Natalie Dray | | atractivoquenobello

Tarantallegra @ Hester Gallery, Jul 7 – Aug 7

5 July 2016

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The Tarantallegra group exhibition is on at New York’s Hester Gallery, opening July 7 and running to August 7.

Tarantallegra is a spell or a charm used to force people’s legs to begin dancing uncontrollably. The press release that accompanies the exhibition is an online PDF that you click on to get to and when you get there you are greeted with a strange document that is fashioned like an old journal although is dated June 2016 and is written with a familiar kind of personal lyricism. It’s title is This Counter -Magics Of Desire & Revolt and it discusses what it is to cast a spell, the benefits of collecting songs into a shuffle playlist and “jumping over symptoms”.

Curated by Nicoletta Lambertucci, the long list of artists includes the likes of Emily Pope, Sophie Jung, Natalie Price Hafslund (who will all be performing during the private view), Natalie Dray and Lea Cetera.

See the Hester Gallery website for more information.**

Natalie Dray @ Studio Leigh, May 19 – Jun 26

18 May 2016

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Natalie Dray‘s solo exhibition, Facelift, is at London’s Studio Leigh, opening May 19 and running June 26.

For Facelift, the London-based artist has made work by applying techniques used in mechanical and biological processes, such as “autobody repairs, customisation, surgery and cosmetics”.

She will also treat installation as something that can be followed, instructed and applied by making use of existing hanging guides and protocols found outside the exhibition space, while new standards will be invented, too, “for the sake of formality within the display”.

Dray’s practice takes modes of presentation and finds and re-displays their active components and particulars, a bit like a bottle of foundation that tells you that it also has SPF 15 protection in it. She last year worked with light, metals, plug sockets, heat and infra-red in DRAY at Cell Project Space in London and this time will work with dental plaster, and silicone, amongst other softer metals.

See the FB event for more details.**

Natalie Dray, DRAY (2015). Installation shot. Courtesy the artist and Cell Project Space — Natalie Dray, *DRAY* (2015). Installation shot. Courtesy the artist and Cell Project Space

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Keston Sutherland @ Cell Project Space, Feb 21

19 February 2015

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British poet Keston Sutherland is coming to Cell Project Space for a performance reading inside Natalie Dray’s current exhibition, starting at 5pm on February 21.

For this performance, Sutherland will be doing a reading from his latest work in progress, titled ‘Jenkins, Moore and Bird’, described as a “metrical proposal for managing the full disclosure of the hidden relationships between the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, sanity, the former Chief Executive of Barclays Capital’s Private Equity Group, the suspended general secretary of UKIP, art, and the dream analogues of the Monte Carlo-based ex-star of ‘For Your Eyes Only'”.

The poet and Professor of Poetics at the University of Sussex has carved out a unique style, blending familiar and classic modes of poetry with slogan-like lyrics of protest, as well as the vernacular of stock market exchange and information technology.

See the event page for details. **

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Natalie Dray @ Cell Project Space, Jan 29 – Mar 8

28 January 2015

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Cell Project Space is bringing a new body of work by Natalie Dray to its London Space for the artist’s first solo commission for the gallery, titled Dray and running from January 29 to March 8.

London-based Dray’s self-titled show takes on modes of production, blurring the lines between art, commerce and manufacture. Having taught herself computer assembly, she uses automated reverse engineering to question the position of the artist and that of the machine in the contemporary world – and which is valued more, the human gesture or the functional superiority of the machine?

The style of the exhibition harkens back to minimalist art of the 60s, but instead of pop-arty shapes and figures are artworks that appear as appliances, “factory-made to fit the logical electrical requirements for the gallery”. The space itself becomes a kind of template for the exhibition with the “electrical functions of appliances synchronized and programmed, dictated by the capacity and availability of power in the room”.

Writer and poet Keston Sutherland has provided supporting text for the exhibition, and will perform a reading from his own selected works as part of a special event at the gallery on February 21.

See the Cell Project Space exhibition page for details. **

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