Brick Project at OUTPOST

Thanks to all who came to the Brick Project lecture last night at OUTPOST in Norwich. If you missed it I will be presenting Brick Project on 28 February 2013 during the Carl Andre exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate.

WCMT Christmas card

This year I was invited to design the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Christmas card, the image is of photograph And All Stood Still (2011), C-type print, which is available in a limited edition. If you are interested in purchasing an edition click here to get in touch.

Outpost opens tomorrow

MEMBERS SHOW 2012

Selected by Ruth Ewan

O U T P O S T

2 November to 21 December 2012

12 noon to 6pm daily

Opening View: Saturday 1 December, 6 - 9pm

Open to public - admission free

OUTPOST is proud to present its annual Members Show, selected this year by the artist Ruth Ewan.
Artworks exhibited in this year’s members show provide a unique cross-section of artists and practices from the OUTPOST membership, combining video, sculpture, lectures, interventions, sound, print and photography to form a materially diverse group show. Upon entering the gallery Andy Parker’s model ship, raised on a plinth and encased in glass, provides a striking centerpiece in the gallery space. On an adjacent wall Johann Arens series of faded dusky pink notice boards display motivational slogans, lists and photographs, while a trilogy of separate monitors screen videos by Tom Smith, Stella Ouzounidou and Scott Massey, and a separate wall-based film projection by Maeve Brennan. The selection exceeds wall-based works and static objects, with Candice Jacob’s rapid ‘thank you’ sound piece quietly emanating from one corner, while in the office an invigilator wears a ceramic ‘rave necklace’ by Mark Essen, modeled on the iconic smiley faces from club culture.

Our wider culture is under playful scrutiny through Ewan’s selection of works, hinting at notions of labour, value and distribution of resources. Terence McCormack’s poignant series of black and white photographs depicting closed down regional theatres coexist in the space with Scott Massey’s performative video of the artist attempting to repay a bank loan via the act of speech. Elsewhere Leo Koivistoinen’s sequence of framed line drawings depict the typical English lunch; the sandwich. Everyday materials are also transformed through the exhibition process. Will Cruickshank has repurposed a wooden broom belonging to the galley by subtly altering its fabric so it now also functions as a whistle, while remnants of The Financial Times are scattered across the gallery floor, its pink paper staining one wall having been used by Tom Crawford used as an aesthetic ‘Milwall Brick’. A selection of polish beer labels are collaged by Simon Liddiment into a figurative form, demonstrating the creative potential of mundane materials, a theme that will also be addressed in a lecture by Laura Wilson later in the month on the most visually banal, but essential of objects: the brick.
Ewan’s point of departure, both in her own practice and for this exhibition, appear to be one of curiosity and humour, yet with an unmissable undertone of seriousness, making visible that which is not always immediately apparent.

Exhibition event: performative lectures by Tom Smith and Laura Wilson, Thursday 13 December, 6 – 9pm
Ruth Ewan (b. 1980, Aberdeen) is an artist based in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Billboard for Edinburgh,Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2012), Brank & Heckle, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (2011), Dreadnoughts, Chisenhale, London (2010), These Airwaves Neutralise the Tools of Oppression, Frieze Projects, London 2009, Did You Kiss the Foot that Kicked You?, Artangel, London (2007). Group shows include Weighted Words, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2012), Transcendental Empiricism, Rob Tufnell at Page Street, London (2011), A Million Miles from Home, Folkestone Triennial, Folkestone (2011), The Unsurpassable Horizon, No Soul for Sale, Tate Modern, London (2010), Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009) and EASTInternational, Norwich Gallery, Norwich (2006). Ruth is represented by Rob Tufnell, London. 

For more information please contact questions@norwichoutpost.org

OUTPOST MEMBERS SHOW 2012

I am presenting a lecture on Brick Project as part of the Outpost Members Show 2012 selected by Ruth Ewan which opens this Saturday 1 December. The lecture will take place at Outpost on Thursday 13 December, 6-9pm, Tom Smith will also be performing work the same evening.

More information on this ongoing work please visit the Brick Project blog http://www.brick-project.blogspot.com/
OUTPOST MEMBERS SHOW 2012

Selected by Ruth Ewan

Johann Arens / Maeve Brennan / Tom Crawford / Will Cruickshank / Mark Essen / Candice Jacobs / Leo Koivistoinen / Simon Liddiment / Scott Massey / Terence McCormack / Stella Ouzounidou / Andy Parker / Tom Smith / Laura Wilson

Opening View: 1 December
Exhibition runs until 21 December

OUTPOST
10b Wensum Street, Norwich, NR3 1HR
questions@norwichoutpost.org / www.norwichoutpost.org
+44 (0) 1603 612 428 / charity number 1109254

BB#8: Dawdle at Space

BLACKBOARD: Curator and SPACE studio tenant Gareth Bell-Jones has invited a number of artists to reflect on some of the frustrations that come with the studio experience.

The studio is often regarded as a site of unconstrained creative and productive potential, a proposition that is often far from the truth. Given a quote from Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet as a starting point, artists were asked to respond with text or image to some of the necessary, yet debilitating experiences that accompany the creative process (e.g. feelings of listlessness, indifference, torpor, boredom or apathy).

Preview 25 Oct 2012, 6 - 9pm

The contributing artists are:

Victoria Adam, Benjamin L Aman, An Endless Supply, Aaron Angell, Emma Astner, Nicole Bachmann, Stuart Bailes, Jonathan Baldock, Manuela Barczewski, Chris Barr, Joanne R Bristol, Savinder Bual, Nicholas Byrne, Melanie Carvalho, Dave Charlesworth, George Charman, Leo Cohen, Patrick Coyle, Annabelle Craven-Jones, Mat Do, Tom Durley, Marie d’Elbee, Laura Eldret, Jenifer Evans, Lilah Fowler, Manuela Gernedel, Georgie Grace, Anthony Green, Dave Hanger, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Aaron Head, Richard Healy, Andy Holden, Toby Huddlestone, Lizzie Hughes, Candice Jacobs, Glen Jamieson, Mat Jenner, KIMI CONRAD, Elise Lammer, Ian Law, Alastair Levy, Laura McLean-Ferris, Matthew McQuillan, Chris McSherry, Agata Madejska, Isabella Martin, Scott Massey, Kate Morrell, Henry Jackson Newcomb, Fay Nicolson, Matthew Noel-Tod, eppark, Anna Pickering, Owen Pidcock, Heather Phillipson, Philomene Pirecki, Diana Policarpo, Jessica Potter, Kit Poulson, Chris Rawcliffe, Anna Reckin, Kari Rittenbach, Lewis Ronald, Emily Rosamond, Rosalie Schweiker, Amy Spencer, Cally Spooner, Marianne Spurr, Alan Stanners, Jack Strange, Lorenzo Tebano, Mimei Thompson, Lena Tutunjian, Sacha Waldron, Judith Waring, White Room Press, Daniel Wilkinson, Laura Wilson, Jesse Wine, Maria Zahle

In addition, Dawdle features a special event exploring boredom, both as a form of suffering and as a potentially transformative quality of certain experiences. The event with feature contributions from Rasmus Johnsen, professor in Management, Politics, and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School, Anthony Morgan, lecturer in the history and philosophy of psychology at Northumbria University and Matthew Clements who is currently completing a research PhD in bio-semiotics at Birkbeck.

Whitstable Biennale 2012

On Sunday 2 September, I presented a talk about Brick Project as part of the Whitstable Biennale at 3pm in Whitstable Library. (Click here for more information on this event: http://bit.ly/TDkuIQ, and see below for further information on the Biennale)

Images will be online soon. 

Also, have been invited produce new work for the two year commission for the Whitstable Biennale 2014.

THE 6TH WHITSTABLE BIENNALE 2012 

September 1 - 16

Full programme details are available at www.whitstablebiennale.com and a NEW Whitstable Biennale 2012 smartphone App will be available nearer the opening date.

Three main programmes thread their way through the Biennale weekends.

Programme 1: curated by The Island (Victoria Brooks and Andrew Bonacina)

Programme 2: curated by Jeremy Millar

Programme 3: curated by Emma Leach

Artists 2012

Tanya Axford • Oliver Beer • Emma Bennett • Iain Boal • Tim Bromage • Chloe Cooper • Phil Coy • Shezad Dawood • Maya Deren • Benedict Drew • Angus H Braithwaite • Martin John Callanan • Tom Gidley • Emma Hart • Sam Hasler • Internet (Siân Robinson Davies & Diego Chamy) • Derek Jarman • Jesse Jones • Ben Judd • Joachim Koester • Tessa Lynch • Gareth Moore • Jenny Moore • Daniel Oliver • Performance Klub Fiskulturnik • Possibility Archive • Kieren Reed • John Smith • Tim Spooner • Patrick Staff • Cara Tolmie • Touch • Uddin & Elsey • Aaron Williamson. Most are new commissions.

Talks 2012

Artist and writer Jeremy Millar • artist Laura Wilson • Mike Harding, BJ Nilsen & Jon Wozencroft from Touch music • choreographer Siobhan Davies & artist Marcus Coates • artist Shezad Dawood • Professor Paul Allain • Producer John Wyver.

WARP Artist Village

This week I took part in the WARP Artist Village in Genk, Belgium, a great couple of days meeting people and talking about art. On Monday evening I gave a talk about my work, more information here.

Accidental Purpose

Here is information below about an online project which I am involved in that starts tomorrow, please visit the website, www.accidentalpurpose.net


The online project is part of a wider exhibition 'Accidentally on Purpose' curated by Fay Nicolson and Candice Jacobs, produced in collaboration with QUAD. (27 July-7 October)

ONLINE PROJECT
Accidental Purpose
The online project allows for over 100 invited artists, writers and curators to respond to the title of Accidental Purpose with their own associated ideas. Existing as an evolving compendium, Accidental Purpose will display images, animations, video and text utilising incidental strategies of display changing every time you visit the site.

The website www.accidentalpurpose.net will be live from the 26th of July and can be viewed from QUAD's Resource Area during the exhibition.

Contributors include: Jonathan Allen, Kari Altmann, Marie Angeletti, Majed Aslam, Nathan Barlex, Vanessa Billy, Simon & Tom Bloor, Beth Bramich, Stella Capes, Martin Cole, David Raymond Conroy, Mike Cooter, Rhys Coren, Patrick Coyle, Kit Craig, Elena Damiani, Siân Robinson Davies, Simon Davenport, Stephane Devidal, Hugh Dichmont, Marjolijn Dijkman, Grazyna Dobrzanska-Redrup, George Eksts, Mark Essen, Leo Fitzmaurice, Jess Flood-Paddock, Ed Fornieles, Tom Godfrey, Florian Gottke, Oona Grimes, Colin Guillemet, Thomas Hardiman, Fatima Hellberg, James Hines, Paul Housley, Rowena Hughes, Leslie Kulesh, Candice Jacobs, Nick Jenson, Aaron Juneau, Robert Leckie, Jonty Lees, Gil Leung, Rob Lye, Barbara Rodriguez Muñoz, Harriet Murray, Kryssy Naylor, Benjamin Newton, Fay Nicolson, Rose O’Gallivan, Sally O'Reilly, Berry Patten, Yelena Popova, Henrik Potter, Emily Price, Ruth Proctor, Pedro Cid Proenca, Richard Rigg, Alex Ross, Giles Round, Samara Scott, Erica Scourti, Tai Shani, Berndnaut Smilde, Oliver Smith, Jack Strange, Chooc Ly Tan, Neil Taylor, Oliver Tirre, George Vasey, Joey Villemont, Dominic Watson, Joe Welden, David Ben White, Laura Wilson, Jesse Wine, Lucy Woodhouse, Katy Woods, Ariella Yedgar, Maria Zahle

Re-creative website: May's must sees

I was invited to recommend 5 exhibitions for the 'Whats on' section of RECREATIVE website, http://www.recreativeuk.com for the month of May.

The exhibitions I chose were:

Elizabeth Price: The Woolworths Choir of 1979  

25th April - 26th May 2012

MOT International

www.motinternational.org

Benedict Drew: Gliss

19 Apr 2012 - 27 May 2012

Cell Projects

www.cellprojects.org

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan

28 February - 27 May

Tate Modern

www.tate.org.uk

Matt's Gallery

Nathaniel Mellors/ Willie Doherty

18 April - 27 May

www.mattsgallery.org

Bauhaus: Art as Life

3 May - 12 August

The Barbican

www.barbican.org.uk

Also, visit the Experts section on the RECREATIVE site to see a video interview  with me made last year.

Stephen Willat's data stream

I was one of the artists involved in creating the data stream for Stephen Willat's exhibition at South London Gallery, press release below.

STEPHEN WILLATS: SURFING WITH THE ATTRACTOR

EXHIBITION: 1 JUNE - 15 JULY 2012

PRESS PREVIEW:  THURSDAY 30 MAY 2012, 10AM - 12PM

PREVIEW: THURSDAY 30 MAY 2012, 6.30PM - 8.30PM

London-based artist Stephen Willats is a pioneer of conceptual art and has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the early 1960s. Willats' first South London Gallery exhibition in 1998, Changing Everything, was the culmination of a two-year project with local residents. Aiming to create a cultural model of how art might relate to society, the work was made with and invigilated by the project's participants, and visitors were also invited to make their own contributions to it. Fourteen years later, Willats' new show, Surfing with the Attractor, re-presents material from Changing Everything alongside a new installation featuring a huge ‘data stream’ spanning 15 metres and made in collaboration with 14 London-based artists. Comprising hundreds of carefully ordered images from diverse media, the data stream documents two contrasting streets in London: Rye Lane in Peckham and Regent Street in the West End. Willats' intention for the data stream is to present a dynamic picture of the transient world we live in, with its constant change and movement embodying the relativity in the perceptions that people create for themselves.

Extending beyond the gallery space, the show also includes films from the data stream shown on monitors in shops on Peckham Road and Camberwell Church Street, and graphic stickers will be widely distributed.

The data stream is a diagrammatic representation of a multiplicity of individual viewpoints on a shared experience, in this case that of walking down two contrasting streets of London. In 2011, Willats worked with artists living in New York to create Data Stream Portrait of New York, presented there at his exhibition, The Strange Attractor, at Reena Spaulings Fine Art. The data streams for that show and for Surfing with the Attractor were made through a process of allocating each participating artist a medium (such as a disposable camera, digital camera, video camera, audio description, rubbing etc.), and a 'channel', such as 'facial expressions' or 'signs of nature', within which to frame their documentation of the two very different streets. Willats then worked with some of artists to edit and 're-media-ise' their documentation into the diagrammatic format of the data stream in which the multiple viewpoints and channels are brought together. Cutting across the gallery space, the vast data stream divides it in two, analogous to the separation between the two streets recorded, and invites visitors to create their own walks, both through the gallery and along the two streets, via whichever channels they choose to focus on. The mass of information presented in the data stream, and visitors' interaction with it, combine to make a clear and powerful statement about Willats' understanding of reality as a cultural phenomenon which is shared and present within everybody's consciousness, albeit through individual and therefore differing registers.

The contributing artists are: Gareth Bell Jones, Laura Bygrave, Reem Charif (Febrik), Lucy Clout, Alex Crocker, Philip Ewe, Luke Kemp, Nicholas Laurence, Harold Offeh, Paul Pieroni, Philomene Pirecki, Ros Taylor, Edward Thomasson and Laura Wilson.

This exhibition also re-presents a colour data stream from Changing Everything in 1998, made from footage shot in the 1990s around the South London Gallery, alongside film works on 14 monitors.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes an interview with the artist and texts by John Kelsey and Tom Morton.

Main gallery, admission free
www.southlondongallery.org/stephenwillats

Tweespoor opens tomorrow

Photo: Frederik Beyens

Here is a photo of some lights being changed in The Ranonkel, it's been a busy week...riding around Turnhout by bicycle the panniers filled with bulbs - 800 have been installed. Roll on tomorrow.

'800 Lights' (2012) being installed

The bulbs arrived yesterday and we have started to install the '800 Lights' in Turnhout, the Tweespoor exhibition at De warande opens on Saturday 17 March - 20 May 2012.

Turnhout 2012: 800 Lights

Sketch for 800 Lights, Laura Wilson (2012)

An invitation to change a light.

A new commission by artist Laura Wilson as part of Tweespoor for Turnhout 2012, Wilson will change 800 Lights in the city to a different colour, the work celebrates the anniversary of Turnhout since it became a free city in 1212. From the streetlights in the market place, to spotlights in restaurants, to desk lamps in homes, spread throughout the city, each lamp will represent one year for each of Turnhout's birthdays.

The residents of Turnhout are invited to be involved in the work through hosting a changing of a light. To register your interest please follow this link http://www.warande.be/activiteit/laura-wilson

Join the facebook page -----> http://www.facebook.com/events/107439906048085/

The exhibition opens on 17th March 2012.

Images from Brick Project @W139 in Amsterdam

(Left to right) Tobias Collier, Ali MacGilp, Adrian Lee, Adam James, Andrew Graham, Mark Wayman, Laura Wilson, Rhiannon Armstrong, Photo: Sanne Van Renesse

Photo: Sanne Van Renesse

Brick Project, Laura Wilson 2012

Photo: Sanne Van Renesse

Brick Project, Laura Wilson 2012

Photo: Emma Peascod

Brick Project, Laura Wilson 2012

Photo: Emma Peascod

Brick Project, Laura Wilson 2012

Photo: Emma Peascod

Brick Project, Laura Wilson 2012

Photo: Sanne Van Renesse

The evening, Climb Like a cucumber, fall like an aubergine was reviewed in Metropolis M, please follow this link: http://metropolism.com/reviews/climb-like-a-cucumber-fall-like/

Climb like a cucumber, fall like an aubergine at W139

Photo: Adrian Lee, performance 'Ban this filth'

Climb Like A Cucumber, Fall Like An Aubergine

AN EVENING OF PERFORMANCE FROM LONDON

Rhiannon Armstrong/ Tobias Collier/ Adam James performing with Andrew Graham/

Adrian Lee/ Mark Wayman/ Laura Wilson

Curated by Ali MacGilp

Saturday 21 January 2012

Doors 20h00 Start 20h30

Tickets at the door: Euro 6,-

Language: English

NB Mark Wayman will present his piece twice that day, once for free at 17h00 [meet outside W139] and once during the evening’s events.

Climb like a cucumber, fall like an aubergine – Syrian proverb

For Climb like a cucumber, fall like an aubergine, artists from London have created performances in response to the context of W139; its historical buildings, prostitute windows, brown cafes and hordes of tourists. These site-specific works will emerge from the long-term, open-ended investigations of their practices. These artists all share a research methodology. They invite us to share the fruits of their observation and reexamine what we overlook. Their subject matter is belief and knowledge systems; physics, spirituality, capitalism, history, communication, town planning.

Two complimentary sensibilities shine through in these artists’ works. Adrian Lee, Adam James and Rhiannon Armstrong explore the taboos and unspoken laws of social interaction with humour and are by turns cynical, provocative and optimistic. They share a fascination with the commercial culture we are embedded in, its marketing and self-help strategies and those on the margins of society. Tobias Collier, Laura Wilson and Mark Wayman look poetically at the material or philosophical structures that underpin our society. With intense sensitivity they examine our physical surroundings, from architecture to the universe.

From London, it feels like the world is becoming a more tumultuous place. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, ten years on from the events of September the 11th. Osama Bin Laden has been assassinated, there have been financial and natural disasters for much of the globe. The Arab Spring is a year old. In London people are concerned about the unelected, right-wing government, the recession and fierce cuts to public spending, which have impacted upon the arts, student fees and benefits. Protests, riots and looting, media phone hacking scandals, the tightening of immigration laws, royal weddings and the impending Olympics have also been at the forefront of people’s minds. Relations between the younger and older generations and confidence in politicians are at an all-time low. The domination of social media, such as twitter and facebook, alongside scripted reality shows produce anxiety that we are becoming dislocated from real human interaction.



Rhiannon Armstrong’s practice is an ongoing series of performances entitled Instructions for Empathetic Living. For W139 Armstrong is creating a new interactive performance drawn from her Archive of Things Left Unsaid. The audience will be given access to the deepest darkest secrets of anonymous Londoners, collected over the last five years. This performance also launches a new international chapter for the Archive, with the opportunity for Amsterdamers to contribute their own testimonies to the collection.

Tobias Collier examines our subliminal relationship to space using the flotsam and jetsam of daily existence, yoking together the materially contingent with the intellectually imponderable. For W139 Collier will present the next installment of Anthropos his live tattooing of his body. He will first select a text to read then burn it to create the pigment which is inserted into the surface of his skin, adding to the ever growing constellation across his body. 



By deconstructing and re-staging encounters with fringe characters Adam James’s work raises questions about the artist and audience’s role as voyeurs. He is attracted to the relentless drama of the street, the odd gestures, peculiar voices, laughs and awkward encounters. Working with Andrew Graham, James will spend a week studying local marginal figures in the area surrounding W139. In a series of small interventions in the street, they will appropriate the physical appearance, costumes and gestures of these chosen characters, inverting the role of the spectator. The work will culminate in the gallery on Saturday night. 



Adrian Lee unpicks and reworks the trappings of a commercial culture, which form the background noise to our daily lives. Lee’s performance for W139 takes the maxim ‘there’s no such things as bad publicity’ to its logical conclusion. Publishers, filmmakers and artists frequently court controversy, willing censors, religious groups and the self-appointed guardians of moral decency to ban or protest at their works. A lone figure will stand outside W139 his placard bearing the familiar message ‘Ban this Filth’. Is he really protesting at the work inside or is he a stooge, trying to provoke interest amongst the passing tourists seeking sex shops, window prostitutes and brown cafés? 



Mark Wayman takes as his starting point the fabric, function and significance of a chosen location. Through an intense verbal description of it he spins an elaborate alternative version. For W139, Wayman has created a new site specific performance. Occupy Amsterdam now has a much reduced territory on the Beursplein. For one night only, Mark Wayman will reclaim the rest of the square for Occupy and put back all the little tents, exactly as they were.


Laura Wilson is interested in the history and future of locations and their architecture and how we interact with them. Wilson will present a talk about Brick Project at W139, with a particular focus on the Amsterdam School, Michael de Klerk and the Brick Expressionism movement. Through her Winston Churchill Memorial Trust 2010/11 Fellowship, she has researched indigenous masonry construction methods, bricklaying and brick manufacturing and architectural history in China, Peru and Holland.