Saturday, January 26, 2008

Wolfgang Weileder: "Back to the City" Newcastle, Australia


Cashpoint

Wolfgang Weileder and Michael Tawa

Site: City Centre

This intervention refers to the commercialisation and economics of public space. Cashpoint is an abstracted full-scale version of an ATM dispensing random $10 notes once every 24 hours. An integrated computer runs the cash dispensing mechanism. A proposed residency will assist in the determination of a strategic site for the cashpoint.

Back to the City is a series of temporary urban art interventions taking place in the City of Newcastle in January and February 2008.

Sixteen collaborative teams of artists, architects and landscape architects will produce a series of site-specific installations in the city centre. The aim of the project is to investigate contemporary and relevant crossovers between the disciplines, as well as testing and experimenting with new forms of collaboration, bringing into focus the revitalisation process of Newcastle's city centre.

Artistic Director: Steffen Lehmann

Matt Stokes: "Real Arcadia" LÜTTGENMEIJER, Berlin, Germany


MATT STOKES

REAL ARCADIA

26/01-08/03/08

LÜTTGENMEIJER
SCHILLINGSTRAßE 31
10179 BERLIN

Nervous, purely nervous. A dodgy Victorian street in the Lace Market district of Nottingham. Fear and anticipation. One of us is holding a couple of bottles of cheap supermarket champagne, another one a small bag of white pills. A siren wails in the distance: we hold still for a second or two, then hurry across the road to the photographic studio in a disused textile factory where we’re about to hold our first illegal party. The summer of 1990, only a few days after the government adopted new legislation to clamp down on outlaw raves. Good timing... Inside, a sweet surge of electronic noise as the needle falls on
the first record – ‘LFO’ by LFO – and when the bass line drops hard, shuddering through the white room, a feeling of relief and rising joy: it’s going to be all right. This is how it started, how it would always start.
* * *
Already during the time of the Wars of the Roses, the Egremonts ruled over a vast, beautiful region in Northern England in which stories grew and painters looking for inspiration roam. One Lord Egremont defended his holdings in the 15th century in the battle of Heworth Moor; a descendant became an important promoter of William Turner. Today, the scenery of the Lake District is still seen as the embodiment of romantic England. It is possible that the party scene only moved in to the grottos because there were not empty warehouses, abandoned factory floors and industrial ruins in this idyll. Instead, there were these caves. Because of their perfect size, they had a unique sound and a special atmosphere that suited these parties. But it is also not difficult to see the choice of the caves as a contemporary, romantic gesture. The cave parties were organised by a group called “Out House” and started off small. But after a short while, they attracted a lot of people. This had a big impact on the surrounding villages. The subject really began to interest the media no later than 1991. There was a search for the people responsible, but nobody could prevent the parties. The locations were passed on covertly via telephone and flyers.
The police were initially caught unprepared by the strange stirrings in the countryside, but eventually they set up specially-equipped units to combat what they prosaically referred to as ‘pay parties’. The experience of the Cave Crew in the Lake District was not unusual: concerned reports in local newspapers and on regional television about the threat to young people’s safety were followed by the erection of police roadblocks. ‘We are not killjoys, we are trying to preserve life’, the words of the local police chief were typical of the time – also, the suggestion that the caves should be dynamited to put a stop to the madness. But it was not that easy. Lord Egremont did not get the council’s authorisation and the pressure on him grew.
* * *
Percy–So far, it was part of “Real Arcadia” to find a place that connects to times past. We tried out one or two rooms here. Both fell flat. One because of the neighbours. The other one was already too institutionalised. We are looking for a location that has not yet been touched by the club culture or events like the Fashion Week. This is not so easy in Berlin. Amy– In the exhibitions – that so far were mainly institutions and museums – the hi-fi equipment was just standing around like a dead sculpture. It was being taken away for a night, installed and used. But in the morning for the opening time, it was back again. Percy–It took a lot of months to rebuild the sound system. The manufacturer, a small company, had gone bust at some point. Employees had, however, retained the moulds with which the speakers had been cast so they could be made anew. Also the speakers could be re-constructed. There were photos. When the sound system was ready, it was offered to DJs who had been working with similar equipment in the 1990s for performances. They reacted uncomprehendingly – to the equipment and also to the story. For them, the sound system was simply dated. They considered the sound antiquated. There was no nostalgia. Amy–The project “Real Arcadia” began four years ago, in summer 2003, and it was created in a three week residency based in the Lake District. The research started by accident, having a conversation in a pub about the former rave scene in the area, how dance music had impacted it, back to the late eighties, through to 2003 and the current activities. Unity–The cave raves were organised by one group, “Out House”, but over time, they burned themselves out, working as DJs during the week and throwing cave raves at the weekend. Amy–Initially “Real Arcadia” first was about finding people who were involved. A more or less anthropological approach, talking to the former organizers, the party goers, people who lived there, also contacting the policemen, who were the most difficult and unwilling to talk about it. The residents were the same. Even now, thirteen or fourteen years later, the residents were still quite angry about these raves because at the time it affected their lives so much. They feared that the research might spark new interest in the raves, causing them to happen again. Amy–Over time the conversations expanded. People started unearthing ephemera of that era: flyers, mix tapes, t-shirts, most of it looked very
handmade. The flyers tended to be hand drawn, or collaged together and photocopied. T-shirts were done by hand. Stefan–One DJ produced the mix tapes, so it became important to find as many of these mix tapes as possible, there are now more than 50, not quite all of them yet. Percy–Maybe the room in Berlin will look like a mixture of archive and documentation.
We will put up showcases for the material. We’ll see how many we can put into the small room. In addition, there will be banners on the walls with quotes. But they are quite big, there is probably only room for one in the gallery. It won’t be a didactic exhibition. But we will avoid turning it into something artificial or new. You will probably not know in the end what was authentic and was was only fabricated. Amy–Although “Real Arcadia” has existed since 2003, the project will now for the first time be installed in a commercial gallery. It is not clear yet whether the whole work or parts of it are for sale. Maybe the banners will be offered individually. We have not yet discussed these possibilities. Unity–“Real Arcadia” is about this culture.
Its characteristics, its derivatives, the authentic and what you can do with it. There were projects where Heavy Metal or Happy Hardcore was played on a church organ. So much comes from the music itself that the connection was very clear – the emphasis, dancing ecstatically: all this will be constituted from this experience. Percy–It was important that our first exhibition was this one. This connection with music is important for us. But it is also about showing something not so complicated. This experience of giving in to the music – I know it very well myself, even though Acid House was not my music. When I was sixteen or seventeen, it was more like experimental dance music where club culture mixed with an audience open to concepts. Where I grew up in the Netherlands, the most important place for that was the Paradiso in Amsterdam, a former church. Churches have been used there now for a long time as clubs or mosques. Somehow those are all places of transcendental
content. Unity–As the economic decline of the industrial towns continued, they became techno meccas, for example Blackburn – the focus of the illegal party scene in the North West, due to its abundance of disused factories in which a sound system and lights could be quickly and cheaply installed. Stefan–Rave culture was rooted in new technologies – musical and chemical – but it also sampled and remixed ideas, as well as sounds, from a variety of pop-culture sources: the Saturday Night Fever, traditions of gay disco and the amphetamine-fuelled Northern Soul scene, the do-it-yourself ethics of Punk, and vague hippy philosophies handed down from 1960s psychedelia (although cut loose from the protest politics of that era). Unity–It was driven by a deep and powerful desire not only for transcendence, but also for community: to be part of something greater, a feeling amplified by the empathy-enhancing effects of Ecstasy. Percy–But then there was worse: some time around the start of the 1990s, it became clear that small but significant numbers of people were dying after taking Ecstasy. Mainly people in their
teens or early twenties who thought they were about to have the time of their lives but ended up in the ground. Many ravers
were reluctant to blame their beloved, life-affirming ‘happy pills’, pointing out that most of those who died did so of a heart attack after not drinking enough water. But the fact remained that if they hadn’t gone out and taken Ecstasy, they would probably still be alive. Year by year, a little more innocence was lost. Some of the people connected with the Lake District party crew have since served prison time. One is dead. Unity–I wouldn’t say the kind of things that happened weren’t happening elsewhere on a similar kind of level, and the things that were produced looked any different in other regions. The difference was the location. The caves made it different for a lot of people. The thing that they really remember was the place, that much was apparent.
* * *
Criminal Justice and Public Order- Act 1994, Powers in relation to raves, chapters 63 – 66: ‘a gathering… of 100 or more persons… at which amplified music is played during the night (with or without intermissions)…”music” includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.’
* * *
The exhibition “Real Arcadia” is the first solo exhibition of the 1973 in Penzance, Cornwall born artist Matt Stokes in Germany. The dialogue is fictitious, but uses quotes by Matthew Collin, Robert Meijer and Matt Stokes

Cecilia Stenbom: "Search and Destroy" Film First, Sky TV Channel 195



Saturday 26th January at 23:11

Film First Premiere, on at 10pm every Saturday night, is a two hour special showcasing the best new short films in the industry. Every week fresh content is picked for its creative and technical talent. From the most beautifully shot films to the most fantastic scripts, casting or sound - this strand shows new film making talent at its very best

Marcus Coates: "Laughing in a Foreign Language" Hayward Gallery, London, UK


Laughing in a Foreign Language

25th January - 13th April 2008

Makoto Aida (Japan)
Kutlug Ataman (Turkey)
Azorro (Poland)
Guy Ben-Ner (Israel)
John Bock (Germany)
Candice Breitz (South Africa)
Olaf Breuning (Switzerland)
Cao Fei (China)
Jake and Dinos Chapman (UK)
Marcus Coates (UK)
Harry Dodge and Stanya Khan (US)
Doug Fishbone
Ghazel (Iran)
Gimhongsok (South Korea)
Matthew Griffin (Australia)
Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund (Denmark)
Taiyo Kimura (Japan)
Peter Land
Janne Lehtinen (Finland)
Kalup Linzy
Yoshua Okon (Mexico)
Ugo Rondinone (Switzerland)
Julian Rosefeldt (Germany)
Shimabuku (Japan)
David Shrigley (UK)
Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria)
Barthélémy Toguo (Cameroon)
Roi Vaara (Finland)
Martin Walde (Austria)
Jun Yang (China)

Laughing in a Foreign Language explores the role of laughter and humour in contemporary art. In a time of increasing globalisation, this international exhibition questions if humour can only be appreciated by people with similar cultural, political or historical backgrounds and memories, or whether laughter can act as a catalyst for understanding what you are not familiar with.

Laughing in a Foreign Language investigates the whole spectrum of humour, from jokes, gags and slapstick to irony, wit and satire. The exhibition brings together more than 70 videos, photographs and interactive installation works by more than 30 artists from all around the world.

The exhibition has received support from The Austrian Cultural Forum London, The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, The Finnish Institute in London, The Japan Foundation, The Korea Foundation and Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

Jennifer Douglas: "FROM ACANTHUS TO ZEBRAWOOD" Cooper Gallery, University of Dundee, UK


Preview: Friday 25 January 2008, 6-8pm

26 January – 23 February

Steff Norwood
Jennifer Douglas
Michael Samuels
Anthony Shapland

With interventions in melamine, plywood, colour and light, this exhibition presents four UK artists whose work abstracts and transforms the humble, everyday alphabet of domestic and urban furniture.

A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art’s Sculpture Department, Glasgow-based Steff Norwood has more recently moved into the area of bespoke furniture design. Jennifer Douglas lives in Gateshead and graduated from Glasgow School of Art MFA course in 2005. Douglas creates a fine tension between chaos and balance in her installations that play with surface plane, colour, line and space. London artist Michael Samuels subverts the nature of the unassuming second-hand furniture he collects. Anthony Shapland is a Cardiff-based artist whose work captures the transitory moments hidden in commonplace events and objects.

Jennifer Douglas and Laura Lancaster: "Past as Present" York Art Gallery, UK




19 January - 13 April, 2008

Historic works from York Art Gallery's prestigious old master collection have been paired with pieces by some of the most exciting contemporary artists in this refreshing new exhibition.
Passed as Present brings together historic work from York's collection - paintings and works on paper -with contemporary pieces from the Lodeveans collection of international contemporary art. The collection was put together by a father-and-son team and this is its first major public showing.
Pieces dating from as far back as the 14th Century up to the 19th Century are compared and contrasted against the modern pieces to show how themes, techniques and styles compare and contrast - with some surprising similarities emerging.

Catherine Bertola: "UNPICKED AND DISMANTLED" National Museum of M.K. Ciurlionis, Picture gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania


UNPICKED AND DISMANTLED
curated by DANICA MAIER and GERARD WILLIAMS

1 December 2007 - 2 March 2008

Current textile studio practices go far beyond making and technique, they transcend object and material. In general terms, history, language and politics are implicated and embodied. Craft, domesticity and identity, including gender issues and aspects of post-feminism might be some of the more obvious interlinked territories addressed through the use of, and reference to, textiles in art practice today.

Many artists are now working with both old and new technologies in ways that relate deliberately and directly to textile-rooted issues. No surprise this, as textiles have been associated with technology since the beginning of technology itself. Artists have developed methodologies that deploy obsessive, repetitive making or actions, perhaps including reference to and use of (surface) pattern. Construction and deconstruction, dismantling and unpicking are put to work. Technological interfaces, new to old and old to new, including incompatibilities, glitches, and the product of breakdown have become artists‘ tools.

This territory of ideas and concerns is explored and communicated through a multitude of material outcomes: painting, performance, photography, film, drawing and installation works can all speak as much of textile concerns in these ways as weaving, felting and embroidery. Artists who use such diverse media and means to talk effectively and in new ways about the ideologies, methodologies, histories and values behind textiles will be our particular focus for this exhibition

Friday, January 25, 2008

Ginny Reed: 'Door Draw with Wall Text' - Schalter, Berlin




Door Draw with Wall Text
Ginny Reed at Schalter
Opening: Friday, 7th December, 2007, 6 p.m.
8th December, 2007 - 12th January, 2008
Thu, Fri, Sat, 3-7 p.m.


Schalter is pleased to announce Door Draw with Wall Text. The exhibition will present an installation by Newcastle-based artist Ginny Reed, and feature a small text created for the exhibition at Schalter. This is the first time Reed's work will be shown in Berlin.

Through its use of the familiar "Something with Something" titling, Door Draw with Wall Text asks us to consider notions of framing and more specifically the ìstill lifeî as means to enter the work. Here, the focus has been repositioned to concentrate on the gallery and exhibition as its own composition: the exhibition space, the installation, the traditional "interpretive" text and the viewer are all activated as part of the arrangement.

Further compounding this organization is the installation of Ginny Reed's work. A simple white line traces the path of the door. The door is, quite literally, opened to viewer but that gesture must also be seen as part of the work. This form of doubling continues throughout the exhibition, confronting the viewer with a series of questions without clear motive or end.

Ginny Reed's work explores the accumulation and dispersal of materials and human actions to highlight the remnants of an event. Often, she uses the small and simple particles of the everyday materials around us to investigate infinite or transcendent. Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United Kingdom and across Europe. She is represented by the Workplace Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Marcus Coates: "Persona Non Grata" One in the Other, London, UK


Persona Non Grata

One in the Other
45 Vyner Street London, E2 9DQ

7 December 2007 – 6 January 2008
Private view Thursday 6 December, 7-9pm

Curated by Ben Judd

‘Indeed it is precisely by connecting our tales of the real and the unreal, the superficial and the deeply felt, the authentic and the inauthentic, that artists […] lead us to wonder, finally, at the artifice of our own hybrid natures, and from there to question the sense of human life, of all accepted meanings, and all truths deemed to be beyond dispute.’
Ralph Rugoff
One in the Other is pleased to present an exhibition of film and video from the last 40 years curated by Ben Judd.

Persona Non Grata is a show about artists who use reinvention and the adoption of different personae as a method for producing work that is rich in narrative, whether true or false. The videos and films gathered together from the 1970s to 2007 share in common an approach to assumed identity that might be seen as an attempt to anatomise duality, exorcise a character, or vicariously adopt a set of displaced possibilities.

The relationship between the artist and his or her personae remains in flux by the shifting sands between a real and a fictional world. The appearance of whether the artist is passive or controlling the action is fluid, and to what extent the direction of events illusory. The duplicitous structure of the work invites us to fill in the gaps between what is real and imagined, and it is this process that seems to offer a portal into another world. It is a particular type of invitation to make a leap of faith, and an undertaking on behalf of the viewer, that seems to compel the need to take on this type of approach.

Persona Non Grata presents artists’ film and video that examine these notions using a variety of different guises. From John Smith's 'director of real life' The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) to Paul McCarthy's assimilations of artistic practice, the selection encompasses the past four decades, combining established artists and emerging newcomers.

Laura Lancaster: Workplace Gallery Solo Booth at NADA Art Fair Miami, USA

Jennifer Douglas "ENERGENCY3" Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK


Emergency3

1 December 2007 - 27 January 2008
Preview: Friday 30 November 2007, 7-9pm

Artists: Paul Becker / Jennifer Douglas / Pil & Galia Kollectiv / Jock Mooney / Magali Reus / Benjamin Senior / Dolly Thompsett / Cathy Ward & Eric Wright

The selectors of Emergency3 were: Harold Offeh, artist / Paul Hedge, Co-director of Hales Gallery, London / Hannah Firth, Curator, Chapter and Wales at Venice Biennale 2007 / Joanne Bushnell, Director, aspex

Emergency3 is aspex's third open submission biennial exhibition, organised to promote the work of emerging artists. This year, the selectors received over six hundred entries from around the world. Eight artists and artists’ collectives were selected for the show, one of which will be awarded the prize of a solo exhibition at aspex.

While Emergency3 is not a curated exhibition, work was selected not only on its own merits but also for the way it would fit together with the other chosen works. This process involved looking at the work submitted by each of the artists (some three-thousand pictures and videos), discussing it, and identifying connections and themes. The exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, installation, video, printing, drawing and model-making, to illustrate a wide range of concerns and interests being explored by some of the most innovative contemporary artists working today.spe

Ginny Reed: "its like somewhere, like here" Xsite Architecture, Newcastle, UK


Ginny Reed

'its like somewhere, like here'

An installation of photographic work hosted by xsite culture

Thursday November 29 6 - 8 pm

xsite architecture
Foundry Lane Studios, Foundry Lane, Newcastle upon Tyne NE6 1LH

Matt Stokes: "Balance" 1/9 unosunove arte contemporanea, Rome, Italy



WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 28th 7.00 pm

1/9 unosunove arte contemporanea
IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE EXHIBITION

BALANCE
curated by RAFFAELE GAVARRO

Exhibited artists
Kuba Bakowski Haris Epaminonda James Hopkins
Carlos Irijalba Jaime Pitarch Matt Stokes

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of the concept of
balance in our lives. We only have to consider the manifold
ways in which it is used in everyday discourse as an indication
of a wise way of looking at things: “to be balanced”, “to keep
your balance”, but also “a balanced judgement”. These
examples need little explanation.
But the term balance also has a more inconventional meaning,
indicating the capacity to remain uncertain, a refusal to apply
a single signifance to the multiplicity of meanings which make
up our everyday reality. When balance becomes the capacity
to play with double, triple or multiple meanings, aimed at
revealing the the less visible nature of things, words and our
experiences of life.
Balance is an exhibition which explores the subtle liminality of
the word, balanced on a line which is as much physical, as
mental and conceptual.
The artists invited to exhibit at Balance zigzag back and forth
across this line continously.
Kuba Bakowski (born 1971 in Poznan, Poland and currently
resident in New York) examines the delicate balance between
reality and its alteration. In Balance, Bakowski presents a
series of lightboxes from his recent series Ursa Major. His idea
unfolds in a series of photographic images in which groups of
seven people, holding light bulbs, recreate the shape of the
constellation. Beside this will be Untitled Installation with
globe (2006), in which an inflatable globe sits at the centre of
an air current created by ten small fans.
Haris Epaminonda (born 1980 in Nicosia, Cyprus and
currently resident in Berlin) moves between the real and the
virtual, challenging the viewer’s ability to uncover limits and
openings. In Balance, Epaminonda presents the videos
Elapsed and Tarahi II. Both of them are furnished with
soundtracks which highten the idea of temporal suspension
evident in the landscape of Elapsed and the characters of
Tarahi II.
James Hopkins (born 1976 in Stockport, England and now
resident in London) pushes the idea of balance to the
threshold of illusion. Transformed objects, installations and
distorted perceptions form his linguistic ambiance. In Balance
Hopkins presents a series of installations and of manipulated
and altered objects, as well as a photo, Mysteyspot, all of
which are dedicated to the various declensions of the term
equilibrium.
Carlos Irijalba (born 1979 in Pamplona and currently resident
in Madrid) works with varied media, entirely transforming
objects and creating images which work on the modification
of perception. In Balance, Irijalba presents a number of
photographs from the series Outside comes first and Devices.
Jaime Pitarch (born 1963 in Barcelona, Spain where he now
lives) works in diverse media, moving from scultpture and
installations to photography and video. An ironic balance and
subversion of the rules forms a constant in all his works. In
Balance, Pitarch presents a map from the series Pangea, a
picture from his Puzzle series, the sculpture Wooden Pegs
made of clothes pegs and a video entitled Rethinking David
and Goliath.
Matt Stokes (born in 1973 Penzance, Cornwall, UK and living
in Newcastle) was the winner of Beck’s Future 2006 with the
video Long after tonight. In Balance Stokes presents another
video, Cypher. Shot in super 16mm in Usher Hall, Edinburgh,
Scotland in 2006 Cypher is an extraordinary visual and aural
fresco, dominated by the protagonist, a grandiose pipe organ.
Next to this will be the installation entitled Sacred Selections,
this is dedicated to experimental music concerts, all expressly
commisioned and transcribed for the pipe organ. The work is
composed of three flags, a series of posters and concert
programs, a bench and wooden box with a CD player inside,
with various headphones attached to listen to the organs
which play scores that range from northern soul to black
metal.

The exhibition will be on display until January 12th 2008.

Galleria 1/9 unosunove arte contemporanea opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday from 10.00 to 20.00
Saturday from 12.00 to 20.00
For further information please contact the gallery:
Tel +39 06 97613696
Fax +39 06 97613810
gallery@unosunove.com
www.unosunove.com

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Catherine Bertola: "Preview" M+R Fricke, Berlin, Germany


Galerie M+R Fricke Berlin
Rückblick & Vorausschau 10 Jahre Berlin / review & preview 10 years Berlin

Vorausschau / preview: 24. Nov. 2007 - 12. Januar 2008
Gabriele Basch / Catherine Bertola / Katie Holten / Jenny Perlin / Mark Pepper / Karlis Rekevics
Galerie M + R Fricke, Invalidenstr. 114, Berlin-Mitte (neue Adresse / new adress)
• Eröffnung / private view: 23. November 18-20 Uhr, 6-8 pm

Eric Bainbridge: "Northern Art Prize" Leeds City Art Gallery, UK



Eric Bainbridge
Recently Eric Bainbridge experienced culture shock in Bangkok. There on a British Council residency Bainbridge speaks of a place of extremes where the sacred and profane coexist and merge, the artist’s awe and terror embodied in Bangkok’s river – the Chao Phraya – a constant brown ooze from the heart of the jungle, a place where you don’t survive. As a result of this trip Bainbridge has produced a series of new ‘Bangkok’ sculptures that present a New Modernism. His cool refined structures articulate space and modernist architectural ideas as a strategy of escape from the engulfing sweaty humidity of a city known as much form a western eye for its cheapness of life and sex industry as it is for its traditional heritage of religion and culture. Despite the artist’s attempts Bangkok seeps back in through the tropical hardwoods of Thai DIY stores, fake melamine, and a cheap looking novelty light bulb winking flirtatiously from purple to blue to green to red…

Nominated by Paul Moss and Miles Thurlow, Directors, Workplace Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Catherine Bertola: "Isobar" Fieldgate Gallery, London UK



Private View: Friday, 19th Oct 2007, 6 - 9 pm
Exhibition continues 20th Oct - 11th Nov 2007
Open: Fri, Sat, Sun, 1.00 - 6.00

curated by Gaia Persico
Isobar is a temporary and variable line; it surveys contemporary drawing practice, constantly fluctuating between media. It breaks away from the preconceptions of drawing as a solely two dimensional medium and transmigrates onto three dimensional objects: furniture, computers, travel guides, books, light bulbs, fabrics, plants and pieces of fruit. Works are selected for their use of quotidian objects, fragile materials and precarious sources.

The drawn is often defined by the use of mutable and ethereal media, it decomposes and changes over time, its traces and residues becoming the focus of attention; light and movement traced in the air become palpable materials, dust particles describe climatic cataclysms 
and suggest memories.

The thrown away is covered in coveted and 'valuable' doodles and the recycled becomes an artistic source, revealing an ambivalent relationship with the constant consumption of contemporary life. Paper, typically constrained to being just a supporting surface, becomes the 
drawing itself.

The line becomes a moving image to record fleeting moments, no longer frozen on a sheet of paper but a recreation that has become alive, mutated by the digital in endless possibilities of variations. Drawing that may be easily missed by an inattentive viewer claim back from the 
public the time taken for its conception, and underline the importance of being observant of our surroundings.

Isobar brings to the fore artists expressions which question the nature of drawing itself, testing our perceptions of what is 'the drawn', so that the world and the everyday may be perceived with renewed curiosity and enhanced awareness.

Marcus Coates: "Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon" London, UK



Marcus Coates: A Heligoland for Souls

Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon
Starts Saturday 13 October 12 noon
Ends Sunday 14 October 3 pm
Saturday 13 October, 12 noon - 11 pm
Sunday, 14 October, 10 am - 3 pm

Last year’s, now legendary, 24- Hour Interview Marathon was expanded in scope. The 24-Hour Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon 2007, introduced by Julia Peyton-Jones and presented by Olafur Eliasson and Hans Ulrich Obrist, took place in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007 and featured experiments performed by leading artists, architects and scientists.

The experiments explored ideas of time, space and of reality through models, vibrations and perception, investigating Eliasson's assertion that 'What we have in common is that we are different.'

"I'm here working for the audience... Artists often say they are interested in posing questions. I'm here to answer questions."
Marcus Coates