Review of Hugo Dalton: Mother Nature B.D.S.M. at Bermondsey Project Space

11/02/12

Mother Nature B.D.S.M.

An exhibition by Hugo Dalton, curated by Edward Lucie-Smith

Bermondsey Project Space

27 January – 19 February 2012

Walking into this large warehouse in the middle of an industrial estate in Bermondsey is like straying on to the set of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. Entry to the 7,000 sq. ft. exhibition space, cold and dark, is through plastic meat flaps, and the soundtrack of piano music, composed by James Dooley to accompany the show, has resonances of the falsely calming use of Beethoven’s Ninth in A Clockwork Orange. The premise of this exhibition is that Mother Nature is a Dominatrix: fetishistic, enslaving, and omnipotent. But to what extent is this impression carried over?

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://blog.darlingcollective.com/?p=355

Review of Migrations: Journeys into British Art at Tate Britain

07/02/12

Migrations: Journeys into British Art

Tate Britain

31 January – 12 August 2012

The remit for Tate Britain is that its collection should be one of British art. Clearly, however, this is problematic, given not only the state of our multicultural society today, but also the Commonwealth, not to mention the preceding British Empire and beyond that the universally quite peripatetic nature of artists to study, find patronage, escape persecution, and so on. Tate Britain’s latest exhibition, Migrations: Journeys into British Art, largely comprising works from its own collection, takes this conundrum as its starting point, as it seeks both to raise and explore questions about the formation of a national collection of British art against a continually shifting demographic.

The show spans some 500 years, beginning with the influx of painters and sculptors from Northern Europe in the 16^th century. Following the Reformation, portraiture became the most acceptable form of painting in Protestant England and Scotland: artists such as the German Hans Holbein (ca. 1497-1543) and the Dutch Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) were esteemed more highly than British trained artists, and, coming at the bidding of our Royal family, are now known for their iconic images of our kings Henry VIII and Charles I respectively.

A couple of centuries later, however, Britons began to travel abroad, and thus the birth of the 18^th century Grand Tour, a critical part of any young gentleman’s education. Ideas were cross-cultivated from the continent, and small memento images were produced by artists such as Canaletto (1697-1768) and brought back as souvenirs. When war prevented Englishmen from travelling abroad in the 1740s, however, Canaletto himself came to London for a nine year stay, and, during this time, he painted a good many English landmarks, including London: The Old Horse Guards from St. James’s Park (ca. 1749), on loan here from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation.

Not long thereafter, in 1768, the Royal Academy was founded in London in order to teach and promote art in England. It is a solidly British institution, yet almost one third of its founding members were migrant artists active in Britain at the time.

Over the coming centuries, dialogues between different nations and artistic styles continued to increase. In the latter half of the 19^th century, whilst Paris became acknowledged as the centre for art training, London remained the more stable centre for patronage and commercial artistic success. As such, many British and American artists (including John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)) went to train in Paris before settling in London, and numerous French artists, including James Tissot (1836-1902) whose work is included here, crossed the channel both to find work, and also to escape the political aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war. These artists brought with them many new styles and ideas, some more accepted into British society than others. Tissot, for example, despite his attempts to adapt in accordance with British taste, continued to be criticised for his overly frilly and elaborate touches.  Whistler, on the other hand, who adopted the Thames as one of his key subjects and produced a great number of Nocturnes, focusing on the atmospheric effects of light on water, was graciously accepted, and remained in London until his death.

The exhibition’s coverage of the 20^th century begins with the two quite disparate, but equally influential, Jewish art exhibitions held at the turn of the century: Jewish Art and Antiquities, starring works by William Rothenstein, which argued that Jewish art was essentially just a part of British art, with no independent identity, and The Twentieth Century: A Review of Modern Movements, held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1914, which, through its attempt to align Jewish art with Modernism, argued for a distinct identity. This section of the exhibition, along with the adjacent works by refugees from Nazi Europe, is indeed a joy to peruse, containing highlights by the likes of Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), David Bomberg (1890-1957), Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Naum Gabo (1890-1977) and Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948).

The same might also be said of the works by artists such as F.N. Souza (1924-1959) and Rasheed Araeen (born 1935), which are included in a section on artists who moved to Britain from Commonwealth countries in the 1950s and 60s, but, as the wall texts freely admit, felt, at the time, largely ignored and marginalised by such mainstream galleries as the Tate itself.

The 1960s works range from Gustav Metzger’s (born 1926) auto-destructive art, showcased in the form of a video of the Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art (1965), which restages an event from 1961, whereby Metzger sprayed a nylon canvas, hanging on the Southbank, with acid, so that it slowly decomposed, revealing the vista of St Paul’s Cathedral on the other side, to David Medalla’s (born 1942) conversely auto-creative sculptures, exploring the processes of transformation, and the notion of ephemerality. Certainly, standing watching his bubbles spill out from atop Cloud Canyons No 3: An Ensemble of Bubble Machines (1961, remade 2004), one is transported elsewhere, somewhere high above an earth demarcated by country borders and state lines.

The 1980s are represented largely by works considering the poetics and politics of diaspora and displacement, and the creation of identity in a racist but increasingly migrant-populated Thatcherite Britain. Sonia Boyce (born 1962) considers the identity she is forced to adopt as a black person born and raised in this country, and Keith Piper (born 1960) similarly uses text and photo montage to deconstruct and challenge representations of British history with relation to the African diaspora.

The central part of the exhibition space is taken up by rooms showing video works from the past ten years, supposedly epitomising the very nature of migration, with the moving image itself something transient which does not exist until it find a temporary shelter on a screen. Zineb Sedira’s (born 1962) Floating Coffins (2009) is a 14 screen installation, filmed in the harbour city of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, home to the world’s largest ship graveyard, but also the departure point for West African immigrants hoping to reach the Canary Islands. Using the sea as a metaphor, and with shots of circling migrating birds, questions of belonging and displacement, beginnings and endings, are brought to the fore.

The show’s curators – and there are number of them, each working on their own specialisms – have each, in their own section, put on a good display, and, indeed, questions are raised about how, or even whether, one ought to consider Britishness in relation to art. Nevertheless, the aspiration to keep the rooms open and flowing fluidly one to the next, so that the works can speak to one another across both time and space, is, perhaps, a little too ambitious, and, overall, there is very little coherence between the vast variety of works on display. As an open house exhibition, showcasing some of the Tate’s best acquisitions, it is certainly worth a visit, but don’t necessarily expect to come away with a neatly bound narrative. That said, isn’t the need for this just a pitfall of the tightly curated contemporary art exhibition world in which we now live, where everything is parcelled, explained, and offered to the viewer on a plate? Maybe being left to wander through 500 years of art, drawing your own conclusions about the developments, cross-fertilisations, and impacts of political and social change, is not such a bad thing after all?

Images:

Canaletto 

London- The Old Horse Guards from St James’s Park  

c.1749  

Tate 

Lent by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation

James Tissot 

Portsmouth Dockyard  

c.1877  

© Tate

Jacob Kramer  

Jews at Prayer  

1919 

Tate 

© Estate of John David Roberts

By courtesy of the William Roberts Society

Photo: Tate Photography

Keith Piper 

Go West Young Man  

1987  

Tate 

© Keith Piper

Francis Alys 

Railings  

2004  

Tate 

© Francis Alÿs

Photo: Tate Photography

Review of Daniel Rapley: Covenant at Payne Shurvell

02/02/12

Daniel Rapley: Covenant

Payne Shurvell

27 January – 3 March 2012

3,116,480 characters

1,189 chapters

783,137 words

31,102 verses

66 books

Such is the content of the King James Bible, first printed some 400 years ago, and now the key work in Daniel Rapley’s first solo exhibition since graduating from Chelsea College of Art and Design last summer. Entitled Sic, and filling some 1,500 sides of A4 paper, this handwritten copy of the entire text took Rapley nearly 700 hours to complete, spread over more than a year, with his getting up every morning to spend two hours at work. Displayed in a showcase, however, the visitor now only gets to see the first page of his travail, and whether or not he believes that the wad of paper underneath does actually contain the rest of the script is, as it were, a matter of faith.

For such is the role of art and the art gallery in contemporary society, as far as Rapley sees it. Brought up with the Bible, but no longer religious, he disregarded this enquiry as irrelevant, saying instead that there is, regardless, an intrinsic relationship between art and religion. Artworks are presented with authority and power in a white-walled gallery, the modern day temple or church.

The title of the exhibition is Covenant, an agreement based on trust, and many of the works in the show grew out of this initial concept. Forty (a Biblical metaphor for any long period of time), for example, is a stack of 40 identical pencil drawings, reading ‘I did not want to make this drawing 40 times but I did anyway,’ again with only the front frame visible to the visitor.  

Each of Rapley’s works is a labour intensive task, but yet his goal is also to conceal much of this effort, with what remains on view often appearing almost simplistic. In Poiesis, for example, a delicate collage of flowers cut out individually from a popular field guide to British plants, reference is made to the Heideggerian usage of the term to refer to a ‘bringing forth’, and a sharing of ideas and knowledge between an artist and his audience. And Rapley’s works are also demanding of their viewers, requiring time to be read and digested. Exigencies 1-7, for example, (the title chosen again for its connotation as the religious term for the interpretation of a text), consists of seven large pages (approximately A1 in size) of writing, or, as Rapley terms them, pencil drawings, relating, in a diary entry style, events and coincidences which occurred during the time he was working on Sic. Each one is drawn freehand, although they are so neat and exact that one might easily be mistaken into believing that they were prints. (Rapley will not reveal the secret of his method!) One story tells of how, as he developed RSI in his right wrist, he came to copy 2 Chronicles ch.15 v.7, which states: ‘Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak for your work shall be rewarded’, and, how, accordingly, over the next few days, his wrist strain subsided. Another discloses how, upon transcribing Job ch.15 v.23, ‘He wandereth abroad for bread…’, Rapley was reminded of his having forgotten to buy his own favourite bread whilst out shopping the previous day, and how now, upon returning to Sainsbury’s, he found it out of stock, and was forced to travel ‘abroad’ to an Iceland store. The coincidences abound, and, again, the faith of the reader is put to the test. Is this actually possible, or is it all too far fetched? And, of course, if it is to be believed, well then, surely this series offers some evidence for the verity of the Bible transcription project itself?

Throughout the tales, Rapley uses the third person, referring to himself as ‘the artist’. He does the same in Totem, a different, dark coloured work, hanging separately in the gallery’s entrance hall, and produced as a limited edition print. Based on the tombstone of Martin of Tours (who died in 397AD), one of the first saints whose remains were venerated as a holy site, the varnished print also incorporates some of Rapley’s blood. Apparently he rather liked the idea of putting something quite so personal into an edition, a train of thought stemming perhaps from his MA thesis in which he compared the presence of the saint in a holy relic to the presence of the artist in an artwork. Naturally, however, there are also resonances with the religious themes of sacrifice and the Last Supper.

Rapley describes his works as performative, but only in suggestion. There is something deadly serious, but yet also undeniably comic about this exhibition, and the stories related in Exigencies 1-7 cannot help but elicit a smile (about which Rapley himself also smiled). Nevertheless, the sincerity with which he explains his work and ethos are enough to engender faith both in him and in what it is he is trying to sell us – more than can be said for many a commercially-oriented artist these days. Go along and see for yourself, and take the time to read the tales and invest back some effort in return for the many laborious hours taken (if you choose so to believe) to produce the work on show.

Images:

Sic (detail)

Ballpoint on A4 ruled paper

67 x 59 x 115cam (Plinth unit)

Sic

Ballpoint on A4 ruled paper

67 x 59 x 115cam (Plinth unit)

Exigency 1

Pencil drawing on heavyweight paper

63 x 83.5 cm

Exigencies 1-7 (detail)

Pencil drawing on heavyweight paper

63 x 83.5 cm

All images courtesy of the artist, Daniel Rapley, and Payne Shurvell Gallery


Also published at http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/1946979

Review of The Seen and the Unseen: paintings by Marguerite Horner and The Near and the Elsewhere: group show curated by Gaia Persico at PM Gallery and House

01/02/12

The Seen and the Unseen: paintings by Marguerite Horner

and

The Near and the Elsewhere: group show curated by Gaia Persico

PM Gallery and House

25 January – 25 February 2012

PM Gallery, a 1940s annex to Sir John Soane’s grade I listed Pitzhanger Manor House of 1800, has been described as West London’s premier contemporary arts venue, and, to its credit, it is currently hosting two exhibitions, very different in style, yet related in theme, which certainly make the trip out to Ealing worthwhile.

Marguerite Horner’s solo show, The Seen and the Unseen, comprises a collection of her recognisably haunting grisaille street scenes, largely inspired by her recent experiences of small town America. The grey skies, streets, and parking lots, devoid of populace, are bisected by bright white road markings, lamp posts, trees, and telegraph wires, and the heavy monotone is further broken at more random points by the insertion of a solitary red car, or, in the case of Vanitas (2010), a woman with bright red lips.

One wall is dominated by three larger works from 2007, Immutable Light, Ineffably Perceived, and Walled in by Feelings. These are blacker than the rest, with a more yellowish glow to the grey. They depict the dark exterior walls of houses, spooky and foreboding, lit by moonlight piercing through the clouds. Whilst, again, no inhabitants are visible, lights nevertheless burn brightly indoors, echoic, perhaps, of Hitchcock’s Bates’ mansion, or, in the case of Ineffably Perceived, where we look down also over the distant lights of a town and see the house as that of a recluse, set apart, high on a hill, something more akin to the bizarre residence of Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The Adolescent, Help, and Swept Away (all 2011) trial a new effect, reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s squeegee works, rendering the images blurred, as if we were moving past at high speed. Are we to imagine ourselves in one of the many cars (a recurring motif in Horner’s scenes), is it just the wind in the trees, or is it perhaps all merely the nebulous scenery of a dream? If so, is this dream a nightmare? Ought one to feel threatened? Certainly the emptiness hangs heavy, and there is something uncanny and unsettling about the desolation – a definite sense of unease. But what is actually more oppressive: this fearful emptiness, loneliness, and barren space, or an overcrowded city, heaving with modern life? Horner herself says that she uses her painting precisely so as to access a space for contemplation away from the fast pace of modern life. There is certainly a sense of somehow being outside of the scene, looking down upon it, reinforced by titles such as The Guardian (2011) – but who is it that is watching, and over what or whom? Like a plague-swept empty world, a stage set with all the features of habitation but lacking the actors to fill the roles, the cars seem to take the place of living, breathing creatures, representing the transience, not only of life, but also of time and space – do we ever really inhabit somewhere, or are we bound to always only be passing through?

The second exhibition, The Near and the Elsewhere, a group show curated by Gaia Persico and bringing together works by 15 international artists, follows this thread still further, considering the impermanence of architectural structures themselves. With paintings, photography, sketches and films depicting buildings both elegant and derelict, overcrowded and empty, purpose-built and basking in their full designer glory, the visitor takes a stroll through a wide-range of contemporary metropolises, experiencing the full life cycle of the inhabitable structure. Greg Girard’s House on Huashan Lu, North View, Lane 322, Huashan Lu (2005) for example, focuses on a derelict building, falling apart and its windows boarded up, but with light still burning from within, juxtaposed against brightly lit tower blocks in the dark night sky beyond. Ferit Kuyas’ Construction Site (2005), on the other hand, whilst, upon first glance also appearing to be a scene of destruction, is actually one of the birth of a new habitation, taken from his series City of Ambition.

Peter Piller (More Beautiful from Above, 2002-2004) provides aerial views of houses, as if coming in to land at an airport, and Michael Wolf (a01, 2005, and a57, 2009, both from the series Architecture of Density) takes us in so close to the windows and balconies of the tower block, that it takes on a life of its own, becoming the living, breathing model of the portrait. This metaphor of the building as an organism is taken to the extreme, however, in Edgar Martins' Untitled (Atlanta, Georgia) (2009) in which the white interior of a house has been attacked and left mutilated with holes in its ceiling, spewing out pink insulation materials, nauseatingly semblant of hacked flesh or brain matter. If one heeds the title of the series from which this print is taken, This is not a House, then one comprehends that the structures and habitations depicted both here, and in Horner’s show, really are something more than mere exterior casings – they are creations which have taken on a body and soul of their own, and which have their own life cycles and incarnations, sometimes outliving their inhabitants, sometimes not. It is apt then, that the setting for these exhibitions is PM Gallery, part of Pitzhanger Manor House, which itself was rebuilt by Soane, later left to fall into ruin, reinstated in 1901 as Ealing Public Library, and is now open to the public as a cultural venue, with gallery attached. I imagine the number of passers through will multiply for the duration of this pair of exhibitions, and I can only too heartily recommend going along and becoming a part of the history of this building yourself.

Images:

Marguerite Horner

Passing Through 

2011 

oil on linen 50x50cm

Marguerite Horner

Walled in by feelings 

2007 

oil on canvas 92x122cm

Marguerite Horner

Ineffably Perceived 

2007 

oil on canvas 122x92cm

Marguerite Horner

Swept Away 

2011 

oil on canvas 50x50cm

Greg Girard 

House on Huashan Lu, North View, Lane 322, Huashan Lu

2005  

Courtesy of Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver/Toronto

Edgar Martins

Untitled (Atlanta, Georgia)

from the series This is not a House

2009 

© Edgar Martins 

Courtesy the artist, The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK branch), The Wapping Project Bankside

See also:

Marguerite Horner's website

PM Gallery and House website

Review of Philippe Pasqua: Solo Exhibition at Opera Gallery

01/02/12

Philippe Pasqua: Solo Exhibition

Opera Gallery

26 January – 15 February 2012

Often described as the French Francis Bacon, Philippe Pasqua’s canvases can hardly be called as a pretty sight. The terms ‘abject’ and ‘disturbing’ have been used far more commonly, and yet there is something simultaneously beguiling about them. Not exactly because you are drawn in closer, since the dimensions of these works are huge – larger than life, looming down over you from afar – but because there is something confrontational and something unexplained, something that makes you want to find out more.

Untitled for the main part, the portraits, worked up from photographs, are detached from any background or context. Mixed media on paper, laid down on canvas, the faces, eyes usually closed, are beautifully drawn, with rubbings out to create intense effects of shadow and light, then washed in colour, before being subjected to violent splashes of paint in the most vibrant reds, purples, pinks and blues, making one question whether the dream-like state of the subject, seemingly peaceful, mightn’t actually be one of death. Indeed Pasqua has worked intently with the theme of death, not only in his paintings, which also include series on transsexuals, prostitutes, and children with Down’s Syndrome, but also in his sculptures, made out of skulls, bedecked, in a Hirstian manner, with jewels, butterflies, and often thick paint.

Even his nudes are overhung with a large question mark. A black and white girl, for example, hangs at the top of the staircase, sitting with her legs apart, exposed and bare, apart from a vest. Again daubed with splattered paint, and no more than a mere sketchy outline of her limbs, the dark black hair and shadowy face beggar the question of what her story might be. Is she damaged? Vulnerable? Provocatively eliciting attention? Desirous? It is impossible to tell.

Similarly with the children on show in the lower gallery, again sleepy looking, drugged even, their mouths slightly parted, sensual and enticing, but inappropriately so. Who are they? What has happened? Are they asleep, dead, suffering, at peace? Each viewer must draw his own conclusions. The information to accompany the exhibition cites Lucian Freud as having said: ‘The role of the artist is to disturb the human being,’ and if ever there was doubt as to the verity of this statement, Pasqua is living proof. 

Images:

All by Philippe Pasqua

Untitled

Mixed media on paper, laid down on canvas

© Opera Gallery Ltd, 2012

Also published at: http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/1946719

Review of Art Erotica at the Gallery, Cork Street

29/01/12

Art Erotica

The Gallery in Cork Street

19 – 27 January 2012

This past week saw the launch of a new annual event in the London art calendar, both showcasing the talent of emerging and established artists, whilst also raising funds for a small but worthy charity. Opened by the internationally renowned art critic and historian, Edward Lucie-Smith, whose own books (which number nearly 200 in total), include titles such as Sexuality in Western Art; Erotica – The Fine Art of Sex; and Ars Erotica – An Arousing History of Erotic Art, Art Erotica, held in The Gallery on Cork Street, was the brainchild of Kathryn Roberts, who is also the founder and director of the Cork Street Open Exhibition, which has now been running for four summers. 

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://blog.darlingcollective.com/?p=330

Review of James Yamada's Parasolstice Winter Light Project at Parasol unit

27/01/12

James Yamada: The summer shelter retreats darkly among the trees

Parasolstice – Winter Light 2011

Parasol unit

23 November 2011 – 18 March 2012

American artist James Yamada (born 1967) is known for his installation works which explore the interaction between nature and technology. For the inauguration of Parasol unit’s new annual outdoor winter project, Parasolstice – Winter Light, which will feature works by international artists interested in the phenomenon of light, he has created The summer shelter retreats darkly among the trees, a kind of aluminium gazebo with 28 neon tube lights built into its roof, blue and white, and at an intensity known as full spectrum light, mimicking the strength of the sun. These wavelengths are recognised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to be highly beneficial for the treatment of SAD (seasonal affective disorder), whereby a lack of sunlight in the winter months can lead to depression, loss of energy, and sleep deprivation. As such, light of this intensity is commonly used in therapy. At Parasol unit, however, visitors are invited to bask in the winter sun for free, sheltered from the elements, and looking out on to the peaceful garden oasis, all the while only minutes away from the hubbub of Old Street roundabout. Small trees and shrubs growing by the pond reflect the bright white gleam of the artificial tree trunks supporting the structure – a collision of the natural and the manmade. These startling white buttresses stand out brightly against the grey winter sky, reflecting the sterile sanitation of modern medicine, and raising questions as to which is more salubrious: the proximity to nature with its hardy vegetation and vast sky opening up above the nearby high rise office blocks, or the antiseptic clinical science so commonly used to prolong life in today’s ‘advanced’ society? There is something awe-inspiringly sublime about the aspect of each, and their head on confrontation here is both calming and inviting of reflection, whilst simultaneously unsettling and thought provoking – an experience that takes you out of yourself and your glum day to day concerns, even if only for the duration of your exposure to the healing rays. 

Image Credit
James Yamada: The summer shelter retreats darkly among the trees (2011)
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, installation view, 2011
Photo by Stephen White

This review was first published by Roves and Roams at: http://www.rovesandroams.com/2012/01/james-yamadas-parasolstice-winter-light-at-parasol-unit/

Review of The Body in Women’s Art Now, Part 3 – ReCreation at ROLLO Contemporary Art

24/01/12

The Body in Women’s Art Now

Part 3 – ReCreation

ROLLO Contemporary Art

20 January – 2 March 2012

Philippa Found, the director of ROLLO Contemporary Art, initiated the three part exhibition, The Body in Women’s Art Now, in 2009, as a response to the massive under-representation of women artists in the canon of western art history. Of the 2,300 works on show in the National Gallery, for example, just four of these are paintings by women artists, and, at Tate Modern, women artists represent just 12% of the collection, with only 29% of solo exhibitions between 2000-2009 representing women artists’ work. Since the early years of the feminist art movement, in the 1960s and 70s, the body has played a key role in many women artists’ work as they have sought to reclaim its image from the male gaze of earlier centuries. The three exhibitions in this series, which have each been shown at ROLLO Contemporary Art in London and at the New Hall Art Collection in Cambridge, concentrate on work created by a range of international women artists since the year 2000 in which the body is a central component.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://blog.darlingcollective.com/?p=303

Review of UnderWire Film Festival Winners Screening at Shortwave Cinema

16/01/12

UnderWire Film Festival Winners Screening 

London Short Film Festival 

Shortwave Cinema, Bermondsey Square

Saturday 14 January 2012

The UnderWire film festival was launched in 2010 by Gabriella Apicella and Gemma Mitchell to both celebrate and help provide a platform for short films made by, and, in the case of the XX award, portraying interesting representations of women. In an industry still blighted by gender imbalance, the founders are seeking to encourage a greater diversity of perspectives and experiences. They therefore look to showcase all kinds of film, from drama to documentary, animation to music video and artist film. All submissions must, however, be under 20 minutes in length.

The second UnderWire festival was held in November 2011, with awards for best director, best editor, best screenwriter, best composer, best cinematographer, best producer, and then the XX award. The range of submissions was impressive, and judging no mean feat, but the winners deserved every ounce of praise steeped upon them. This weekend, as part of the larger London Short Film Festival, the winners from UnderWire were screened once more, as an hour long compilation, at Shortwave cinema, on Bermondsey Square.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://blog.darlingcollective.com/?p=231

Review of Helen Carmel Benigson: The Future Queen of the Screen at ROLLO Contemporary Art

12/01/12

Helen Carmel Benigson: The Future Queen of the Screen

ROLLO Contemporary Art

11 November 2011 – 13 January 2012

‘[...] the notion of identity used to be a narrative of geography or politics; now it is a profile – controlled, reduced and with the potential to be fantasy, reality or a mixture of the two.’

Certainly, the question of identity – both in reality and fantasy, the here and now, and in cyberspace – are key concepts repeated over and again in Helen Carmel Benigson’s easily recognisable video, print and performance works. A recent graduate from the Slade MA Fine Art, Benigson was named last July as one of the Independent’s top ten young British artists to watch out for. Perhaps better known as her alter ego, rapper Princess Belsize Dollar, Benigson has already had a busy debut to the new year with this solo show at ROLLO Contemporary Art, and a work featuring in the travelling group show, The Body in Women’s Art Now: Part 3 – ReCreation, also due to come to ROLLO in mid January.

To read the rest of this review please go to: http://blog.darlingcollective.com/?p=209