>Project Blog
By Christabel Stewart, 13:18 Thu 20 Dec 2007
Artist Tris Vonna-Michell was a photographer dissatisfied with letting his images do the talking, so he began evolving stories around them. These stories, told while showing photocopies and projected slides and handing out various props (such as an egg timer that determines the length of the story to be told), are dense and rapidly articulated. At London's Cubitt gallery Vonna Mitchell performed in a dark and crowded room, so visibility is low, but the tale and the telling are absolutely worth a listen.
By Christabel Stewart, 00:00 Tue 04 Dec 2007
One of Shakespeare's most frequently-quoted passages, from As You Like It, considers the world as nothing but a theatrical stage where humans are actors, playing different roles. Tate Modern's 'The World as a Stage' ponders contemporary artworks that reference the theatrical. The tableau vivant by young Hamburg artist Ulla Von Brandenburg, staged with five real actors locked into a stiff, mime-based scenario set to a soundtrack, had the most immediate resonance with the theme, though other works in the exhibition are worth investigation.
By Christabel Stewart, 09:54 Mon 19 Nov 2007
The Frankfurter Kunstverein made a nice play around the notion of stand-up comedy and its values -the aspiration to provoke a response- for their offsite project, 'A Delicious Feeling of Confidence' which was dedicated to comedian Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman, the self proclaimed practitioner of anti-humour and absurdist performance. Welsh artist Maria Pask took up the mantle of absurdity, the upturned expectations (Metal music as conduit for Buddism), and interacting with the made-for-television robot 'race' of Daleks. Surprisingly entertaining!
By Christabel Stewart, 12:09 Mon 05 Nov 2007
Charles and Ray Eames designed a pack of cards that portrayed images chosen to celebrate what they considered important: familiar objects from the animal, mineral, and vegetable categories, to be used at play to demonstrate their conviction that beauty and utility can be found in the everyday. In tune with his earlier tripartate record cover collages (pictured), Christian Marclay uses this principle for 'Shuffle', a deck of cards which carries the imagery he has extensively photographed: the appearance of musical notation in the everyday world, from shop awnings, chocolate tins, t-shirts, underwear, and random signage. To mark the publishing of this shuffleable print project, Marclay invited several notable musicains to interptet the 'score' on this deck of cards, live at Finsbury Town Hall. Hear the outcome in the following documentation.
By Christabel Stewart, 17:37 Thu 01 Nov 2007
The culmination of Michael Clark's residency at the Barbican was unveiled last night with the three part 'Stravinsky Project' performed in full. The first two acts have been performed before over the two years, but have been developed and modified for this finale. Each act gives further breadth and understanding to Clark's modus operandi, and in particular his juxtaposition of classical and modernist ideals. Part one, O is set to the Stravinski's Apollo, Mmm… to The Rite of Spring, and I Do to Les Noces. I don't want to spoil it for anyone that has tickets for this week's run, but the image on the card of a Yves Saint Laurent wedding dress from 1965, in the shape of a knitted Russian Doll tickled me pink, and the stage reference is even better...
By Christabel Stewart, 11:20 Tue 30 Oct 2007
October's White Cubicle gallery presentation was by Wolfgang Tillmans, and focussed on a special presentation of an image by Richard Branson. I understood -and this could have been distorted in the telling- that the image had once been Tillmans own portrait of choice for his toilet, and this had led his friend and curator Stefan Kalmar to remark that it was one of his best photographs. It turned out not be by Tillmans at all, but the remark, the image and the man have been honoured or decoded, in this context presented on a wallpaper of other Tillmans imagery. Again White Cubicle proves that a curious, somewhat hygenically challenged context can pull all the punches.
By Christabel Stewart, 13:58 Sun 14 Oct 2007
Image via phone:
Cabinet gallery has curated a veritable museum for Frieze, with a carefully orchestrated exhibition of historical and contemporary works, including a complete set of Wendingen magazines. The piece de resistance though, is the hour long audio guide (pictured).
By Christabel Stewart, 19:48 Sat 13 Oct 2007
This years' Frieze Projects has been curated by Neville Wakefield. Spectacle is provided by Richard Prince's rotating car dealership style display of car and model, whilst a more sublte approach to the carnivalsque nature of such peopled events is brought by Janice Kerbel. Her 'Remarkable' poster set, changing every day, advertises non-existent sights such as 'the shyest person alive' in the manner of old time country fairs. The elusiveness of the attractions in question contrasts with the presence of so much other work on site; but also captured is the searching feeling of fair goers roaming Frieze's labyrinthine corridors.
By Christabel Stewart, 12:43 Thu 11 Oct 2007
Image via phone:
Panda bags! Gavin brownies! Vintage clothes! Relph and Payne bootlegs! Hope Atherton clothes! Signed bills! Rob Pruitt's flea market for the Frieze Art Fair takes over the whole of Gavin Brown's Enterprise, and provides a microcosmic, affordable hub of activity to the main fair, with some of the art worlds best loved right there with their wares.
By Christabel Stewart, 20:57 Mon 01 Oct 2007
Man Like Me played a great set for the opening of projectspace176 in North London last week - a new open to the public private collection building that will hold exhibitions and events akin to that of Saatchi's now established venture.
By Christabel Stewart, 15:04 Tue 18 Sep 2007
"Some were like feathers, but feathers of neon, laser-drawn, exquisitely refined and breathtakingly delicate. Others were like urban plans, architechturally precise, like cities viewed from the air." So goes Nick Knight's description of the beauty and diversity of plants he encountered in the Natural History Museum botanical collection when preparing his book Flora. Accompanying his images are short texts on the individual plants commenting on their biological characteristics, historical and cultural importance. Artist Janice Kerbel made a parallel investigation as the basis for her engaging radio play Nick Silver Can't Sleep in which botanical tendencies are transformed into the basis of a thwarted love story. It was performed for the first time to a live audience at Tate Britain on 8th September, at dusk.
By Christabel Stewart, 13:27 Thu 13 Sep 2007
Image via phone:
The postman has been busy getting this months new season of exhibition and event announcements distributed. Emily Pethick's 'Imagine Action' though, is actually a long running summer show that culminates this weekend with some interesting peformances. Transmissions will be there.
By Christabel Stewart, 09:53 Mon 03 Sep 2007
Donald Urquhart opened his second solo exhibition at Maureen Paley gallery this weekend, with an exhibition of '52 Girls', another irreverent and witty look at cross gendered modes of femininity.
By Christabel Stewart, 12:33 Thu 30 Aug 2007
Scottish artist Lucy Mckenzie's latest institutional exhibition 10 Years of Robotic Mayhem (including sublet) which originating at Talbot Rice in Edinburgh, and is currently at Bristol's Arnolfini is strongly concerned with demostrating the many ways in which she chooses to disseminate her work. Commercial record cover artwork (for Erasure), illustrations for pamphlets, magazines and free newspapers (a guide to public memorials, Berlin's 032c and Edinburgh's One O'Clock Gun), and via her independent record label Decemberism are given prime space in favour of a painterly retrospective. In addition to this, Mckenzie has 'sublet' part of her exhibition to her friend, fashion designer Beca Lipscombe, and together they have created a small selling boutique of her collection (pictured), complete with reproduction Mackintosh furniture. Lipscombe is loyal to Scottish suppliers exclusively, and keeps her distribution limited. Her inclusion, and the adherence to alternative production systems and collaborative networks makes a refreshing example. And Lipsombe's take on the classic sheepskin jacket is marvellous.
By Christabel Stewart, 11:04 Sun 19 Aug 2007
"Ben R. Wallers (a.k.a. The Rebel) is the frontman, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for the band Country Teasers. His lyrics often deal with taboo subjects such as racism, sexism and xenophobia from first-person standpoints". Or so the Wikipedia entry goes. See an endearing protrait of this intriguing band as photographed by Mark Blower, and a link to view one of Wallers other talents in 'The Book'.
By Christabel Stewart, 17:38 Sat 18 Aug 2007
If you happen to be making a summer pilgrimage to Documenta this weekend you will have a rare chance to see the celebrated Yvonne Rainer perform one of her dance pieces at the Theater im Fridericianum, in Kassel. Rainer's career is viewed as emblematic of the preoccupations of the American avant-garde -the aesthetics of minimalism and the performance ideas of John Cage being central tenets- until later including minimalist-influenced films into these performances, making them early multi-media experiments. Both Documenta presentations: 'RoS Indexical' and 'AG Indexical, with a little help from H.M.' are being performed as a co-production with New York's performance biennale Performa. The first is a reworking of the controversial premiere of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps - when performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1913. The second borrows from Balanchine/Stravinsky's classical ballet Agon as produced in 1957, as an opportunity to analyse, pay homage to, and parody such a classic dance model.
By Christabel Stewart, 15:29 Sat 11 Aug 2007
Kit Hammonds, curator of South London Gallery in Camberwell, put together an interesting selection of live events and pop music related film over two weeks at the end of July. Bringing together Transmissions favourites such as Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Giles Round and Martin Creed,to emphasise the healthy symbiosis between the disciplines. Starting off with Giles Round's own film of the events on the closing evening, and including footage of Martin Creed's appearance drumming for a young band fronted by artist Jo Robertson.
By Christabel Stewart, 13:14 Mon 30 Jul 2007
This is the set for a rather beautiful restaging of a conceptual performance play written and originally staged by the late French artist Guy de Cointet (1934 - 1983), in his adopted home of California in the late 1970s. An amalgam of influences from popular culture, including overheard conversation, soap opera, melodrama, and fashion magazines, every word and ideas is "exteriorised and abstracted to the level of image". Some retropsective interest in Cointet's work has resurfaced recently in the form of a museum retrospective in Paris, and a series of articles in this Summer's bumper Artforum on which he features on the cover.
By Christabel Stewart, 17:27 Mon 16 Jul 2007
Enemies of "the lowest common denominator, ultra-commodified, faux-culture, within which you are usually immersed" Throbbing Gristle tried Tate Modern's turbine hall out for size last month, as a venue to pay tribute to their friend and one time collaborator Derek Jarman. Playing two long tracks first, then a live new work as accompaniment to six of Jarman's super eight films with the accompaniment of the New London Chamber Choir, the event didn't lack TG's infamous spirit of performative experiment.
By Christabel Stewart, 13:53 Sun 08 Jul 2007
An interesting artist who works adeptly accross the mediums of photography, scultpure, film, and performance is Amsterdam-based Jimmy Robert. Using his own body as a material - a means of creating composition - and as a place on which image can be made - he projetcs film onto his own figure after making a series of shapes and poses. Simple and poignant.
