Eva Rothschild

South London Gallery

13^th September – 4 November 2007.

Spindle-like structures punctuate the air of the South London Gallery. Left to meander a path through the labyrinth of sculptures, drawn to neither one nor another, but instead encouraged to drift.

The sculptures or drawings in space, serve to offer a stark contrast with their environment, alluding to a chaos that seems far away. Perpetually juxtaposing, they are at once inviting and prohibiting, hard yet soft, smooth but textured.

The compulsion to touch engendered by the tactile quality of these works is at once intriguing and conflicting. While the hand desires to reach out and touch the architectural forms the menacing serpents warn of the dangers involved in such an intimate encounter.

Notions of entanglement occur throughout; fabric wrapped around sculptures, papers interlocking in the creation of patterns and images, snakes weaved around spindles.

Their size too offers a strange contradiction, while they are large; they are by no means imposing, not quite flimsy but fragile and delicate enough to be knocked over.

There is a comfort in the coherence of the works but a suggestion of entrapment and suffocation caused by the asphyxiating serpents bound tightly around the fragile structures.

The constant figuring of serpents seems to reference temptation, while the use of leather composed to look like whips alludes to something erotic or even sinister.

While most of the works physicality is evident others confuse and disorientate. A large black irregular lump offers fragmented reflections from its mirrored surface, producing a ruptured reflection of the self. This is alluded to elsewhere in the exhibition with a corner sculpture composed of a smooth black reflective surface, interrupted by a matrix of lines that jut out into the viewers’ space. While the mirror seeks to tempt and entrap the spectator, drawing them closer into a simultaneous inspection of the work and self, they are kept firmly at length by the protruding architectural lines that penetrate the surrounding space.

On reflection Eva Rothschild’s subtle puns created with her use of imagery and medium is complex and considered. While her sculptures can allude to the work of artists such as Eva Hesse and thus draw comparisons with Minimalism, it is perhaps more important to uncover what Rothschild is implying through such considered appropriations of imagery and medium.

Review

Cyprien Gaillard: Glasgow 2014

Hayward Project Space

7 October – 16 November 2008.

Herbert Rappoport’s 1962 film ‘Cheremushki’ is a musical comedy portraying Russia’s youth gleefully embracing the hope their new world offers them. This satirical, light-hearted film sees its protagonists singing and dancing gleefully in celebration of a new form of architecture. A scene pictures a youthful couple rushing through their prospective home remarking on the moderness of its construction, from its walls, floors, doors and windows to its contemporary furnishings and appliances, all the while proclaiming it to be ‘a beautiful dream come true’.

This wonderfully kitsch, Hollywood-esque moment articulates the anticipation felt throughout the Cold War period, the notion that ideas transformed into tangible reality could come true: that Utopian ideals in the form of social housing projects could actually help solve the problems societies faced.

It is within Cyprien Gaillard’s Glasgow 2014 that the failures of such ideals are made clear. Three large-scale photographs depict former high-rise blocks reduced to heaps of rubble. Cairns, the titles of these works, reflect the significance Gaillard bestows upon these mounds, venerating them from masonry fragments to monumental status. The piled debris alludes to much more than mere rubble; each title details the name and dates of the former buildings, functioning as an obituary.

However, these images not only lament the loss of former dwellings, they mourn the passing of the hope social and structural regeneration invested in the housing projects of the 1960’s. In Cairns (12 Riverford Road, Pollokshaw, Glasgow, 1967-2008) the dead look upon an urban space not akin to the one they once inhabited. Pollokshaw, formerly a town with independent status nestling on the periphery of the city, was annexed into Glasgow in 1912 to meet the demands of urban sprawl. The familiar terrain of its former inhabitants was cleared to make way for high-rise blocks purpose built to impose a notion of community and ease the slum poverty of the post war period. Having witnessed the creation, degradation and demolition of the ‘streets in the sky’ these ruinous headstones bare witness to the failures of such government expectations.

Gaillard pays homage to these buildings with Cenotaph to 12 Riverford Road, Pollokshaw Glasgow 2008. This monument, composed of recycled concrete from the demolished housing estate, has been placed within a secret garden only visible from inside the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Here Gaillard’s obelisk stands as a memorial for more than Pollokshaw, placed at the centre of Hubert Bennet’s iconic Brutalist building Cenotaph commemorates both the passing of 12 Riverford Road and the faith society invested in urban regeneration.

The scene depicted in Cairns (131 Allan Street, Dalmarnock, Glasgow, 1965-2007) is no longer surrounded by looming tower blocks; demolition was completed in 2007 to make way for the Athletes Village for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in 2014. The mission of the Commonwealth Games Federation is to improve society and the general well-being of its inhabitants, with every decision measured against their core values of Humanity, Equality and Destiny. Indeed such notions are not so alien to those put forward in the development of key campaigns such as Homes for Heroes in the years following World War Two. Gaillard makes clear man’s traces in nature, exposing modern architecture as contemporary ruin with nature constantly on the cusp of man’s domination and vice versa. A space that not so long ago was populated with derelict tenement blocks has become the proposed site for East One, a 39 storey residential tower block. Another city regeneration project, uncannily like the ones presented half a century ago, attempting to achieve different goals but ultimately risking a similar fate.

The Lake Arches (2006) shows two men enjoying their carefree leisure time amongst Ricardo Bofill’s Saint-Quentin-en- Yvelines. This still thriving postmodern housing projects was built on outskirts of Paris as one of the original ville nouvelles in the early 1960’s. As both men dive into the manmade lake placed in the heart of the community, one emerges, bloodied as a result of coming into conflict with its shallow bed. Here Gaillard simultaneously communicates the unforgiving nature of the landscape and man’s continuous attempts to manipulate and master it. Like man has rejected the imposed ideas of a Utopian way of life, the grey green waters of the lake reject the man’s attempt to commandeer it.

Brian Dillion articulates what lies at the centre of Gaillard’s work in his discussion of ruins stating: ‘The modern ruin – the industrial ruin, the defunct image of future leisure, or the spectre of Cold War dread is in fact always, inevitably, a ruin of the future’.

On the surface Glasgow 2014 takes an almost romantic stance on the failure of idealised aspirations for the future via the picturesque rendering of urban decay. However what is at stake is exposing man’s traces on the world and the world’s ultimate rejection of them.

Film As A Subversive Art

Click to enlarge

Stills from the book. Left to right: Images 1 & 2 are from Vive La Muerte, Arrabal, France 1971 and image 3 is from Frans Zwartjes, Visual Training, Holland, 1969.

Speaking of Vive La Muerte Vogel states: This sensational first film by the famed avant-garde author employs violence and sex as a means of revolutionary purification.

From summer 2009 I was involved in the planning, development and delivery of Lux's contribution to the Zoo Art Fair. The project tooks its lead from Amos Vogel's Film As A Subversive Art, an amazing inventory of revolutionary film compiled around the time Vogel founded Cinema 16 (1947-1963). Cinema 16 was an avantgarde Cine-Club in New York City, inspired by Vogel's love for alternative film.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIzxTewRuo

Lux were invited to take part in Zoo Projects, a series of curated exhibitions within the fair itself. Taking our cue from Vogel's publication we looked to contemporary film that had an element of the subversive. The final exhibition was a series of changing installations, with works and artists changing daily. Each work was left from the from the previous day, leaving layers of each installation to build in the space, creatinh a unique environment with film works interacting and conflicting with one another.

The artists chosen for the exhibiton were Ellen Cantor, who presented Pinochet Porn (2009); Rosa Barba, stating the real sublime (2009); James Richards and Steve Reinke Disambiguation (Bog House Miscellany) 2009 and Francisco Valdes Regan 1973 (2003).

Artist Biographies

Rosa Barba, born 1972 in Agrigento, Italy and currently based in Berlin. Exhibitions shown internationally including solo exhibitions at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; Kunsthalle Dussledorf, Germany and Kunstverein Fridericianium, Kassel. Notable groups shows include Rooms Look Back, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; 50 Moons of Saturn, Torino Triennale, Turin, Italy and Fare Mondi/ Making Worlds at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Ellen Cantor, lives and works in London. Exhibited internationally with solo exhibitions and screenings at Serpentine Cinema, London; Transmission Glosgow; and Cabinet, London.

Francisco Valdes, born 1968 in Santiago, Chile and currently lives and works in London. His work has been included in group shows at Cisneros Fontanals Foundation, Miami and ARGE Kunst Galerie Museum, Bolzano.

James Richards born in 1983 in Cardiff and graduated from Chelsea School of Art in 2006. He took part in the LUX Associate Artists Programme in 2008/9. His work has been included in Nought to Sixty at the ICA, London; Call and Bluff at Tramway, Glasgow and has had screenings at The Whitechapel Gallery, London and Light Industry, New York.

Steve Reinke, born 1963 in Toronto. He is an artist and writer who has exhibited internationally.

The project also included an online platform that I coordinated by inviting artists and curators to contribute works borne out of their relationship with Amos Vogel's book. Participants included Martha Rosler, Shezad Dawood, Mark Aerial Waller, Stuart Home, Maxa Zoller and Marysia Lewandowski. These can been seen on the Lux website (link below), were you can download a podcast with me in conversation with Shezad Dawood, discussing Vogel's publication his relationship with it and how it has influenced his practice.

http://www.lux.org.uk/blog/shezad-dawood-playlist-podcast

http://www.lux.org.uk/content/film-subversive-art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PduxpGsIGnY&feature=PlayList&p=0918A27EABCC8699&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

RECIPROCITY at VIVID

In summer 2009 I was selected to develop a project at VIVID, Birmingham. I worked on a number of different projects under the title of Reciprocity during the residency.

Firstly I used my time at VIVID to get to know more about Birmingham organisations and practitioners and held a number of studio visits at VIVID. The rational for this was to know the context in which I would develop a project.

The project also involved 2 other practitioners: Trevor Pitt and John Hammersley who developed their own projects in parallel to my own. Trevor Pitt mapped a personal history through the Birmingham music he grew up with, inviting key people from his youth in to map their personal histories and connections. John Hammersley presented a work interrogating language. The work necessitated audience participation and people were invited to send responds to '100 Possible Understandings of This'

In response to John's work I worked with Karien van Assendelft to create a new work entitled I was Like Whatever. This work was drawn from the artists extended archive of overheard utterances, taken covertly from passer-by in the streets. Karien's work took John's 100 Possible Understandings of This and inserted overheard conversations, completely changing the context and meaning of John's project. This work was installed along with John's at VIVID, together with Karien's archive.

Karien van Assendelft, I was Like, Whatever

Another strand of the project was a collaboration with London based group Supercream. Supercream use the open source of Youtube as a mapping device for curatorial and artistic practice. I invited Supercream to present a weekend of Youtube screenings at VIVID. They in turn asked artists, curators and critical theorists to make Youtube playlists that mapped the varied sources that had influenced their practice. Practitioners I had met earlier in the residency, during the VIVID studio visits also contributed to the playlists.

Contested Ground: a curatorial
investigation
Contested Ground was a project which saw students studying on
postgraduate courses at the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths College
collaborate to present an exhibition and series of events at 176 in London. We
were offered the building for a weekend in January 2009 and encouraged to
explore our individual interests as curators, part of specific institutions, but
also in furthering our own curatorial investigations. Part of the project was to
explore how these two very different institutions and indeed group of curators
would negociate working independently as well as collectively.
My contribution to the weekend was a talk in which I investigated the role of performance in contemporary collections. For this I invited CollectingLiveArt to take part in a salon discussion with myself and Elizabeth Neilson, Curator and Head of Collection at 176 to discuss how collectors of contemporary art support the work of performance artists and the presence of performance within international collections of contemporary art.

Salon Discussion: How to secure a legacy for Live Art.

This talk furthered a personal interest in how it is possible to make the
ephemeral permanent and the change that has occurred in performative practices
for commercial value that seemingly betray its Dada and Fluxus roots.

ArtCollectingLiveArt is a non-for-profit organisation set up by Teresa Calonje and Laura Eldret in January 2008. They campaign for the acquisition of ephemeral works to ensure the legacy of live art in public and private collections. Previously they curated a series of performance and live works at the 2008 Zoo Art Fair, notably an auction with Karin Kihlberg and Ruben Henry.

See http://www.collectingliveart.com/projects/past#2

Contested Ground
Contesting Collections: how to secure a legacy for Live Art?

In October 2008 CollectingLiveArt organised a number of events to take place at the heart of Zoo Art Fair. Discretely subversive soldiers whistled whilst mingling amongst an art savvy audience, while fair attendants clogged up doorways to galleries, only to disperse and re-group in different locations and configurations throughout the fair. The most provocative of all spectacles performed by Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, was a live auction, auctioning itself off to the highest bidder. The events sought to plant a provocation at the heart of the fair, prompting gallerists, collectors and visitors to think through the potential ways it is possible to collect the uncollectable, intangible live events or happenings with a shelf life lasting long as the action itself.

Established in January 2008, CollectingLiveArt’s mission is to campaign for the collection of ephemeral works, thus ensuring Live Art’s legacy through its presence in private and public collections. While their strategy is to challenge collectors and audiences, their aim is to develop sustainable relationships between collectors and performance artists, creating methods of collecting relevant to the practices of individual practitioners. While CollectingLiveArt’s campaign signals the necessity for collecting performance, its very definition contradicts the notion of establishing a collection in formulating a legacy; for it is only within the collective memory and through the process of documentation that Live Art can be remembered and recorded.

The lineage of ‘Live Art’ or performance (the particular genre of the live of concern here) has been catalogued since its inception in the 1960s. Originating in movements such as Surrealism and Dada but also off the back of the dominant practice of Conceptual Art, performance offered a space for artists to transcend the commodification of their work, a space where ideas would be exchanged in return for the spectators’ time. Existing as a platform for the bringing to life of conceptual ideas, performances were enacted directly to audiences with the view to shock them into reassessing their own conceptions of art and there relation to wider cultural and political spheres.

In recent years, performance has taken a more prominent role within the contemporary art circuit, while simultaneously the art world has morphed into the wider sphere of the leisure industry. Audiences have come to expect scheduled events programmed around exhibitions and art fairs, thus performance art is in high demand. More and more spectators expect a closer encounter with the creator of these spectacles and galleries keep coming up with goods, supporting their artists while gaining invaluable PR for the creativity and breadth of their gallery’s programme in the process. However, despite audiences growing demand for such spectacles, there remains an ambiguity as to the authenticity of their engagement. Do these spectators seek out performance in the spirit of its original creation or is it just that it happens to be part of a social scene?

The notion of collecting performance art is by no means new; increasingly museums are allocating funds specifically for the acquisition of ephemeral works. The collection of performance documentation, in the form of photographs and written remnants, has existed for as long as it has been the by-product of a performance. Props used in performance enter collections and in so doing often undergo transformation from theatrical prop to sculptural item. Take Spartacus Chetwynd’s papier-mâché octopus, which formerly featured in The Sex Life of Nero and Hokusai Octopus - 'tentacle porn' as part of the Bloomberg’s New Contemporaries in 2004, the same piece was later included in Stay Forever and Ever and Ever for its physicality as an ‘object’ that retains it cultural significance through nostalgic collective memory.

However these examples of collecting Live Art depend entirely on the leftovers of performance and render the live act obsolete by preserving it through its trace. An alternative model for acquiring the live event is played out through the work of Tino Sehgal. Informed by a background in choreography and economics, his practice critiques the production of material objects. His performances (‘situations’) refuse any means of cataloguing; no objects are produced, no written instructions or contracts created, documentation through video and photography is forbidden, the event exists and relies entirely on oral instruction and interpretation by its performer. The dematerialised object created in Conceptual Arts legacy emphasises process over commodity, Sehgal’s work proposes an alternative and sustainable means of production dependant upon the ephemeral moment.

Getting collectors to buy into this is an entirely difference matter. Of course major institutions acquire these moments in time and reproduce them in the conditions and spirit of their creation. However, how is it possible for such works, by perhaps lesser known artists, to become more widely purchased amongst private collectors? What is to be exchanged between artist and collector? Once the deal is done, what are to be restrictions placed upon the artist or rights bestowed upon the collector? Indeed there are no definitive rules for the collection of ephemeral works; there are no best practice guidelines in place, instead the situation relies upon the mutual agreement of both parties on the terms and conditions of the sale, but also on the willingness of collectors to support artists through commissioning new works that have little or no material trace surviving beyond the event.

For links to the project, including a documentary of the weekend see:

http://www.projectspace176.com/projects/testing-ground:-curating

http://vimeo.com/4092858?pg=transcoded_embed&sec=4092858

Photo50: Untitled Tales

This was my first foray into curating myself, going it alone...well kind of. It was an exhibition curated by myself and 4 colleagues from the MFA Curating Programme at Goldsmiths. Throwing ourselves in the deep end during our first term we volunteered to curate a photography exhibition within the London Art Fair.

The show included 10 international contemporary photographers and explored the theme of narrative in in photography.

Artists included:

Jessica Backhaus

Corinne Day

Julia Fullerton-Batten

Arion Gábor Kudász

Cig Harvey

William Lamson

Sarah Michael

Jason Oddy
Eva Stenram

Nick Waplington

Installation view

Detail of Corrine Day's work

Detail of Jessica Backhaus's work

Tate Modern

From SLG I moved onto Tate Modern and an internship in their curatorial department. I spent six months here working on the exhibition Juan Muñoz A Retrospective. Although not entirely my cup of tea when it comes to art, it was a great experience working within this highly professional organisation. Exhibition highlights were First Banister (1987) (pictured below) and The Crossroad Cabinets (1999) as they reminded me of cabinets of curiosities and I have always been intrigued by the motivations of people who collect and how a trace of that individual is carried in the objects they acquire.

Juan Muñoz

First Banister (1987)

Wood and Knife

7 x 200 x 8 cm

Private Collection

First Banister was interesting because it communicated Muñoz's practice so succinctly. Often characterised as a storyteller, his sculptures would create scenarios in which the spectator is drawn into imagining what the potential for narrative and often required you to imagine a context for the work to make sense. This piece was of particular interest because it is an object so readily used to support and indeed engenders a sense of physical support. Yet Muñoz furnished his banister with a concealed switch blade, to snare an unexpectant hand. Of course, this was not a participator piece but Muñoz's practice often employed subtle shifts or sleights of hand to transform a meaning of an object or a scenario.



Link to Juan Muñoz A Retrospective on the Tate website: