Benedict Drew

“Strange snapshots of fleeting moments at night.” The ESSEX ROAD IV video window display at Tintype Gallery, Dec 8 – Jan 13

4 December 2017

The ESSEX ROAD IV exhibition at London’s Tintype Gallery opens December 8 and is running to January 13. 

Now in its fourth year, the moving image installation will feature work by Edwina Ashton, Chloe Dewe Matthews, Benedict Drew, Judith Goddard, Matthew Noel-Tod, Paul Tarragó, Richard Wentworth and Xiaowen Zhu.

The videos will be back-projected onto the window of the gallery to be viewed also from outdoors and will run through the holidays and New Year.  Shown on a loop from morning to night, passerby’s will be able to view the works from the street.

Visit the Tintype Gallery website for details.**

Richard Wentworth, ‘But there again…’ (2017) Video still. Courtesy the artist + Tintype Gallery, London.
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Double y/our money: the 2017 Banner Repeater Fundraiser begins Oct 17

17 October 2017

The Double y/our Money fundraiser at London’s Banner Repeater begins October 17 on the Local Giving Foundation website.

Each donation will receive a raffle ticket for a prize draw at London’s Somerset House Studios on November 8. The event will include work by Yuri Pattison, Jenna Sutela, Melanie Jackson, Zarina Muhammad and Anne de Boer among others, and will also feature live performances from Benedict Drew and Chooc Ly Tan.

Opened in 2009 by Ami Clarke, the artist-led space is a non-profit experimental project space with an ethos of how these spaces  “play an essential role in the vitality and economy of the art world, offering alternative opportunities for emerging and established artists alike, to produce work that might struggle to appear elsewhere.”

The fundraiser will support Banner Repeater’s upcoming year in the commission of new work, publishing and performance, as well as talks and discussions.

Visit the Banner Repeater website for details.**

win: special edition of Orgs, by Jenna Sutela (ed of 30) wrapped in silver foil with a piece of slime mould sclerotium inside

 

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Rhythm and Disappointment launch @ Chalton Gallery, Jul 31

29 July 2016

East Anglia Records is launching a new compilation, Rhythm and Disappointment at London’s Chalton Gallery on July 31.

The album, featuring Benedict Drew, Ziad Nagy, Katarzyna Perlak, and Ruth Waters, among others, will become available for download on the night at the East Anglia Records bandcamp. There will also be performances at the gallery by Leo Nibz, Madeleine Stack, Nadja Voorham and Mark William Lewis in rooms designed by Fred Duffield and Ulijona Odišarija.

The music label and self-proclaimed ‘originator’ of the term ‘Rhythm & Disappointment’ (R&D), founded by artist Harry Bix, began as a series of music performance nights at Slade School of Art in 2015. The project, revolving around the notion of “wanting more and giving up”, has since put on a number of other events and released a handful of compilations, including one in parallel with the NO SCREENING performance at London’s ICA in collaboration with with artist Cristine Brache and SOUNDS LIKE.

See the FB event page for details.**

Harry Bix. Courtesy East Anglia Records.
Harry Bix. Courtesy East Anglia Records, London.
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Open Source 2016, May 28 – 29

27 May 2016

Open Source 2016 contemporary art festival is on at Londons’ Gillett Square in Dalston, running May 28 to 29.

The free weekend event and artist-run initiative brings together the art world private view into the public space with a series of screenings, live performances and installations from the likes of Larry Achiampong, Cory Arcangel, Benedict Drew, Joey Holder, Hannah Black, and Rachel Maclean, among others.

Organised by Emily Butler, Christine Eyene, Helen Nisbet, Joe Fletcher Orr & Doug Bowen, Richard H M Parry and Amy Sherlock, the theme this year follows “subcultures, identity, fluidity and self-determination” and will also include an immersive video game, ice cream, drones, VJ and DJ sets, street posters, experimental hair salon, and more.

See the Open Source website for details.**

Larry Achiampong performing at All Of Us Have A Sense Of Rhythm: An Evening of Live Music at DRAF, 2015. Photo: Dan Weill
Larry Achiampong @ All Of Us Have A Sense Of Rhythm: An Evening of Live Music (2015). Performance view. Photo by Dan Weill. Courtesy DRAF, London.
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Plastique Fantastique present After London, Apr 4 – 11

5 April 2016

Plastique Fantastique is presenting a series of events called After London, as part of a residency at London’s The Horse Hospital from April 4 to 11.

The events come as part of The Horse Hospitals’s broader Collective Intention: Affirmative visions from communes, collectives and cults programme, envisaged as a collection of human and inhuman avatars delivering communiqués from the extreme past and the future. The Berlin-based collective has curated screenings and performances to respond to titles: After London (we believe in the assets we do not believe in), which will take place on April 6, and After London (nothing is true, everything is permitted) on April 9.

The latter hosts a mixture of artists well known to each other and to a discourse of transformation, immersion, spillage, pop culture, synthetics and virtual space. Artists Da Thirst, Joey Holder, Benedict Drew, Plastique Fantastique, researcher Mikey Tompkins and art historian Ayesha Hameed will perform, while Mark Leckey‘s film, ‘LonDonateller’ will be screened.

Both events are accompanied by the same lengthy text that describes “what exactly happened” after London, where “the river is off limits …a boiling sludge …and the sky is off limits too …the bees have the air …nothing inside gets outside …and talk-talk only flies inside …”, and where “after London everyone outside struggles with the flood caused by the comet…”.

See the FB event pages for April 6 and April 9 for further details.**

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Benedict Drew + Nicholas Brooks @ Project/ Number, Feb 26 – Mar 20

24 February 2016

Benedict Drew and Nicholas Brooks are presenting collaborative exhibition, Sump at London’s Project/ Number, opening February 26 and running March 20.

After showing work in many of the same group shows, Drew and Brooks who met while studying at the Slade School of Art, come together in Sump over a mutual love of liquid crystals, mud and synthesised sound.

The press release reads like someone ate something un-agreeable and is now thinking of, accepting and seeing how it now lives inside them. What complex thought processes can be inside substances?

Artist, Verity Birt will also launch a new light box commission, ‘WTF: Where’s the Flux?’ on February 26, which will be lit up on the upper window outside Sump‘s entrance and continue there in situ until April.

See the Project/ Number exhibition page for more details of both projects**

SUMP, gif (2016). Courtesy Benedict Drew, Nicholas Brooks and Project/ Number.
SUMP, gif (2016). Courtesy Benedict Drew, Nicholas Brooks and Project/ Number.

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Gilded Ceremony @ Assembly Point, Oct 1

1 October 2015

London’s Assembly Point is hosting Gilded Ceremony to accompany the Faith Dollars, Taxfree Imagination & Uptown Bliss exhibition –running through and during Art Licks Weekend –to be held on October 1.

Organised by artist Marios Stamatis the event, including spoken word, live music and performance, complements the Faith Dollars… themes of what its press release calls “financial abstraction, absurdity and surrealism”, as explored through the “contemporary experience of post capitalist realism”.

Participating artists include Sarah BoultonJames LowneGiulia Loi.2dotLea Collet and Stamatis himself.

See the Facebook event page for details.**

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Hands Off! @ Room of Requirement Berlin, Mar 12 – Apr 5

10 March 2015

The Berlin exhibition series ROOM OF REQUIREMENT is holding its latest group show, titled Hands Off! and taking place at the HORSEANDPONY Fine Arts space from March 12 to April 5.

The series exhibition is held in shifting locations throughout Berlin, and each time a different curator is invited to host events for a short period of time: “The room could disappear at any given moment yet also reappear at other times and locations in instances of requirement.”

The latest show is curated by Francesca Gavin, and features nine artists, including Aleksandra Domanović, Benedict Drew, Nina Beier and Simon Dybbroe Møller, exploring the idea of fragmentation and the notion of disembodiment that comes as a byproduct of the post-digital world. 

See the exhibition page for details. **

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Benedict Drew & friends @ Reactor, Feb 21

18 February 2015
Experimental programme Reaction Halls brings its 13th episode this weekend, titled ‘Salon dyslexic’ starting at 7pm on February 21.

The Reactor-curated programme brings a night of live performances, film screenings and music events in an attempt to “tackle the anxiety and neurosis generated from the condition of dyslexia” through the “academic shanty town” of the Reaction Halls series.

The night will feature screenings of Mainland Rock from artist Benedict Drew and Augur from Nicholas Brooks, spoken words by Heather Phillipson, and the second iteration of Drew’s Dyslexic Shanty performance with video accompaniment by Rhodri Davies, on amplified harp.

See the event page for details. **

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Events + exhibition openings (Week Dec 7)

10 December 2014

With most of the last of the exhibitions for 2014 opening at the end of November, December kicks off the holidays with too many events to mention individually, so here’s a list. Special mentioned should go to Imran Perretta and Takeshi Shiomitsu‘s /marinate exhibition at FFrigidaire, several readings across the western world launching Holly Childs‘ second book Danklands and a talk including Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani at Banner Repeater.

There will also be performances from Dan Bodan and Benedict Drew in London, as well as another Lunch Bytes in Stockholm, another CREAMCAKE and a new V4ULT location in Berlin and a Nick DeMarco exhibition in New York. Pick a date and peruse at your leisure. **

EVENTS

Gaybar celebrates Leslie Feinberg @ Rye Lane Studios, Dec 10

Private Settings film screenings @ MoMA Warsaw, Dec 10

Shana Moulton performance @ SLG, Dec 10

E+E, Krysaor, Nkisi & Why Be @ Endless, Dec 10

The Locoemotive Lounge  @ Cafe Kaizen  Dec 10

* * * *  MOONSIGN// DUBAIS  //LANII //MSHR  @ XB * * * * *  @ Liebig 34, Dec 10

Holly Childs Danklands launches: London on Dec 9, Berlin on Dec 11, Melbourne on Dec 16 and Sydney on Dec 18

Unreliable Source reading installation @ DRAF, Dec 10

Tropical Waste: Lotic + Felicita @ The Waiting Room, Dec 11

INFRA_SPECTION @ The White Building, Dec 11

Skinhead: An Archive @ Ditto Press, Dec 11

Gravy Party @ Apiary Studios Dec 12

Galavant Evenings  @ Stephen House, Dec 12

Lunch Bytes Life: Feminism @ Tensta Konsthall, Dec 12

Dan Bodan @ Birthdays, Dec 12

Algorithms, Zerowork, and Planning @ Banner Repeater, Dec 12

The Rare Earth Medicine Show @ Troy Town Art Pottery, Dec 12

/// A Weekend of Schizo-Culture /// @ Space, Dec 12 – 13

Kernel – Enclosures (First attempt) @ V4ULT, Dec 13

Friends with Books: Art Book Fair Berlin, Dec 13

CREAMCAKE presents E+E &c @ Südblock, Dec 13

Beyond the Rocks @ Kazachenko’s Apartment, Dec 13

Poverty Failure Rejection @ MilMa, Dec 13

Mulled wine @ Maria Stenfors, Dec 13

Benedict Drew @ Café OTO, Dec 14

OPENING

Vincent Broquaire @ XPO Gallery, Dec 11

Go Mango ~ Pt.1 @ Caustic Coastal, Dec 11 – 21

Chris Lux @ Jupiter Woods, Dec 12 – Jan 4

Nick DeMarco @ Interstate, Dec 13

Imran Perretta & Takeshi Shiomitsu: /marinate @ FFrigidaire, Dec 14

Hubert Marot @ Paris20, Dec 14**

 

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A Horn of Plenty… @ Auto Italia South East, June 28

27 June 2014

Auto Italia South East is presenting a new exhibition, titled A Horn Of Plenty At The All You Can Eat Buffet Of Nothing, at their London space on June 28.

The exhibition – running as part of the Golden Age Problems project– will feature live performances and interventions from artists like Benedict Drew, Pablo Navarro MacLochlainn, Leni Cedric, Mette Hammer Juhl + Lorenzo Tebano, and Plastique Fantastique.

See the Auto Italia South East event page for details. **

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Golden Age Problems @ AISE, Jun 21 – Jul 13

20 June 2014

London’s Auto Italia South East presents the Golden Age Problems group project, running at their King’s Cross location from June 21 to July 13.

The artist-run organisation –run by Kate Cooper, Marianne Forrest, and Marleen Boschen –has been commissioning and producing new work since its 2007 launch, aiming to provide a comprehensive framework for the development of new approaches to both the production and the presentation of exhibitions.

The new Golden Age Problems project explores this innovative approach with an exhibition of images and objects partnered with narrative presentations and a series of performance events, featuring the works of Forrest and Boschen, as well as those of Benedict Drew, Oreet Ashery, Olivier Castel, and Plastique Fantastique, among others.

See the Auto Italia South East event page for details. **

Semiotic Score by Oreet Ashery. Image courtesy artist.
Semiotic Score by Oreet Ashery. Image courtesy artist.

 

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Benedict Drew @ Matt’s Gallery, Feb 16 – April 20

13 February 2014

Benedict Drew presents solo exhibition Heads May Roll at Matt’s Gallery in London, opening on February 16 then running from February 19 to April 20.

Whether inspired by the popular idiom or a reference to a revolution that could but might not happen, the large-scale installation draws on the essay ‘Why I Am The Author of Sound Poetry and Free Poetry’ by Henri Chopin in exploring the subliminal effects of digital mediation and consumerism both physically and psychologically by constructing a “fantastical future world in which the image, word and body are exhausted”.

Included in the blurb is a pertinent Chopin quote well-worth pondering:

 “all-powerful Word, the Word that reigns over all…(we) listen to it everywhere describe us and describe events, tells us how to vote, and whom we should obey”

See the Matt’s Gallery website for details. **

Header image: Benedict Drew, Heads May Roll, 2014. Detail courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.

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