Green Light

LAURA BARTLETT GALLERY
10 Northington Street
London WC1N 2JG
United Kingdom
www.laurabartlettgallery.co.uk
until 18 July 2009.

Green Light, is an exhibition featuring work by Andreas Bunte, Aleana Egan, Haris Epaminonda, Cyprien Gaillard and Raphaël Zarka.

The title of the exhibition is taken from the poem by Kenneth Fearing from 1929 that depicts an oblique, offbeat experience of the urban landscape. Lacking subjects, the poem forces readers to revise their understanding about what is being depicted: the poem is fragmented, vernacular and immediate.

This exhibition explores a dislocation between object and context, a spatial or temporal gap in connection to Max Ernst’s definition of collage as “the meeting of two distant realities on a plane foreign to them both.” As in Fearings poem, the works in the exhibition do not allude to a total reality but rather several fictions, simultaneously held in play.

Steve Beard - Perfumed head

The final draft of Perfumed Head contains elements of all three versions. This intoxicating, disturbing and sometimes unreadable prose propels writing/reading to its limits. Steve Beard has, through his use of writing manipulated by computer technology, produced a book that questions the relevance of the printed page in the digital age and that pushes forward the concerns of 'chemical fiction'.

Steve Beard was born in the M4 corridor in 1961 and first moved to London in 1983. He has lived in Herne Hill, Peckham, Brixton, Vauxhall, Islington and Shadwell. His postgraduate years were spent wandering the stacks at Cambridge University library where he was privileged to learn far too much about English literature. For most of the late 1980s and 1990s he worked as a style journalist on magazines like i-D, The Face and Arena. In 1998 he moved to Hove where he met Jeff Noon. Steve has authored the ambient novel Digital Leatherette (Codex) and the artist's book Perfumed Head (Book Works). Two collections of his essays and journalism are available: Logic Bomb (Serpent's Tail) and Aftershocks (Wallflower).

Jumana Emil Abboud - The Diver

"The Diver" is a video narrative that tells the story of a Diver who is anonymous in gender, name, and nationality, and is on an endless search to find ‘Heart’.

The places the Diver visits are nameless, referred to only as "earth, sea, sky, and snow." They are unclaimed territories the Diver passes through on his/her quest for ‘Heart’. Using the diving suit as the ultimate veil, disguise or defense mechanism, the Diver’s world (as his/her identity), is somewhat ambiguous, unknown, unclaimed.

On one level, the Diver is an outcast, it is certain that he/she has a home but it is not known where or who that home is. The Diver is endlessly searching, committed in his/her quest for ‘Heart’. Seeking the advice of others along this quest and wandering from one place to another.

Yet, on another level, the Diver is portrayed as being a kind of "superhero", (he/she is applauded for being unique) an independent traveler who is ready to venture into "unknown places" with relentless will and calm solitude.

Through The Wall

17th June - 25th June 2009
The A Foundation
Club Row
Rochelle School
Arnold Circus
E2 7ES
www.throughthewall.org
Exhibition talk with David Rayson, artist and Head of Painting, RCA on Thursday 18th June, 6.30 - 8.30pm.

Nathan Barlex, Lydia Corry, Alex Crocker, Sabina Donnelly, Hannah Dougherty, Robin Footitt, Samuel Fouracre, Ian Homerston, Claire Jarvis, Andrew Larkin, Ian Law, Neil McNally, Lucy Moore, Rebecca Parkin, Edward Todd, Caroline Walker and April Yang.

The exhibition directly follows the graduates show at the RCA and will provide a platform for these emerging artists to show more of their work in a unique contemporary art space. A Foundation and the RCA Painting Department collaborate for the first time to provide an ambitious site for these artists to develop the relationship between works and their defining characters.

Sheena Rose - Town

She believes that there are not many times during the day when people’s minds are at rest. “We are always dwelling on something that we need to do, a broken relationship—how we are going to manage paying the electricity bill as well as buying new school uniforms at the end of the month; not driving the car unnecessarily because gas costs more nowadays.

“I am interested in the daily lives of Barbadian people, especially with what is going on in their minds...” she stated. Since graduating she has shown her work at the Zemicon Gallery and in the Sign of the Times digital art exhibition at Queen’s Park in Bridgetown.

aliceyard.blogspot.com

Roman Ondák - Loop

Roman Ondák´s artistic attitude is unusual. One reason for this lies in his artistic interventions that recursively impact the real world through context shifts and poetic mise-en-scènes.

By means of a constant and contradictory transfer of meanings, the introduction of unexpected actions in a place wholly inscribed with expectations, or through the repetition of the same picture in different media, he supplements our accustomed balance of processes of perception with a significantly disruptive counterbalance.

Valerio Berruti - Golgota

www.valerioberruti.com

Marcus Coates & Chrome Hoof - A Ritual for Elephant & Cast

5th June 2009 7pm - 12am

Coronet Theatre
28 New Kent Rd
London
SE1 6TJ
www.nomad.org.uk

Presented by Nomad, in association with Qu Junktions.
A Ritual for Elephant and Castle is a multi-dimensional live musical performance staged in the historic Coronet Theatre. A collaboration between artist / shape-shifter Marcus Coates and the thunder- rock and disco of the mighty Chrome Hoof.

In response to the plans for London's Elephant & Castle area to be leveled and for it to rise up as a new urban vision, Marcus Coates together with Chrome Hoof and Wildbirds & Peacedrums will perform their unique brand of mesmerizing music.

The performance will feature the debut of a collaborative durational set jointly authored and composed by Chrome Hoof and Marcus Coates. For them, this gig is more than entertainment; it is a functional civic rite.

“As performers we have a responsibility to work for our audience, we want this show to serve a practical function - the exploration and expression of a collective imagination that sees this place for what it has been and influences how it could be.” Marcus Coates

Accompanied by a stuffed buzzard and a trombone, Coates has been staying with residents, sleeping out in the empty housing estates and consulting with businesses, developers and the council, arming himself with information and experience to embody the area and act as a locater of insight into this time of transition.


Chrome Hoof are an infamous London based collective of musicians best known for their live performances which transcend the clichés of contemporary rock music. Over the years Chrome Hoof have grown in numbers, building an army of improvising multi-instrumentalists and generating a devoted cult following with their legendary live performances. Through sound and spectacle, Chrome Hoof often induce their audiences into a trance-like state, for ‘A Ritual for Elephant and Castle’ Chrome Hoof will support Marcus Coates on his journey and assist him to articulate his findings.

Nomad was established in 2006 to facilitate new dialogues between artist, exhibition and the public domain. Nomad continually strives to build support structures for artists to explore non-traditional working and presentation methods. Their commissioning process is orientated towards increasing knowledge and experience for artists, collaborators and audiences alike.