Review of Terrains of the Body: Photography from the National Museum of Women in the Arts at the Whitechapel Gallery

24/01/17

Terrains of the Body: Photography from the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Whitechapel Gallery, London

18 January – 16 April 2017

“Presentations of work by women artists are usually accompanied by sob stories and violins,” says Kathryn Wat, chief curator of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Washington DC – the only international museum dedicated to the exhibition, preservation and acquisition of works by women artists of all nationalities and periods. She continues: “They tell how women couldn’t get into academies, couldn’t get sponsorship, but, nevertheless, went on to achieve. But, with photography, it’s different because women have been at the forefront of this medium since the very beginning.” The one-room display at the Whitechapel Gallery, Terrains of the Body, co-curated by Wat, presents photography and video works from the NMWA collection, as part of the London gallery’s programme of opening up rarely seen collections from around the world. Building on the legacy of 1970s’ feminist art, the exhibition includes works by 17 contemporary artists from five continents, from the 80s to today, presenting woman as creator and subject of her work.

Read the review here

Interview with Cyril de Commarque

18/09/16

Interview: Cyril de Commarque

Cyril de Commarque (b1970) believes in the theory of progress acceleration: that we can’t change the technological progress that is going on around us at an exponential rate. But, as a result, changes in society are no longer democratic, he says: they are decided neither by the politicians, nor the people, but happen as a result of mobile phones and social media and who knows what else. “The only space for freedom we can gain is inside ourselves,” de Commarque concludes, remaining adamant of the need to dream of a new utopia, despite its inherent risks.

Having previously worked with architectural projects and social and political subjects, including migration and the evolution of political and geographical borders, de Commarque has spent three years working on Fluxland, converting a 1950s Dutch grain barge into a 25-metre-long, interactive artwork, sound piece and space for debate. The name derives from his interest in borders, but also the Fluxus movement in art, and his belief that art has a function, to reveal to people the necessity of taking action, and not becoming the victim of politics. As part of Totally Thames, the boat will sail up and down the river, attracting audiences, who will hear the battle cries of revolutions and the speeches both of dictators and of peace, emanating from the speakers, and then come closer to see themselves reflected in the mirrored surfaces. This upper part of the barge is constructed out of two polyhedrons – the symbol of melancholia – and will reflect both the river and the onlookers, inviting them to look inside, both the vessel and themselves. As de Commarque says: “You have to go inside of yourself and accept the humility to think: ‘Am I doing the right thing for a better world?’”

Throughout the month, a series of conferences will be hosted on board, in association with Art Review. These will feature other artists, economists, philosophers and a nanotechnologist, all invited to discuss future utopian projects.

• Fluxland will be on the Thames as part of Totally Thames festival until 30 September 2016. For visiting times, visit fluxland.co.uk

Interview with Alice Cunningham at the Royal British Society of Sculptors

21/11/15

Interview: Alice Cunningham

Alice Cunningham: Brian Mercer 2014 Stone Carving Residency Exhibition

Royal British Society of Sculptors
22 October – 18 December 2015

Alice Cunningham (b1983) was the winner of the 2014 Brian Mercer Stone Carving Residency, awarded by the Royal British Society of Sculptors and the Brian Mercer Charitable Trust. Having very limited experience with marble, her three months spent at Studio Sem, in Pietrasanta, Italy, were an invaluable – and rapid – learning opportunity. During her time there, Cunningham was able to engage with, and learn from, both local artisans and international artists, as well as to collaborate with a robot.

As the quarry from which Michelangelo sourced his marble (he believed it to be superior in quality to the nearby Carrara) Pietrasanta has an imposing history. Sem Ghelardini, who founded the studio in the 1950s, was famous for his openness to younger artists and can be thanked for giving Henry Moore his first block of stone to work with. Cunningham, whose work embraces both conceptual art and more traditional, formal sculpture, was a perfect candidate to spend time at the studio and continue its tradition.

Cunningham’s initial introduction to stone carving came during a two-week residential workshop as part of her degree at the University of Brighton (2003-6), when she worked in the Portland stone quarries in Dorset. In 2007, she had her first brief encounter with marble, when she spent a month in Zambia. The four pieces she made during her time in Pietrasanta, which, together with photographs and film footage, constitute her exhibition at the Royal British Society of Sculptors, are therefore ambitious and impressive.

Conception, a wave-like form crashes down – fragile yet full of power and solidity – while a large boulder, Dialogue, cut into to create various shelves, contrasts the natural markings of the rock with Cunningham’s human interventions. Unravel was made from a piece of marble Cunningham chose from the river – the place sculptors often go when they cannot afford to use the quarry. Finally, Perspective, which stands tall like a totem, revealing faces and expressions that seem to alter the more you look at them, is actually a representation of the quarry on one side, and the nearby mountains on the other. The work was created from a 2D photograph, which was fed into a computer and rendered into a 3D model, which was then first carved by a robotic hand, before being finished by Cunningham. An interesting collaboration, reflecting the interface of nature and artifice, or the organic and the manmade or man-altered.

Watch this interview here

Interview with Derek Boshier at Flowers Gallery, Cork Street

20/10/15

Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-Entry

Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London

7 October – 7 November 2015

Derek Boshier (b1937) came to prominence as one of a generation of pop artists emerging from the Royal College of Art in the early 70s. He left the UK soon after for Texas, initially to teach for one semester, but ultimately remaining there for 13 years, before moving to Los Angeles, where he now resides. Boshier has embraced a variety of media, most recently adopting the iPad as his at-the-ready tool for capturing images and ideas, which go on to become parts of his films and works on paper – all of which the artist describes as “collages”.

Boshier is associated with a number of great musicians and has produced imagery for, among others, the Clash and David Bowie. His falling man motif used in the design for Bowie’s 1979 LP Lodger has become iconic, as have many of his other images.

The current exhibition at Flowers Gallery shows sketches for much of Boshier’s songbook and LP graphic design work, as well as some of his early photographic series and spoofs of right-wing national newspapers. Recent collages, with thick black outlines, contrast with earlier ones, confronting consumerism and the dehumanising effect of mass culture. A film from 1973 plays on a loop with three films from 2014, made after he rediscovered the earlier work and decided to retry his hand at that medium.

Rethink/Re-Entry is co-curated by Paul Gorman, who is also the editor of a new publication of the same name, presenting an overview of Boshier’s work, accompanied by essays by leading academics, critics and curators, as well as a foreword by David Hockney.

Watch the interview here

Interviews with artists from British Art Show 8 at Leeds Art Gallery

20/10/15

British Art Show 8
Leeds Art Gallery
9 October 2015 – 10 January 2016

Now in its eighth year, the British Art Show is the largest and most ambitious touring exhibition of contemporary art in the UK, bringing together emerging artists worth watching with those who have been working for three or four decades.

Over the years, the British Art Show has captured numerous significant moments in the nation’s art history and has promoted the careers of many who have gone on to become household names, including Anthony Caro, Lucian Freud, Gilbert & George, Steve McQueen, Chris Ofili and Damien Hirst. This year, the exhibition, curated by Anna Colin and Lydia Yee, comprises work by 42 artists, 26 of whom have made new commissions and many others of whom are presenting works that have never been shown in the UK.

Studio International spoke to five of the artists involved.

Ciara Phillips – one of last year’s Turner Prize nominees – is a Glasgow-based Canadian artist who uses printmaking as a way of bringing about socio-political discussions. With a curatorial focus this year on collaboration, BAS8 has provided Phillips with an opportunity to run community print workshops and create a publication based on the Irregular Bulletin, a newsletter produced in the late 50s/early 60s by radical educator and artist Corita Kent and her colleague, Sister Magdalene Mary.

Laure Prouvost, the London-based French artist who won the 2013 Turner Prize, is showcasing three of her “interruptions” – sound and light pieces that turn on and off at intervals, humorously giving voice to a range of objects, including a hard drive, a fan and a croissant.

Ryan Gander, who lives and works in Suffolk and London, is displaying a range of works including sculpture, film and a wallpapered diorama, comprising notes he makes to himself on his studio walls. His carved pieces explore the concept of still life, like Prouvost’s, bringing together improbable objects into imaginary dialogues.

Feed Me is the first feature-length film work by Scottish artist Rachel Maclean. With Maclean playing all of the characters, with wild and wacky costumes and facemasks, the plotline veers from the saccharine to the horrific, tearing down contemporary society and its vices along the way. Pop culture references abound and the Disney-like effect is a facade for the Grimms’ fairytale beneath.

Last but not least, Martino Gamper is a London-based Italian designer who describes his artisanal approach as “conceptual and functional”.  His participatory project, Post Forma, has been commissioned by Yorkshire Festival and Hayward Touring, in partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle and Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Programme. Gamper’s mixture of craft, design and art – furniture-making, cobbling, weaving and bookbinding – fits this year’s curatorial emphasis on materiality and the importance of objects, not just as objects, but as vehicles for narratives.

Watch the interviews here

Interview with Matthew Darbyshire at An Exhibition for Modern Living, Manchester Art Gallery

13/10/15

Interview: Matthew Darbyshire

Matthew Darbyshire: An Exhibition for Modern Living
Manchester Art Gallery
25 September 2015 – 10 January 2016

Bright pinks, luminous greens, Ikea shelving, a soundtrack of Flashdance, Fergie and Oliver!, Matthew Darbyshire’s largest solo show to date is a reflection of contemporary society, its consumerist obsessions and the rise of cultural homogeneity. Comprising 10 large-scale environments from over the past decade, alongside two newly commissioned multicoloured polycarbonate sculptures in the grand entrance hall of the Manchester Art Gallery, the works in the exhibition show Darbyshire’s dedication to the processes of making – and faking – it, with materials ranging from felt to wood to Perspex.

The title for this show is taken from a landmark 1949 exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, which collected the best of modern “design for living” in the context of the rapidly changing society of post-second world war America. Darbyshire takes this concept as a starting point and updates it for British society today, bringing together art, sculpture, design and architecture, and questioning the political and economic agendas that inform our contemporary taste. Particularly interesting is his commission, IP (2013), for a shopping mall in Utrecht, where each of the nine constituent parts reflects an element of the past, present and future, echoing the tension in which the mall currently sits, as its use migrates from shopping venue to place of entertainment.

Darbyshire, who, despite appearances, doesn’t see his work as part of the pop art wave, citing Tony Cragg as more of an influence, hopes that his installations will transcend time, gaining in intrigue as they distance themselves from their roots. He seeks to uncover the spirit within the inanimate object, exploring the potential of computer generation and 3D-printing, raising questions about the need for the artist’s hand. For now, at least, he continues to advocate its presence.

Watch the interview here

An Artist’s Artist: Mark Dunhill talks about Carl Plackman

06/10/15

An Artist’s Artist: Mark Dunhill talks about Carl Plackman

Carl Plackman: Obscure Territories
Pangolin, London
9 September – 17 October 2015

Often described as an “artist’s artist”, Carl Plackman (1943-2004) was ambitious and full of ideas. When asked at the end of an interview in 1986 what he would like as his epitaph, he replied: “I just want to make a good piece of sculpture. I still think I haven’t done it. The trouble is trying to say what that could be – it’s very difficult…” Plackman rarely talked about his work and kept his ideas private. He has been hailed as the “godfather of British conceptual art” and Alison Wilding speaks of Plackman’s work as being her first encounter with “installation”.

This solo exhibition at Pangolin includes a range of Plackman’s drawings alongside a number of key sculptures, in particular Bachelor of Arts (1977), which has never been shown before.

As a generous teacher, many of Plackman’s students have gone on to become major names in British contemporary art, including Tony Cragg, Damien Hirst, Liam Gillick and Alison Wilding. Studio International spoke to Mark Dunhill, Dean at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, and an artist in his own right, who was taught by Plackman at the Royal College of Art in the 70s.

Watch this video here