An evening of screenings, performances and short intervals called ‘Bubble Bath’ is on at London’s Assembly Point on May 19.
Organised by artists and frequent collaborators Lea Collet and Marios Stamatis, the event seeks to gather and present videos by a group of artists such as Paul Maheke, Alice Theobald, Cecilia Bengolea & Jeremy Deller, and Anna Zett, that each consider “performativity in relation to identity and production values”.
There will also be videos, performances and shorter (time-based) works featured throughout the evening pitched as ‘intervals’ by artists James Lowne, Richard Müller and Rebecca Loweth (among others) all responding to live by drummer Tassos Mesogitis, according to Collet.
‘Bubble Bath’ is a part of a wider programme called Tableuxthat incorporates several events delivered in relatively quick succession over the month of May.
London’s Assembly Point is presenting a programme of interactive screenings, performances and discussions called Tableaux, running May 4 to 31.
Focusing on artists’ moving image in relation to the open interpretation of its title, the season will present events curated by invited artists and organisations —including aqnb and video partner Video in Commonon May 6— in twelve events over three weeks.
London-based duo Lea Collet andMarios Stamatis are performing at Offset by Vivid Green, a show at Peppers in the West Wales Art Centre on March 11 and 12.
Organised by fellow Slade School graduate Rebecca Loweth, the show opens with Stamatis and Collet’s performance and runs to March 24. They will also perform, responding to a video Loweth has made during the following evening alongside a conversation and series of artists talks held at the West Wales space.
The combination looks to be an interesting one, with Loweth’s work responding to how the landscape of her rural home town is romanticised by stories and local anecdotes of its history, and Collet and Stamatis’ work centred around the urban practices of performance, affective labour and aestheticised work.
Dorota Gawędaand Eglė Kulbokaitėare presenting their joint exhibition, imgn s㎩oes o dtrrtrlztn,at London’s Green Ray, opening December 15 and running to January 10, 2016.
Running out of Deptford space Enclaveover the next six months, Green Ray is a collaborative curatorial project by Gabriela Acha, Nathalie Boobis and Katy Orkisz hosting public events, reading groups, screenings and exhibitions.
The project inaugurated its ‘Mezzanin Series’ with Emily Furneaux (nee Shepherd)’s emilytofurneaux@gmail.com exhibition and a performance by Marios Stamatisand Lea Collet of ‘Trailer for a Remake of Chorus for Four’ on December 6.
Gawęda and Kulbokaitė’s exhibition, meanwhile, follows a short story of an anonymous ‘she’ character dismembering her own body and conceiving of spaces of “deterritorialisation; ex-timacy voluminously stretched” (i.e. “s㎩œs o dtrrtrlztn; xtimacy vol㎛㏌o㎲ly strtchd”).
The work carries on the Berlin-based Young Girl Reading Group founders and Agatha Valkyrie Ice creators’ interest in an ongoing dispersed project collaboration, that this time manifests as part of Juste Kostikovaite‘s ‘AIROOM’ residency programme, where artists and curators make their temporary living spaces in otherwise AIRBnB-rented rooms inspired by ‘Tinder Swinton’ “a character tired of Tindering”.
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”.
Assembly Point brings a new group exhibition titled Faith Dollars, Taxfree Imagination & Uptown Bliss, running at their London art space from September 10 to October 17.
The show comes as the second exhibition for the new artist-run South London space, following their inaugural Back to the Things Themselves exhibition opened in June. “In an era of financial abstraction, absurdity and surrealism,” the FDTIUB press release begins, “this exhibition explores the political — fictional or real — contemporary experience of post capitalist realism (or neoliberalism or the global economy) through its ideological and structural context.”
You’re standing in a small parking lot. You’re being handed a photocopied sheet of paper. Handwritten in black marker, it lists twelve artists and areas of a car that have been assigned to them to respond to with a work in the Mark IIexhibition. Air vents. Car keys. Ashtray, Maintenance, Hubcaps, Glove compartment. Rear window wiper. Sunscreen. Back seat. Stereo. Bumper.
You read the words on the sheet of paper and you look at the car. The car is a silver Nissan Micra, its ignition is on and its doors are open. It looks as if something debauched has happened and the owner ran away leaving the car as a recently deceased person leaves their home: all things intact and in mid-use as if they could be coming back any second to re-engage with the space. It’s like you’re part of a forensics team at the scene of a crime trying to determine what’s happened, or a voyeur that has come across an abandoned unlocked car in a parking lot, deciding to satiate your desire by looking deeply and maybe getting close enough to smell. You are the memory of the car and you are flashing back, revisiting every possible thing the car has ever experienced at once.
Fred Duffield, ‘Hubcaps’ (2015). Install view.
You begin to look for the objects in the car listed on the paper that now functions as a map. You’re in search of distinction as the art work seamlessly integrates into the car’s natural domain. A closer look is required to gain more insight into the curious narrative you’ve just stepped into. Perhaps these are some of the things organiser Harry Bix, whose choice of artist in relation to component parts seems carefully considered, wants us to feel.
The stereo spews self help. People in the car park are being told to “try ritual purification with wet wipes.” It’s speaking on behalf of Ulijona Odišarija who produces an eerie lo-fi mix tape called Revival 2015 that loops misshapen beats and chants, dedicated -isms that promise to change your life and make it better: “and if you need forgiveness in the present time just visualise that happening / do you want to party or cry? / Find that special place inside you where you feel no shame”.
Mary Vettise, assigned the car’s bumper, rebrands the Micra with her last name, “Vettise”, in cursive on its right side just above the silver “S” that denotes some special unknown attribute to the Micra. It’s a pun that doesn’t really make sense to most people; an inside joke as the artist says her last name is commonly misspelled “Vitesse”, which is french for ‘speed’ and often confused with the Rover make and model of the same name. The back seat of the car is full of cold medicine boxes and empty bottles of energy drinks left by James Lowne. A love letter rests on top of this pile explaining why he couldn’t be there. He is ill and sorry because he only thinks of you. Cristine Brache occupies a masculine object with feminine material by cutting a house key out of mother of pearl with the words “nothing but violence” engraved on it. The key hangs from the keychain, attached to the car key that powers the ignition.
The evening is comprised of three performances by Lea Collet and Marios Stamatis (maintenance) who dedicatedly wash the car, Sarah Boulton (air vents) reads poetry inside the car alone, leaving her audience with a powerful silence outside. They remain completely quiet, even though they can’t hear a thing. Boulton’s performance is, as she puts it, “fragrance-based”, challenging the audience’s expectations and desires by denying them access to her words, rendering herself mute. A few minutes into her reading people walk up to the car to put their ears near the window in an attempt to eavesdrop. Alex Carmichael concludes the evening by hotboxing the car in exaggerated form with a smoke bomb, fading it out of your voyeuristic gaze with the thick cloud. The stereo urges you to “say fast slowly”. You turn around and walk away but take this last mantra with you, whispering the word ‘fast’ very, very slowly. **
![Lea Collet & Marios Stamatis, KPIs [Key Performance Interludes] 2016. Courtesy the artists and Green Ray](https://d23pzp3qb0c2ie.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/12688271_1504396146535116_7345669432181787534_n-e1457441034488.jpg)
