LONDON EXHIBITIONS
Hans-Peter Feldmann, Serpentine Gallery
11 April – 5 June 2012
For his Serpentine exhibition, Hans-Peter Feldmann presents works from throughout his career. Among the earliest works is a series of booklets titled Bilder (Pictures), each consisting of a collection of photographs of everyday subjects or situations. His Time Series, produced during the mid-1970s, expanded upon this, chronicling the most banal events frame by frame, thereby effectively slowing down the passage of time.
Feldmann’s appetite for amassing cultural artefacts is demonstrated in a new work presented for the first time at the Serpentine. The artist purchased a number of ladies’ handbags along with their entire contents, filling museological vitrines with credit cards, mobile telephones and address books, making passing fashions and lifestyle choices the object of display and public discussion. Also seen for the first time at the Serpentine is Seascapes, a collection of 15 traditional oil paintings in conventional frames shown as a group.
Image – top: Hans-Peter Feldmann. Installation view, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Serpentine Gallery, London
(11 April – 5 June 2012). © 2012 Jerry Hardman-Jones
Bob and Roberta Smith (in collaboration with Tim Newton): Who is Community?, Central Line Series- Art on the Underground
May 2012
Who is Community? is a new commission by artist Bob and Roberta Smith and film director Tim Newton. The project will bring together a number of different elements, including reproductions of paintings made by Bob and Roberta Smith for Stratford Underground station and a film that tells the story of an extraordinary fictional meeting between Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympics, and the German theorist Hannah Arendt. Considering the context of Stratford as the main site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Who is Community? will explore themes of public space, social interaction and well-being, as well as the democratic values that Coubertin hoped to advance through sport, and the revival of the ancient Olympic games.
Image: courtesy Bob and Roberta Smith and Art on the Underground.
Sarah Pierce: The Artist Talks, The Showroom
18 April – 2 June 2012
The Artist Talks is an exhibition of new work by Dublin-based artist Sarah Pierce, co-commissioned by Book Works and The Showroom. It is the final part of a year-long project undertaken by the artist as part of Book Works’ tour of new commissions and archival presentations, Again, A Time Machine.
Pierce repositions the convention of the artist’s talk as an open system with the potential to disturb or re-invent past artworks and received ideas. Using new video work, photographs, sculpture and performance, the exhibition contains a range of material and references that open up the relation between speech and archives.
Image: Sarah Pierce: The Artist Talks, 2012. Photo by Mariona Otero. Courtesy the artist and The Showroom.
Richard Slee: Camp Futility and Jimmy Merris: Deep Joy on Home Soil, Studio Voltaire
25 April – 26 May 2012
Central to Richard Slee’s exhibition at Studio Voltaire are a number of works based on vernacular objects such as wood saws, hammers, pick axes and camping equipment. Inspired by a recent residency at Alfred University, in upstate New York, the works investigate particular myths and the symbolism of our ideas of America such as the great outdoors and the pioneer spirit. Lashed together workbenches that refer to old mining equipment, various scattered tools and an abandoned camp-fire can be read as an allegory to abandoned industries where whole communities move on to find employment elsewhere.
Studio Voltaire presents a solo exhibition by Jimmy Merris featuring a new single channel video piece displayed across a bank of monitors. Merris’ video works are heavily constructed, utilising a number of disruptive devices such as collaged sound and music, animated text cut from email exchanges and mixing found and made video footage. There is a particular sense of economy within the practice, both in its lo-fi production values and an overriding concern with (un)employment and down-at-heel consumerism. A number of works document the process of making, whether filming the actual production process or including references to certain prevalent forms of technology such as the Internet and desktop editing.
Image: Richard Slee, Camp Futility. Courtesy of Richard Slee and Hales Gallery, London
REGIONAL EXHIBITIONS
Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction, Arnolfini , Bristol
5 May – 1 July 2012
João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Kiluanji Kia, Henda, Luis Dourado, Mark Aerial Waller, Neïl Beloufa, Neill Blomkamp , Omer Fast, Pawel Althamer, The ARPANET Dialogues, Wanuri Kahiu
Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction surveys the recent tendency for artists and filmmakers to apply the forms and concerns of science fiction to narratives situated in the African continent. It considers the complex undercurrents for this occurrence in art today, and posits other and possible realities existing simultaneously, via careful re-orientations of tense; elevating the need for vigilance towards the present and future over a concern for the past.
Africa has had a rare yet distinct place in popular science-fiction, from the opening scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicting the mysterious appearance of a black monolith in the cradle of civilization, to the recent success of Neill Blomkamp’s debut movie District 9, a multi-layered allegory on South Africa’s recent internal and external tensions. Imagining a new space-time to the typical “third worldist” representations of the African continent, caught in a perpetual state of crisis, the works in Superpower project an alternative landscape of possibilities.
THE COSMOS, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge
12 – 27 May 2012
With Salvatore Arancio, Flora Parrott, Nilsson Pflugfelder, Stuart Whipps and Escalator Artist-in-residence Patrick Coyle.
The Cosmos, the first of Wysing’s series of artist residencies for 2012, launches with a series of talks and events by artists, experts and enthusiasts from organisations ranging from the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University to the Pumpkin Patch Observatory in Bourn village.
Four artists and artist groups, Salvatore Arancio, Flora Parrott, Nilsson Pflugfelder and Stuart Whipps, are in residence at Wysing Arts Centre in rural Cambridgeshire for six weeks from 1 April, where they have developed new work taking The Cosmos as a starting point, culminating in a public presentation in Wysing’s gallery. In addition, and reinforcing the literary influences on the residencies, Escalator artist-in-residence Patrick Coyle will document the year long programme of residencies through creative writing.
Image: Salvatore Arancio, le Recul Du Glacier, 2010, courtesy of Federica Schiavo Gallery
Giorgio Sadotti: THIS THIS MONSTER THIS THINGS, Focal Point Gallery (Project Space), Southend-on-Sea
16 April – 30 June 2012
Includes work by Shahin Afrassiabi, Fiona Banner, Mark Beasley, Vanessa Billy, Roxane Borujerdi, Eleanor Brown and Loolie Habgood, David Burrows, Denna Cartamkhoob, Rachael Champion, Steven Claydon, Kelly Eginton, Laura Eldret, Graham Fagen, Karin Felbermayr, Ella Finer, Ceal Floyer, Freee, Neil Gall, Anya Gallaccio, Liam Gillick, Matt Hale, Matthew Higgs, The Hut Project, Alan Kane, Lisa Kirk, Elise Lammer and Lawrence Leaman, Mikael Larsson, Simon Liddiment, Raphael Linsi, Simon Martin, Fraser Muggeridge, Paul Noble, Carlos Noronha Feio, Stefano W. Pasquini, Elias Rediger, Audrey Reynolds, Sarina Scheidegger, Dina Schuepbach, Georgina Starr, Alexandra Stähli, Jemima Stehli, Jack Strange, Milly Thompson, Chris Watts, and Elizabeth Wright.
Since 2010, Giorgio Sadotti has been assembling THIS THIS MONSTER THIS THINGS, an exquisite corpse made from objects produced by fifty-one artist friends and acquaintances, most of whom have had an impact on Sadotti’s identity as an artist. This process of gradual accumulation has resulted in a meta-artwork, a bastard object or a curatorial monster that mockingly presents a ‘complete’ entity, a Frankensteinian self-portrait drawn from people who have become familiar with Sadotti and his work over a twenty-five year period.
Bedwyr Williams: My Bad, IKON, Birmingham
16 May – 08 July 2012
Bedwyr Williams observes the world with a sharp eye and wry humour. His work includes a wide range of media, including performance, sculpture, painting and photography, and explores such things as what it means to be an artist living in his native Wales with big feet and a sense of the absurd. Through the flamboyant costumes of his multiple artistic personae, we catch a glimpse of self-revelation, a command of cultural and art-world mythology, as well as a gentle reflection on the human condition. This is the most comprehensive presentation of Williams’ work to date in the UK.
Image: Bedwyr Williams, Liebesgarten, 2012. Two electric toothbrushes, sink and audio. Courtesy of the artist and Ceri Hand Gallery
Tatton Park Biennial: Flights of Fancy, Tatton Park, Cheshire
12 May – 30 September 2012
Charbel Ackermann, Brass Art, David Cotterrell, Tom Dale, Simon Faithfull, Tessa Farmer, Jem Finer, Olivier Grossetete, Hilary Jack, Juneau Projects, Dinu Li, Pointfive, Aura Satz, Ultimate Holding Company, Sarah Woodfine.
This third edition of the Biennial considers the human urge to fly, to accomplish the impossible in fragile times. Its artists are considering the impact of experimentation on delicate eco-systems, looking backward and forward for guidance, wisdom and/or humour. Their proposed results are experiments in time and space.
Image: Olivier Grossetete, ‘Pont de Singe’ proposal, 2012. Courtesy the artist and Tatton Park Biennial.
