Glasgow International - Oxford House - Kate V Robertson and Carol Rhodes

Two beautifully considered solo exhibitions (by Kate V Robertson and Carol Rhodes) are housed within the quirky 'chicken-liver pate' coloured building that is Oxford House.

KATE V ROBERTSON

semper solum

Semper Solum is an ambitious new installation responding to the site and context of the courtroom in Oxford House – open to the public for the first time in its new incarnation. The works on show relate to individual and collective identity and play with ideas of binaries, opacity and judgement and hover between recent past and the near future temporalities.

www.patriciaflemingprojects.co.uk

This is a stunning exhibition in which the work draws attention to the features of the building as much as the features of the building frame the work.

CAROL RHODES

CONSTRUCTION SITE

Rhodes is known for her small-scale paintings depicting, from an aerial perspective, encounters between nature and human settlement. This show focuses on works made since 2007 and includes a number of the preparatory drawings that Rhodes makes for each of her paintings. These have rarely been exhibited anywhere and are for the first time being presented in direct dialogue with her paintings. The intention is to reveal the deeply layered and rich complexity of Rhodes’s practice.

The colour palette of many of the paintings is ideally suited to the tones of the gallery space.

http://glasgowinternational.org/festival-2016/programme-2016/

Glasgow International - Tramway

TRAMWAY

ALEXANDRA BIRCKEN, SHEILA HICKS, LAWRENCE LEK, MIKA ROTTENBERG AND AMIE SIEGEL

Tramway is home to a group show including artists Alexandra Bircken, Sheila Hicks, Lawrence Lek, Mika Rottenberg and Amie Siegel. The show is curated by the festival Director Sarah McCrory and co-designed by artist Martin Boyce.

The venues, organisations and artists are all fundamentally shaped by the city in which they are based. Glasgow plays an important role in the way these organisations and artists have developed and how and where they work.

Glasgow’s cultural spaces exist predominately as a result of its industrial legacy.The city’s wealth in the 18th and 19th centuries came predominately from industry, shipbuilding, metal-works, textiles and its role as a key trading port. Many of our galleries and museums are reclaimed spaces born from this wealth of industry. The Tramway exhibition space itself was an industrial space, functioning as a tram factory and depot from 1893 until the early 1960s, when Glasgow’s tram services stopped.

Works by the five artists focus on ideas of production, manufacture, material culture, design, history and labour, which all in turn reflect back out upon the city.

This is an opportunity to consider feminist practices, ideas of authenticity, skill and craft, as well as what it means to discuss the work of artists who make alongside artists who work with new technologies.

The exhibition design is by Glasgow-based artist Martin Boyce. His works include the use of industrial materials, for example concrete, expanded steel and industrial lighting which often relate to the natural world. For this exhibition, he has applied elements of his sculptural vocabulary to frame the artists’ works in this monumental space.

The work that I was most intrigued by was that by artist Mika Rottenberg. 

Rottenberg taps into truths about our modern consumer society, its inequalities and instant gratifications. 

Her video installations and the narratives of her vivid characters are immersive, absorbing, uncomfortable, visceral, thought-provoking and fantastical all at once.

http://www.andrearosengallery.com/artists/mika-rottenberg/images#nonoseknows-2015_1

Front Row reviews 'This is a voice'

Wednesday's edition of Front Row on BBC Radio 4 features a review of 'This is a Voice', a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London which has brought together a number of works by artists who have been inspired by the voice. 

It examines how tone, pitch and tempo can communicate meaning and emotion so effectively that words become unnecessary. Joan La Barbara, a composer known for her explorations of "extended" vocal techniques, and Imogen Stidworthy, whose video work explores how our voice affects our sense of self, respond to the exhibition and discuss why the voice is such an inspiration for them.

http://bbc.in/1MuorRO

THIS IS A VOICE

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE

14th April - 31st July 2016

THIS IS A VOICE creates an acoustic journey through art, sound and film to capture the elusive nature of the human voice. From its origins within the body, to the sounds ringing in our heads, this exhibition celebrates the oral and the aural, with live performances in the gallery each day.

The exhibition features the work of artists and vocalists including Joan La Barbara, Imogen Stidworthy, Sam Belinfante, Enrico David, Meredith Monk, Marcus Coates, Anna Barham and Emma Smith, and visitors can add their own voices to the mix as part of an interactive new commission by electronic musician Matthew Herbert.

http://wellcomecollection.org

It's what you make of it - X Libris Gallery - Friday 15th April - 12:30-1:30pm

It's what you make of it 

The culmination of four days of collaborative experimentation by
Anna MacRae & Helen Shaddock

Friday 15th April 

12:30-1:30pm 

X Libris Gallery 

A day of exploring Glasgow international

Saturday was the first and only day of our visit to Glasgow that we did not have a Circus Between Worlds rehearsal or commitments at Caledonian Church, and so I enjoyed taking the group on an exploration of some of the other exhibitions in the festival. My (rather packed) itinerary that included a real range of types of work was as follows:

HENRY COOMBES
SEAT IN SHADOW
Function Room, Avant Garde Bar. 

HEATHER LANDER & SIMON HARLOW
MATERIALIA
The Briggait


JOCK MOONEY
WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?
The Briggait
MONIKA SOSNOWSKA
The Modern Institute, 3 Aird’s Lane

JOANNE TATHAM & TOM O’SULLIVAN
A PETITION FOR AN ENQUIRY INTO A CONDITION OF ANXIETY
The Modern Institute, 14-20 Osborne Street
















SIDSEL MEINECHE HANSEN
NO RIGHT WAY 2 CUM
Transmission


MARI HOKKANEN
SET & SETTINGS
Street Level Photoworks

CATRINE VAL
POLITICAL LETTERS
Street Level Photoworks


NICOLAS PARTY
MEZZOTINT
Glasgow Print Studio

DERRICK ALEXIS COARD
Project Ability Gallery


HIROFUMI SUDA

KIND OF GREY
Glasgow Project Room

MATTHEW SMITH
Koppe Astner


EMILY MAE SMITH
HONEST ESPIONAGE
Mary Mary


PILVI TAKALA
CCA


CLAIRE BARCLAY
BRIGHT BODIES
Kelvin Hall


HELEN JOHNSON
BARRON FIELD
Kelvin Hall


MARION FERGUSON, BELINDA GILBERT SCOTT, RUTH SWITALSKI
-SCAPE
1 Royal Terrace

Glasgow International on Front Row

As the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art opens with exhibitions across the city, Wednesday's episode of BBC Radio 4's Front Row gives an introduction to festival and some of the exhibitions included in the biennial.

Kirsty Lang asks if it's Glasgow's industrial legacy, its history of metal work and textiles, or the very buildings and environment of the city itself that makes it such an inspiration for artists.

Turner Prize winner Duncan Campbell, Muriel Gray, and the artist Claire Barclay, among others, share their views as Kirsty visits exhibitions at Tramway, GOMA, Kelvin Hall and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to see some of the many works in the festival reacting to the city. She meets the artist Tessa Lynch who is showing her Painter's Table at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), views the Tramway group show featuring artists Alexandra Birken, Sheila Hicks, Lawrence Lek, Mika Rottenberg and Amie Siegel, speaks to Claire Barclay who is installing Bright Bodies at Kelvin Hall, and Aaron Angell who has his installation The Death of Robin Hood at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Glasgow Botanic Gardens.

http://bbc.in/207YRnS

Glasgow International - GoMA and Glasgow School of Art

After a day working on the site, we ventured into the city to attend some of the exhibition previews.

COSIMA VON BONIN

WHO'S EXPLOITING WHO IN THE DEEP SEA?

GoMA

Von Bonin’s exhibition Who’s Exploiting Who In The Deep Sea?* brings together a series of works from 2006 onwards exploring the artist’s affection for the creatures of the sea. Working with textiles, music, sculpture, performance, video and painting, her practice is varied and often collaborative in nature.

The artist’s cast of characters are a host of contradictions – approachable creatures who are reminiscent of childhood companions are not what they seem. Weaving together humour with melancholy, these sculptures have ambiguous roles and feelings. Von Bonin is able to use these creatures as agents to explore art history, popular culture and craft, to destabilise perceived constructions of feminism. She has created her own crew to explore the deep sea, where, as an analogy of the human condition it is a true place of the unknown.

The exhibition is co-curated by Director Sarah McCrory and SculptureCenter Curator Ruba Katrib. The exhibition will open in September at SculptureCenter.

www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/GoMA

TESSA LYNCH

PAINTER’S TABLE

GoMA

Lynch works predominantly with sculpture and performance. Projects develop from research concerned with the emotional impact of the built environment and the questionable existence of the female flâneur, which refers to a man who saunters around observing society, or ‘flâneuse’.

Lynch describes her new exhibition as an architectural drama: a collection of new sculptural works which loosely mimic the objects, scenarios and histories found on her daily commute. The mundane examination of this regular transition from home life to work life generates a self-portrait, exposing what it is to be a female artist living in this city.

Frequently using performance as an active framework for making, Lynch has shared her commute with writers Jenny Richards and Rhona Warwick Paterson to create a new text and performance work. Similar to how a map allows one to navigate city roads and streets, the text offers viewers a script through which one can navigate this installation.

SERENA KORDA

HOLD FAST, STAND SURE, I SCREAM A REVOLUTION

Reid Gallery, Reid Building, The Glasgow School of Art

Korda has produced a new sound sculpture that combines her interest in primitive impulses, invented tradition and our skewed relationship to nature. Taking her inspiration from the politically radical history of Garnethill (where the Reid Gallery is situated), Korda continues her investigation into ‘thin places’, anomalies in the landscape which were viewed in pre-Christian times as access points to the afterlife. Foraging expeditions on the Isle of Mull presented the deadly potential of some fungi as possible pathways to ‘thin places’. Mushrooms are imbued in our consciousness as grotesque, magic and poisonous. They attract and repulse in equal measure.

Korda is producing a series of sound experiments performed by an army of ‘agitators’ gathered from the communities of Garnethill and Mull.

Supported by Glasgow International, The Glasgow School of Art, Comar and The Henry Moore Foundation.

www.gsa.ac.uk

Preparing on site for the circus

The iconic Greek Thompson Caledonian Church is turning into a circus. Over the last couple of days there has been significant progress with turning the derelict (but stunning) Church on Caledonian Road into a performance space for Circus Between Worlds. There have been all hands on deck helping to make this transformation happen. We have been stretching canvas for the canopies that will protect the audience from the inevitable Glasgow wet weather.

f

Circus Between Worlds introduces Olivia Turner

Olivia Turner’s practice encompasses sculpture, video, performance and drawing. Her work is deeply rooted within the idea of knowledge gained through making. Turner’s presence is felt throughout her work, gaining elemental understandings of material and matter through haptic, primitive validations of touch and observation.

For Circus Between Worlds Turner is transformed into an ‘Extruder of Language’, exploring the communicative, pre-linguistic capacity and material memory of clay. Becoming one who is incapable of expression by speech, alternatively seeking a sculptural expression of the sensation of language.

For more information about Olivia Turner's practice, visit her website:
http://www.oliviaturner.co.uk

The Circusmobile is packed ready for Glasgow

After weeks of preparation, the Newcastle troupe (consisting of Charlie Dearnley, Stella Dixon, Sarah Grundy, Edwin Li, Deanna Smith, Olivia Turner and me) assembled our equipment, props and costumes and loaded them into the Circusmobile (Edwin's car). Mark Pinder (the Circus Between Worlds photographer) also brought his car to be loaded with anything that did not fit in Edwin's car.



Olivia and Edwin are driving up to Glasgow tomorrow to set up their side show 'booths' and rehearse with the other side show performers.



The rest of the Newcastle troupe are travelling up on Wednesday morning, arriving in Glasgow for the first full rehearsal. Sarah, Deanna and Stella are going in Mark's car and Charlie and I are getting the train. We will all convene on site at 1pm for the afternoon rehearsal. In the evening between 8-10pm (the same time as the event will take place on Friday and Sunday) we will have the full dress rehearsal.

I am excited and intrigued to see the performances by the other artists involved.

Invitation to Circus Between Worlds

Dear Friends 

I would like to invite you to Circus Between Worlds for Gi2016. 

I have created a performance especially for the event, and will be performing on the Main Stage on the Friday and Sunday evening. I am also performing in two side show performances; one by Deanna Smith and the other by Adam Hussain.

LOCATION

Caledonia Road Church

Caledonia Road,

Glasgow, G5 OSJ

info.at.wave@gmail.com

0141 552 5300

OPENING TIMES 

Fri 8 April Performance 8pm-10pm* 

Sat 9 April Exhibition & Workshops 10am-5pm 

Sun 10 April Exhibition & Workshops 10am-5pm 

Sun 10 April Performance 8pm-10pm* 

An Experimental artists’ circus emerges out of dramatic ruins of the Greek Thompson Free Church in Glasgow. 

Bringing together a maverick group of performers this ad-hoc community conflates absurdism, death metal and the village green to enact a free forming learning environment. 

Friday 8th April - 6.30pm 

Launch procession lead by Francis Thorburn’s man powered flight simulator machine from King Street 28 King Street, Glasgow, G1 5QP 

Fri 8 & Sun 10 April Live Performance 8pm-10pm* at Caledonia Road Church, G5 OSJ

Sat 9 & Sun 10 April Exhibition Open & Workshops 10am-5pm 

 

Francis Thorburn, Maria Fusco, David Sherry, Jedrzej Cichosz, Urara Tsuchiya, Sion Parkinson, Richard Whitby & Sooyon Kim, Emma Finn, Stasis, Edwin Li, Graham Mack, Frankie Burr, Hazel Powell Astrid Newman & Francesca Hawker, Susan Mowatt, La Malle des Indes, Sally Hackett, Peter Jarsdell Ltd, With students from Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art & Newcastle University: Fiona Berry, Anna Danielewicz, Martin Darbyshire, Charlie Dearnley, Michael Di Rienzo, Stella Dixon Deanna Smith, Zoe Griffin, Sarah Grundy, Adam Hussain, Aaron Jose, Rachel Lee, Serafima Mehhovits Nuclear Jelly, Maryanne Royale, Helen Shaddock, Ayshia Taskin, Olivia Turner

On Friday there will be food from special guest Bisan Abu Eisheh, bringing a taste of Palestinian barbecue.

FINDING THE CIRCUS

Caledonia Rd Church is midway between Modern Institute and Tramway (15 min walk)

Subway: Bridge Street (11 minute walk)

Caledonia Rd Church has a dramatic tower, it sits on a junction between A730, A728, Cumberland St and Cathcart Rd, Next to the Brazen Head Pub. 

   

The circus is hosted by WAVEparticle as part of their Open Spaces project.

I hope to see you there!

Circus Between Worlds introduces Deanna Smith

I will be one of the performers in Deanna's contribution to Circus Between Worlds. The rehearsals are proving to be very amusing and rather strange!

Deanna's live vocal performance will consist of a group of individuals appropriating noises associated or created through circus acts. Think dada poetry, think strangeness.



Deanna Smith is currently studying undergraduate Fine Art at Newcastle University. She is a mixed media artist, working predominately with sound and performance. Her work is concerned with societal power relations, using the voice as a metaphor for this.

Circus Between Worlds introduces Nuclear Jelly

Nuclear Jelly's interests vary to encompass various mediums including dance, movement, costume, music/sound; whilst extending to further realms of ceramics, film, video, narratives, characters and beyond within their own personal practice. ‪#‎GI2016‬ Glasgow International

Nuclear Jelly brings a performance based upon a set of narratives surrounding the life cycles of jellyfish and nuclear power stations, which seeks to test the reactive relationships between sound, costume, musicians and movers in attempt to diminish individual control.