A Darkness More Than Night, QUAD Gallery, 11 November 2011 - 29 January 2012

Image: Mike Cooter, Scarlet Street, 2006/20011, Courtesy the Kirk Collection.

Thom Andersen /// Chris Burden /// Mike Cooter /// John Divola /// Douglas Gordon /// Johan Grimonprez /// David Noonan /// Hadrian Pigott /// Laure Prouvost /// Fergal Stapleton /// Sturtevant /// Nicole Wermers /// Cerith Wyn Evans


QUAD Gallery
Derby, UK

Curated by Ariella Yedgar and Rosie Cooper

'A Darkness More Than Night' explores contemporary art through 'noir', a genre most readily associated with stylish Hollywood crime dramas of the 1940s and 50s, yet whose precursors date back through nineteenth century to Greek tragedy. Taking a forensic approach, the exhibition considers the aesthetics and mood of noir, and describes them through some of its key components, such as Darkness and Scene of the Crime. Another major noir element is the MacGuffin, a term attributed to Alfred Hitchcock for an object or idea that is pursued by characters throughout a film but that has little inherent value other than to drive the narrative forward. The exhibition features contributions by contemporary artists from across the world who work in a variety of media - including sculpture, installation, print and film.

further text and images below

Brian Dillon and Momus: In Conversation at the Swedenborg Society

A book presentation and conversation between Brian Dillon and Momus.


Monday, June 27 2011


The Swedenborg Society
20-21 Bloomsbury Way
London WC1A 2TH


Two new publications, Sanctuary by Brian Dillon and Solution 214-238: The Book of Japans by Momus, were launched at the Swedenborg Society. Both books are published by Sternberg Press.

In the Belly of the Whale, Cartel Gallery

In the Belly of the Whale

Cartel

114-116 Amersham Vale (in the courtyard of the Old Police Station)

London SE14

Adam Chodzko /// Côme Ciment /// Anthea Hamilton /// Jacopo Miliani

Curated by Ariella Yedgar and Rosie Cooper

 28 May - 16 July 2011

Wednesday - Saturday 12-4pm.

Late opening Friday 24 June 7-11pm.

Private View: 27 May 6:30pm - late 

Moby Dick inspired a lifelong obsession in Orson Welles.  So much so, that he directed and appeared in at least three different adaptations of the novel: once on stage and twice in film.

Welles's interpretations of Moby Dick included a 1955 play about a theatre company's rehearsal of the Melville story, which featured newcomers Patrick McGoohan, Joan Plowright and Kenneth Williams, and starred the director himself as Captain Ahab.  It is said that Welles considered the theatre hall to be the belly of the whale, in which the actors are unwittingly trapped - much as, in the novel, the crew are caught on the ship.  Soon after the theatre production finished its run, Welles shot, in two London theatres, a film that included additional cast members such as Christopher Lee.  It has since been presumed lost.  16 years later, Welles made another attempt at his own film version, in which he played all the major parts.  Some of this footage was edited into a movie posthumously but, at the time of writing, the film is unavailable for public viewing due to legal issues.

'In the Belly of the Whale' is a response to Welles's unremitting and ultimately unfinished project.  It considers the theme of rehearsal and its related notions of incompleteness, version and repetition.  The exhibition features new works by Adam Chodzko, Côme Ciment and Jacopo Miliani, a recent piece by Anthea Hamilton and contextual material.

More Soup and Tart, Barbican Theatre

Laurie Anderson performing How to Yodel at Soup and Tart, the Kitchen Gallery, New York 1974.  Image: Peter Moore.

More Soup and Tart was a sell-out evening in the Barbican's main Theatre on April 15th, held in the spirit of artist Jean Dupuy's legendary 1974-5 Soup and Tart events at the Kitchen Gallery in New York.  Audiences were served a light meal of homemade soup and tart, which was followed by a 'menu' of contributions by around 30 practitioners including Charles Atlas, Matta-Clark, Hannah Wilke, Arthur Russell, Steve Reich and Richard Serra.   Each contribution lasted no longer than 2 minutes.

This re-imagined version keeps the format of the original: 2 minute contributions in the form of film and live performance from 33 of the most interesting practitioners across dance, art, music and film.  The line-up featured Christian Marclay, Martin Creed, Simon Bookish, Ryan Styles, Mark Aerial Waller, Tai Shani, William Cheshire, Tom Woolner, Penny Arcade,  Jennifer Walshe, Edwina Ashton, Dog Kennel Hill Project,  Vicki Bennett (People Like Us), Frauke Requardt, Mikhail Karikis, Rosemary Butcher, William Cobbing, Marcia Farquhar, Nicoletta Tiberini, Andrew Kotting, Sam Lee, Simon Vincenzi, Stewart Home, John Butcher, Tim Etchells, Lucy Beech & Edward Thomasson, Holly Slingsby, Marcia Farquhar, Jeremiah Day, Catalina Niculescu, Hilary Koob-Sassen, with a filmed contributions from Charles Atlas and Michael Clark.  Live documentation by LuckyPDF.

Click this link for an amazing illustrated review of the evening by Amelia's Magazine.

See below for selected images of 'More Soup and Tart' (all images courtesy of Felix Clay)... 

Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s (Public Programme, Barbican Art Gallery)

Download a pdf of the events programme I have put together for Barbican Art Gallery's Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s here (right hand side of the main exhibition page).

Events include an evening with Cafe Oto, a panel discussion entitled On and Off Stage: Experimental Theatre and Visual Art Performance featuring Catherine Wood, Joe Kelleher, Bruce McLean and Tai Shani, a new commission from Athanasios Argianas, LUX artist film night, an evening of duets with a contribution from Aura Satz, a TV studio from LuckyPDF TV, a night of Sound and Words with performance from Rachel Cattle and Michael Horowitz, a discussion on artists, cities and subcultures with Iain Sinclair, Richard Grayson and Anthony Gross, dinners with Companis and DesignMarketo, and nights organised by the Architecture Foundation and Rational Rec.

Songs of the Swamp, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna

Paula Kane Above the Forest at the Edge of the Lake, Oil on Canvas, 2006

Songs of the Swamp

Kunsthalle Exnergasse, WUK, Vienna

28 January - 3 March 2011

Anthony Auerbach /// Eric Beltran & Jorge Satorre /// Leah Carvell // Hannah Collins /// Verity Combe /// Sophie Cundale /// Stephen Danzig // Etcétera… /// Doug Fishbone /// Christian Graupner /// Sharon Green /// Alex Hamilton /// Claire Hooper /// Paula Kane /// Lisa Louttit /// Michaela Math /// Melissa Moore /// Nomos /// John Russell /// Tim Spooner /// Eva Stenram /// Joulia Strauss /// Myriam Thyes /// Bela Weiner 

Guide Two: New work for 176 Gallery's 'Testing Ground' project

TESTING GROUND

176 Gallery

Saturday 29 - Sunday 30 January, 11am-7pm
Preview Friday 28 January, 6-10pm

Tableau Vivant: A Wandering Retrospective

Image: Orphee Carbon Copy, Diamond Panaflex, Tai Shani, 2010.

Anna Barham /// Winnie Cott /// The Hal an Tow /// Bruce McLean / Nice Style: The World’s First Pose Band  ///Mistick Krewe of Comus /// The New Orleans Society for Tableau Vivant /// Pablo Picasso / Erik Satie / Léonide Massine ///Audrey Reynolds /// Tai Shani

Presented as part of Prospect 1.5 New Orleans 

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

6th & 13th November 2010

Tableau Vivant: A Wandering Retrospective presents a selection of historic tableaux vivants alongside specially conceived tableaux by Tai Shani (UK), Audrey Reynolds (UK), Winnie Cott (FR), Anna Barham (UK) and The New Orleans Society for Tableau Vivant. 

 
The show takes place on a flat bed truck that will proceed slowly up Julia St., making stops between the river and St. Charles Avenue. 

 
At each stop, a different tableau vivant will be performed.  The show will be repeated the following weekend in the St. Claude Arts District. 

 
Tableau Vivant translates literally as “living picture”: a group or individual in a carefully arranged pose that is held for a period of time.  It frequently includes elaborate sets, costumes, props and sometimes music. Performed variously as a parlour game, carnival attraction, pageant, pedagogic tool or propaganda image, tableaux vivants usually illustrate popular mythologies, famous paintings, classical, archetypal or historic events, and are most often performed within the context of informal social gatherings.  They are a way of stepping into the role of an historic figure, enhancing self-image or manipulating public identity; of bringing to life significant scenes in a subjective context, or revisiting a snapshot of the past and re-committing it to memory.

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion (Public Programme, Barbican Art Gallery)

Barbican Cosplay Extravaganza.  Photo credit: India Roper-Evans

Download a full events programme on the right hand side of the Barbican's Future Beauty page here.

Highlights included a Black themed evening with Diane Pernet, a Centre-wide Cosplay event (above), Beauty Party with Charlie Le Mindu and Alex Box and a panel discussion on Kawaii featuring Sharon Kinsella.

General Inquiry Issue 1 / Acknowledgements

Featuring a contribution from myself and Audrey Reynolds, Acknowledgements, which we updated weekly for almost 2 months.

Acknowledgements is an ongoing work begun during our collaborative exhibition Temporary Secretary at Fordham Gallery, London, in 2005.


General Inquiry is a quarterly online publication initiated by Kazimierz Jankowski.  He writes - "It is also the working title for a web based curatorial enterprise, loosely (cautiously) set up to explore the production of writing by artists."

General Inquiry Issue 1 Launch / Acknowledgements; Signing Event

Audrey and I signed specially made compliments slips at the launch event for General Inquiry, with personal messages upon request.

The launch took place at X Marks the Bokship on Saturday 11 September.  Our signing took place at 7pm and lasted for half an hour. 

Yes Way Rat T-Shirts

Bootleg t-shirts sold outside Auto Italia / Upset the Rhythm Yes Way festival in August 2010 featuring the tambourine playing Rat from Dress Rehearsal for a Stage Show Part III. 

Band names from the festival, printed on the t-shirts, were: Islet, Time, Cleckhuddersfax, Temperatures, Dam Mantle, Tqqundo Frrrrr and Jelas. 

Sizes from S to XL were available.  One for £7, two for £12. 

 

The Surreal House (Public Programme, Barbican Art Gallery)

Ole Hagen performs as part of Fun House, 10 July.  Photo: Kazimierz Jankowski

Download a full events programme on the right hand side of the Barbican's page for The Surreal House here.

Every Thursday evening throughout the exhibition (10 June - 12 September '10), the Gallery opened late to host a varied programme of talks, performances, screenings.  Each evening was designed to interrogate a particular aspect of the exhibition: the evenings were organised according to themes such as House of Fear, Magic and the Occult, Words, Virtual Worlds, Convulsive Architecture and Erotic.

Highlights included a Lost Luggage Auction organised by Wellers Auctions Last Night I Dreamt I was Venus from Beyond The Mirrors, a new commission from Tai Shani in response to Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus Pavilion (here); a night of interrogations organised by Tom McCarthy's International Necronautical Society; and a first time UK performance of Dream Chamber by Norwegian artist Ane Lan.  This varied programme featured new or existing works from artists and writers such as Brian Catling, Katarzyna Kozyra, Ole Hagen, Le Gun, Better Place Portraiture, Ryan Trecartin, Volker Eichelmann, Jeremy Blake, Aura Satz, Barry Curtis, Mary Ann Caws, Brian Dillon, Anna Barham, Elizabeth McAlpine, Philomene Pirecki, Mark Aerial Waller and Mobile Studio.

Monaco Magazine Issue 1 / Phantom of the Opera: Phantom (Publication & Event)

Phantom of the Opera: Phantom - a contribution in the form of a page in the magazine, and a performance / screening event.  Both contributions describe a currently unrealised project: to dramatise Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and have it performed by an amateur dramatics society.

Both elements featured Steven Kendrat's 5 minute film version of Phantom of the Opera, made in 1999 when Steven was 13 and featuring a cast of family members and friends.  This film is made in preparation for Kendrat's currently unrealised ambition to make his own feature-length film version.

MONACO MAGAZINE (edited by Katie Guggenheim) is a publication, a website and a programme of events.  The format of a periodical magazine is used as an organisational structure to produce content across three platforms. Instead of reviewing or previewing, the magazine is devoted to sharing ideas and information about things that haven’t happened, and maybe never will (artworks that are impossible to realise, projects that haven’t got off the ground, the beginnings of ideas, or research that is still ongoing). The aim is not to catalogue or archive these projects, instead they are considered as starting points.