Verity Birt

February Guide: a London-based exhibitions + events list of recommendations

29 January 2018

Here is an evolving guide to events and exhibitions happening over the next month at venues across London.

Worth noting is also group exhibition more of an avalanche at Cambridge’s Wysing Arts Centre opening February 10 and running to April 8,  featuring work by Jesse Darling, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Juliet JacquesIsaac Julien, Raju Rage, S1 Portland (Women’s Beat League) and more, as well as a performance by Liv Wynter on the opening night.

Carolyn Lazard, ‘Get Well Soon’ (2015) Video Still. Courtesy the artist + Wysing, Cambridge.

Exhibitions

Ilona Sagar‘s solo exhibition Correspondence O at South London Gallery – Dec 12 – Feb 25

Maja Čule‘s solo exhibition Mouth at Arcadia Missa -Dec 2 – Feb 17

Martin Kohout‘s solo exhibition Daylight Management at Auto Italia – Jan 13 – Mar 18

Rachal Bradley‘s solo exhibition Interlocutor at Gasworks – Jan 24 – Mar 18

on my island none of this would be true group show w/ Naama Arad, Verity Birt (+ Holly Graham/ Richard-Forbes Hamilton), Gery Georgieva, Hannah Regel and others at Arebyte – Feb 1 -Mar 17

Echoes of the Ornamental Garden group show w/ Victoria Adam, Gabriele Beveridge + Richard Paul at Seventeen – Feb 9 – Mar 24

Verity Birt’s solo exhibition Deformation Attends Her at Black Tower Projects – Feb 17 – Mar 31

Martin Kohout, ‘Slides’ (2017). Video still. Courtesy the artist.

Events

The RCA Queer Society presents Purple Velvet PV Vol. 2 at ArtBar Stevens Building – Feb 1

Cinenova Now Showing presents a film screening of works by Holly Antrum at The Showroom – Feb 1

Décalé #1 presents new event night of sound + visuals w/ Choc Ly, Sami Baha, TERRIBILIS, Victoria Sin + more at DIY Space For London – Feb 2

Ghislaine Leung, Partners, publication launch at Cell Project Space, – Feb 2

Care, a musical directed and scored by Klein at ICA – Feb 3 + 4

 

  share news item

Chemhex Extract @ Peacock Visual Arts, Oct 20 – Nov 5

19 October 2016

The Chemhex Extract group exhibition is on at Aberdeen’s Peacock Visual Arts, opening October 20 and running to November 5.

Curated by Lucy A. Sames & Dane Sutherland, the show is the second instalment of their ongoing project Exta which “mobilises mystic intensities and sci-fi rituals, adapting the occult art of haruspicy as a method of visceral divination” and will feature work by Verity Birt, Jamie & Rickie McNeill and Plastique Fantastique.

Taking to the landscape of Aberdeen and looking at its histories and futures, the exhibition looks back, forward, and into, visions of “geotraumatic fantasies over the future – corrupt and feverishly f****d.” The opening night will be host to two performances by Plastique Fantastique and ESTAITIS.

Visit the Peacock Visual Arts event page for more details.**

  share news item

Feeling Safer @ IMT Gallery, Jun 2 – Jul 10

1 June 2016

The Feeling Safer group exhibition is on at London’s IMT Gallery opening June 2 and running July 10.

The press release, written from the perspective of an unknown character called Kim describes feeling anxious about the private nature of small galleries like IMT, hidden behind honey suckle and “halfway between the Metropolis strip club and the Museum of Childhood”. It describes a fear towards the way artists deal with the feelings around the end of the world, “when the grid is cut off” via Valerie Solanas’ ‘S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men)’ manifesto —which is quoted in the text:

“…Lacking faith in their ability to change anything, resigned to the status quo, they [artists] have to see beauty in turds.”

Helping the protagonist in the press release ‘feel safer’ in the IMT space are artists David Burrows, Joey Holder, Elliot Dodd, Verity Birt, Luke McCreadie and Maggie Roberts (as orphan Drift, a group Roberts co-founded that remix visuals and audio from the 90s.).

On the opening night artist group AAS will present performance, Farming The Young / On The Mirrors Of Yukon, described as “a fractal palimpsest of data for future generations”.

See the Feeling Safer website for more information.**

  share news item

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.

  share news item

‘Teleonomy’ @ Cafe OTO, Feb 19

19 February 2016

South Kiosk and Where To Now? are presenting an evening of collaborative A/V performance, called ‘Teleonomy’, at London’s Cafe Oto on February 19.

The event, which pairs artists who use different media but follow “similar or correlating lines of enquiry”, responds to the interrogation of structures and functions innate to living organisms and ‘natural law’: “Instincts, reactions and internal clocks all contribute to a gradual evolutionary process that perpetuates our species”.

There will be three performances on the night by artists, selected 50/50 by both South Kiosk and Where To Now?, including Austin Charles WilliamsRichard Forbes-HamiltonSalvatore Arancio x R Elizabeth (aka Rachael Finney), and Verity Birt x U.

See the Cafe OTO website for details.**

Austin Charles Williams, 'Land of the Free' (2016). Video still. Courtesy the artist.
Austin Charles Williams, ‘Land of the Free’ (2016). Video still. Courtesy the artist.

  share news item

Chronovisor: Archive @ South Kiosk, May 15 – Jun 20

12 May 2014

The Chronovisor: Archive group exhibition is running at London’s South Kiosk, opening May 15 to June 20.

Featuring Mirko SmerdelRowena Harris, Verity Birt, Patrick Hough, Cathy Haynes and Johann Arens, the exhibition follows themes of time and artifice in relation to the chronovisor.

It’s a viewing machine with a lens that traverses space and time, presenting a conglomerate of problematic images spanning some of history’s most iconic moments, allegedly created by a Venetian Roman Catholic priest in the 1960s.

Looking to obscure historical context and presenting these images in new and troubling light, there’ll be evocative sculptural pieces and Google street view-fed images among others.

See the South Kiosk website for details. **

Header image: installation view, ‘Maul’ series by Rowena Harris. Image courtesy artist. 

  share news item