The nature of reification in Even dust can burst into flames at Arcade, May 9 – Jun 3

9 May 2017

news

The Even dust can burst into flames group exhibition at London’s Arcade Fine Arts opens May 9 and is running to June 3.

The show features work by Anna Barham, Kit Craig, Jeremiah Day and John Latham, and takes its title from a Hannah Arendt quote where she speculates on transformation and “a veritable metamorphosis in which it is as though the course of nature which wills that all fire burn to ashes is reverted and even dust can burst into flames…”

In addition to the sculptures, drawings and installation, there will be a performance by Jeremiah Day and Bart De Kroon on May 31 at London’s on 31st Kunstraum.

Visit the Arcade website for details.**

GRANPALAZZO 2016, May 28 – 29

26 May 2016

news

Independent international art fair GRANPALAZZO 2016 is on in at Zagarolo’s Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, running May 28 to 29.

Now in its second year running, the fair is showing 28 artists represented by 28 galleries in the Italian town, situated outside of a major city centre and the global art circuit. Rather than presenting booths, artists from Belgium, Canada, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland and the United States will show their work in dialogue with the 17th century Borghese palace to, as the press release states, “create a succession of poetic visions, styles, research”.

Some artists worth a mention include Anna Barham, Brian Kokoska, Piotr Łakomy, Daniele Milvio, Hamish Fulton and Maryam Jafri, represented by Arcade, Valentin, Antoine Levi, Hester, Espaivisor and Laveronica, respectively.

The weekend programme will also feature a range of live initiatives including performances, educational workshops and a bookshop, as well as a special project by Gabriele De Santis and a presentation of GIFs from smART – polo per l’arte‘s Stop and Go exhibition including Lorna Mills and Carla Gannis, among others.

See the GRANPALAZZO website for details.**

Header image: Brian Kokoska, PoisonIV (2015). Installation view. Photo by Sylvie Chan Liat. Installation view. Courtesy Galerie Valentin, Paris.

Sunrise Sunset performance @ KW Institut, Apr 30

26 April 2016

news

A day of performances will accompany the current exhibition, SECRET SURFACE: Where Meaning Materialises at Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art on April 30.

The event is part of the show’s performance programme called Sunrise Sunset which recently featured ‘Clapback’ by niv Acosta that aqnb reviewed earlier this month, and follows a live work, Litmus Shuffle, by Patrick Staff and Cara Tolmie on April 7.

During the day Auto Italia, Anna Barham, Lawrence Lek, Emily Roysdon and Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa will look to hone in on and literalise the relationship between observer and observed. They will be both present and presenting works that focus in on moments where meaning materialises, asking if live art and its participation can act like an object that is treated, embodied and imbued by its maker.

New York-Stockholm based Roysdon has worked with KW to develop the day’s pacing and spatial arrangement. The artist with her collaborators will also perform her ongoing work ‘UNCOUNTED [Performance 7]’, short and intermittent readings of Roysdon’s randomised script in the courtyard, where the street meets the space, while Ramírez-Figueroa will combine bedtime rituals with printmaking in a dreamlike mediative scene as the day comes to a close.

See the KW website for details.**

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Incremental Architecture, 2015. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Sultana — Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, ‘Incremental Architecture’ (2015). Courtesy the artist + Galerie Sultana, Paris.

Sunscreen collection @ One Thoresby Street, Aug 27

26 August 2015

news

Nottingham-based One Thoresby Street is launching Sunscreen’s collection with 40 online works by 40 artists exhibiting outside the internet for the first time on August 27.

Sunscreen is an online project conceived by artist and One Thoresby Street co-founder Candice Jacobs. For the launch, the project joins forces with the artist-led complex of galleries, project spaces and artist studios, as well as its partner, the East Mindlands collective EM15.

The result is a showing of 40 online art works by 40 artists—including Shana Moulton, Joey Holder, Pio Abad, Anna Barham, and Alex Pain—on multiple screens across the One Thoresby Street ground floor galleries.

See the Sunscreen website for details. **

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Anna Barham @ Galerie Nordenhake, Jan 15 – Feb 21

14 January 2015

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Artist Anna Barham opens a new solo show called Liquid Liquid that will be running at Stockholm’s Galerie Nordenhake from January 15 to February 21.

Liquid Liquid comes as Barham’s second show for the Swedish gallery, and, as hinted to in the exhibition’s name, she uses it to elaborate on her interest in “the mutability of language and semantics” through two video works – ‘Liquid Consonant’ (2012) and ‘Double Screen (not quite tonight jellylike)’ (2013) – and a suite of holographic prints.

Where ‘Liquid Consonant’ draws on Plato’s Socratic dialogues in Cratylus to create a digitally animated head ‘speaking’ sounds, ‘Double Screen (not quite tonight jellylike)’ comes together as a 2-channel showing a sequence of images that move from one screen to another. Barnham’s holographic suite, which accompanies the video works, is made of UV prints on holographic paper whose images and their title puns “cross reference each other, drawing out similarities and associations between camouflage and display, modes of material information and communication”.

See the exhibition page for details. **

Liquid Consonant, 2012 from Anna Barham on Vimeo.

I Feel love (2014) @ Hayward Gallery recording

26 August 2014

news

Anna Barham, the organiser behind the Donna Summer-inspired live production reading group I Feel Love, has released the recordings from the Hayward Gallery event and they sound like love.

The August 14 event had 30+ participants alternate reading lyrics to Summer’s classic song I Feel Love as part of Hayward Gallery’s group exhibition What’s Love Got To Do With It. While the first three people read the song’s lyrics straight through, the fourth was asked to recite a speech-to-text interpretation of the first person’s reading (generated by a speech recognition software), while the fifth read an interpretation of the second’s, and so on.

The results are amusing; while some opt for dramatic, staccato readings, others take a playful approach, poking fun at the meaningless disco drone of the lyrics. Regardless of style, however, the lyrics are transformed through repeated readings and human-to-computer translation, exploring the “endless chain of subtly displaced meanings and altered utterances” in popular culture.

And though the 25-minute audio shows that little more than a good idea is needed to make a profound point, Barham will be expanding on the event, using the recording as inspiration for a piece of work in the future. **

The I Feel Love live production reading group was held at London’s Hayward Gallery on August 14, 2014.

I Feel Love @ Hayward Gallery, Aug 14

11 August 2014

news

Southbank Centre is hosting a live production reading group by Anna Barham titled I Feel Love at Hayward Gallery in London on August 14, 7pm.

Lifting lyrics from Donna Summer’s classic hit by the same name, the live production reading group transforms the words through repeated readings and speech-to-text software, playing on the performative aspects of the voice and exploring the human-computer interactions of love.

The effect, which echos childhood games like broken telephone, is that of “an endless chain of subtly displaced meanings and altered utterances” that disrupt our experience of popular culture. Barham’s explanation of I Feel Love is particularly poignant and deserved of duplication:

“The work disrupts our experience of a shared fragment of popular culture and explores the productive slippage between performance and meaning, spoken and written language, human and computer interaction in a live situation. Ultimately, it articulates and disrupts our highly mediated experience of love and the complexities of communicating what we feel and feeling what we communicate.”

Check out Barham’s event trailer on Vimeo and visit the I Feel Love event page for details. **

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SNOW CRASH. @ Banner Repeater, May 2 – Jun 29

28 April 2014

news

Group exhibition SNOW CRASH is on at London’s Banner Repeater, opening May 2 and running to June 29.

Inspired by the 1992 science-fiction novel by Neal Stephenson of the same name and featuring Erica Scourti, Jesse Darling, Yuri Pattison, Tyler Coburn, Anna Barham, and Ami Clarke, the exhibition uses the text’s concerns with the “the erosion of subjectivity and what amounts to free will” via information technology as a jumping off point for exploring a contemporary culture ruled by big data, surveillance and marketing.

Including installation, video, performance and text-based work, the artists explore the “de-centred human subject through their production” across colocation services, data-mining, EMDR and more.

Read an interview with Yuri Pattison and visit the Facebook event page for details. **

Note: the exhibition period was extended to July 20.

Header image: Lucy Beech, ‘Always On’, (2013).

Domino Nights @ Banner Repeater, Mar 12

11 March 2014

news

Julia Tcharfas, Anna Barham and Louisa Martin will take part in ‘Domino Nights’ at Banner Repeater on March 12.

As part of the Peer Programme, running throughout the year as a forum for encouraging dialogue across practices and media, the events involve participants selected by respective speakers in succession to discuss and present current works in progress, either individually or as a group.

Read a review of Tcharfas’ Systems Thinking from the Inside and see the Banner Repeater website for details. **