Klein’s images. More here.

TUESDAY

An interesting lecture today at Goldsmiths with Dr Jennifer Bajorek, Women Who Make Men Lie (Derrida/Rousseau). Part of the InC Seminar Series: On Derrida – Questioning the Feminine. Starts at 4pm in the Richard Hoggart Building. Click for more.

WEDNESDAY

A must-see Richard Hamilton exhibition opens at the Serpentine today, showcasing the influential British artist’s diverse practice in media including painting, printmaking, installation, typography and industrial design and focusing on Hamilton’s more political works. Find out more.

In conjunction with the exhibition there’s a free talk with curator Nicola Lees on Saturday at 3pm. Also a one-off talk with the artist on the 9th at the V&A. Click to find out more.

THURSDAY

Tonight we introduce our new murmurART exhibition, with a First Thursday opening upstairs at 20 Hoxton Square. With exciting works from twenty-two emerging artists and a performance by rapper and video-artist Helen Carmel Benigson (Princess Belsize Dollar) at 8pm, the night looks set to boom. Drinks laid on by Peroni. Go on, click here to get the details.

FRIDAY

Rounding off the week, From Floor To Sky opens today at P3 gallery, on the Marylebone Road, curated by Peter Kardia. Bringing together twenty-seven contributing artists - each one of Kardia’s own past pupils at St Martin’s School of Art and the RCA - the exhibition brings together both their earliest and most contemporary work. Artists including Richard Deacon, Richard Long and Richard Wentworth are involved. Click for more.

Ron Arad: Restless at Barbican Art Gallery

dje — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:40:56 +0000

With major retrospectives of his work staged in the span of a year at the Centre Pompidou, New York’s MoMA and now at the Barbican Art Gallery, Ron Arad is on a roll – in some ways quite literally. One of the star exhibits, a bookcase named with characteristic glee Reinventing the Wheel, gives me a start as it begins rolling up and down a motorized track (the Teeter-totter), making quite a racket as it goes. In a show that sets out to endow inanimate objects with movement and where everything seems to be slightly out of kilter, you can never be sure what new thing will spring to life next.

There was plenty to take in on the opening night of this ‘survey exhibition’ (the word ‘retrospective’ being tactfully avoided), the first of its kind to take place in the UK. In a concerted effort to live up to its name, the organisers of Restless put together a programme of music and performances that gave new meaning to animating a gallery space. The party was in full swing by the time I got there: the DJ playing retro tunes in keeping with the 1970s theme for the evening; the specially-designed moveable bar serving fancy Absolut cocktails to an equally glamorous crowd; people trying out a selection of rocking chairs and having a go at Arad’s unorthodox stainless steel ping-pong table in a designated interactive space.

If, despite all the ambient distractions, you managed to follow the intended itinerary of an exhibition spanning three decades of Ron Arad’s versatile output as a designer and an architect, you were in for a treat. Arad’s experimental approach, his constant urge to explore new, challenging materials and techniques is reflected in the titles of the different sections flashing up on state-of-the-art LED screens: Scavenging, Tinkering, Rolling, Superforming, and – with refreshing humility – Failing, devoted to work-in-progress and projects that never quite took off.

Unlike some of his peers whose practice straddles the divide between design and contemporary art, Ron Arad does not appear to take himself or what he does too seriously, and this may be a key to his success. As he acknowledges in one of the video clips, shedding light on the thinking behind the objects displayed in each room and the complex manufacturing processes involved in their making, ‘The world can go on turning without new chairs and without new tables.’

Video Interview: Liane Lang

dje — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:13:39 +0000

“I see myself as working in the tradition of figurative sculpture but no longer producing the actual objects, which I think are very problematic: I’m particularly interested in sculptural objects that are problematic. I’ve been photographing Socialist monuments in Hungary, last year, and I’m about to do a project in Latvia, using the Victory Monument”

The artist talks to Hannah Forbes Black in her studio about her practice.

To view Liane’s latest work, click here

Peeping Tom at Vegas Gallery

dje — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:36:31 +0000

So we’re dealing with the voyeur; the ‘curious, prying fellow’ who gives the show its namesake. Now voyeurism is not new, but nor is it irrelevant. Vegas introduce the show by making the bold statement that all artists today are essentially ‘Peeping Toms’; that they all explore the transgressive or the unturned. Supposedly that’s correct, but I still read it as an excuse for eclecticism that needn’t have been said.

But wait. I’m being too harsh already. Nobody reads the bumpf anyway. Let’s talk art. The show’s hung in the scattershot/deliberate manner of covering the walls up high and down low. Sometimes this works, sometimes it overwhelms. Here, in the large interior space of Vegas, it works.

It is an eclectic show; there’s a huge breadth to the idea of voyeurism and it gets explored here in its utmost. Sex and nudity unavoidably takes the dominant seat. The ‘Peeping Tom’, or the voyeur, always conjures the image of the perverse spy, looking into a world of all things naughty.

There’s more to this show, though, and I was grateful for it. The shallow sexual reading of the show’s title would have made it just another titillating show; frankly boring. In the year 2010 I’m finding it rare that images of quadriplegic sex or the blend between porn and art impresses as good art itself. I don’t want to be shocked for shock’s sake. I want to be impressed, and crossing taboos doesn’t.

Interestingly, what the free-range hanging of the work doesn’t often allow is as much appreciation for individual works. I think that was the point. The overall show is an overview of voyeurism. We’re looking at cut-up drug photos and the photo portraits of a coy girl and the porn snipping without a crotch and the documented dead film extras and receiving a broad outline of what ‘Peeping Tom’ really meant. For that, I was grateful.