Marcus Coates: "Adaption: Between Species" The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada

ADAPTATION: Between Species

Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Cory Arcangel, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Marcus Coates, Robyn Cumming, Mark Dion, FASTWÜRMS, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Shaun Gladwell, Lucy Gunning, Nina Katchadourian, Louise Lawler, Hanna Liden, Hew Locke, Sandra Meigs, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Jeff Sonhouse, Javier Téllez

19 June - 12 September, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday 18 June, 8-11 PM

The Power Plant
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, Ontario

www.thepowerplant.org

Curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs

Responding to the contemporary desire to go “back to nature,” The Power Plant’s summer group exhibition highlights interspecies encounters. What happens when humans, animals and the natural world meet? What forms of communication, miscommunication, intimacy, and exchange ensue?

As the industrialized world further encroaches on the natural world, species live in ever closer proximity. Yet many people feel profoundly cut off both from natural environments and from their own animal natures. Our deep longing to connect with non-human life forms is reflected in contemporary phenomena ranging from the boom in pet ownership and the widespread anthropomorphism in popular culture to the upsurge in vacations that promise to transport us to unspoiled lands.

However, despite this deep-seated sense of alienation from nature, the species are in fact closely related. For instance, as Donna Haraway notes in her book When Species Meet, 90 percent of human cells are filled with the genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists, and such, with only 10 percent comprising human genomes. ‘Adaptation: Between Species’ explores this commonality between the species and considers the various forms of intelligence and knowledge they share. It also asks what our interactions with other species reveal about our human as well as our animal natures. Highlighting the urge to observe, touch, live with, and mimic other species, the exhibition delves into the intimate and, at times, uncanny fusions that result. From another perspective, ’Adaptation’ looks at the facility that animals have in adapting to our domestic and urban environments, including the ability to “train” their masters.

Coinciding with the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition considers how adaptation functions as a form of biological and cultural survival. ‘Adaptation’ also builds on Roger Caillois’ 1935 essay “Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia”—which was central to Surrealist thought as well as to Jacques Lacan’s theories of the Mirror Stage—to think through the spatial, aesthetic and psychological nuances of camouflage and assimilation. However, ‘Adaptation’ also takes a realistic view of human/non-human dynamics: it acknowledges the unbalanced and exploitative power relations that too often characterize our society’s attitudes toward other life forms.

This focus on the interface between humans and other species builds on a rich body of critical work that is emerging in various disciplines, from policy and law, philosophy, anthropology, science, and cultural studies, to animal rights and environmental activism. Influential studies include Giorgio Agamben’s The Open: Man and Animal, Jacques Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I Am, Gilles Deleuze’s The Body, the Meat and the Spirit: Becoming Animal, Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and Donna Haraway’s impressive oeuvre on human/animal relations. Academic institutions are also addressing similar questions. In Ontario alone, a recent studio art class at the University of Guelph explored the phenomenon of “cultural followers”—animals that thrive within human environments—and in 2009 the Ontario College of Art & Design launched a module on Biomimicry & Design.

‘Adaptation: Between Species’ presents the work of leading international artists alongside that of newer figures whose work has gained international attention. Ranging in tone from reverent to decidedly iconoclastic, and created with media including photography, film/video, sculpture, and painting, works in the exhibition examine the lure of primeval states and primitive behaviours, and the urge to understand oneself as wild at heart.

SUPPORT DONOR:
The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation

image:

Marcus Coates

Journey to the Lower World

2004

Dual Channel Video

30:00 mins Dimensions Variable

MC0026

Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Jennifer Douglas: "Winner of Northern Futures Prize"

Workplace Gallery is delighted to congratulate Jennifer Douglas on winning the Northern Futures Award 2010 with her installation The Voice of Silence. The Northern Futures 2010 Award was selected by a panel of international experts from the field of fine art. Northern Futures Exhibition is currently showing at The Civic , Barnsley until 3rd September. Shortlisted Artists: Kit Abramson (Lancaster) Samantha Donnelly (Greater Manchester) Jennifer Douglas (Gateshead) Paul Merrick (Gateshead) Daniel Staincliffe (Manchester) Liz West (Sheffield) Fine Art Judges Helen Pheby, Curator at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield Karen Newman, Curator at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool Claire Turner, Comme Ca Art, Manchester Gavin Delahunty, Curator - Fine Art at MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art Sheila McGregor, Chief Executive, Axis (Leeds) Ann Bukantas, Curator, Walker Art Gallery (National Museums Liverpool) Julia Bell, Visual Arts Co-ordinator, Baltic (Gateshead) image: Jennifer Douglas The Voice of Silence, 2010 Light bulbs, Rubber flex, Paint Pots, Morse Code Sequencer, Steel, Paint Dimensions Variable (JD0042) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Marcus Coates & Matt Stokes: "From Ritual to Theatre" Ancient & Modern, London, UK

From Ritual to Theatre Screened Fridays 6, 13 & 20 August 1.30PM and 5.30PM ANCIENT & MODERN 201 Whitecross Street, London EC1Y 8QP During the month of August, ANCIENT & MODERN presents From Ritual to Theatre curated by Ben Judd, a series of artists' films that explore the grey area between performance and ritual. The artists in From Ritual to Theatre reuse the signs, codes and mannerisms of rituals, rites and ceremonies. Through their restaging, these events, both everyday and profound, are used as readymades, re-exploring their value and cultural status. The work in From Ritual to Theatre explores the paradox of the parameters and freedom that self-imposed ritual provides. In relation to the cultural and historical baggage that these ritualistic acts suggest, the artists explore the role of the initiate, a position which has a strangely exempted status. For anthropologist Victor Turner, the initiate occupies an ambiguous territory where they remain "neither here nor there  ... betwixt and between the positions assigned by law, custom, convention". During the liminal or transitional phase of any ritual activity the characteristics and laws of the dominant social structure are momentarily collapsed, as "the ritual subjects pass through a period and area of ambiguity"  where "they are at once no longer classified and not yet classified". The artists locate themselves at the fulcrum where one position begins to slip into another, the shimmering point where fixed positions begin to waver. Running schedule commencing 1.30pm and 5.30pm: Christine Sullivan and Rob Flint, Generator, 2006, 4:00 min, colour, sound George Gurdjieff, Hidden Symmetry 2, date unknown, 4:31 min, black & white, sound Jim Shaw, Initiation Ritual of the 360 Degrees, 2002, 10:54 min, colour, sound Matt Stokes, Long After Tonight, 2005, 6:40 min, colour, sound Marcus Coates, Out of Season, 2000, 7:16 min, colour, sound Alex Sanders, Fire Spirit Ritual, c.1970, 3:27 min, colour, sound Bruce Nauman, Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square,1967-68, 5:00 min extract, black & white, silent Magali Reus, Background, 2009, 7:25 min, colour, sound Catherine Sullivan, Triangle of Need (Olympian and Doves), 2007, 7:00 min, colour, sound Michael Curran, All My Little Ducks, 1995, 7:00 min, black & white, sound Kenneth Anger, Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, 10:30 min, colour, sound Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, 1947-55, 8:00 min extract, black & white, sound Sian Davies, Thebes, 2007, 7:52 min, colour, sound Guy Sherwin, Man With Mirror, 1976/2006, 9:00 min, colour, sound Breda Beban, Walk of Three Chairs, 2003, 10:00 min, colour, sound Jim Shaw, The Whole: A Study in Oist Movement, 2009, 16:40 min, colour, sound Text by Emma Cocker and Ben Judd For more information and individual screening times please see www.ancientandmodern.org image: Matt Stokes Long After Tonight (Still), 2005 Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Miles Thurlow: 'Black Swan' - Edinburgh Art Festival 2010, Portobello Beach.

'Black Swan' Miles Thurlow Portobello Beach Edinburgh Art Festival 2010 Preview: 2pm Saturday 31st July Followed by the Artist in Conversation at 3pm in the Portobello Public Art House, Kings Road, Portobello. 31st July until Sunday 5th September 2010 Commissioned by Big Things on The Beach as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2010 Black Swan by Miles Thurlow is the third and final 2010 temporary public art work for Portobello Beach, Edinburgh. Commissioned by Big Things on the Beach, as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2010. Black Swan confronts the viewer with an installation of thirteen Fruit Machines silently and perpetually running through their demo track of flashing lights, cascading in random and geometrical sequences. Installed at the west end of Portobello beach, Black Swan challenges our conventional expectations of public artwork and monumental sculpture by selecting and presenting the objects of ordinary common culture as Art. Hinting towards both the subversive act of fly tipping and conventions and configurations of public sculpture in an area land-marked for regeneration and gentrification. Thurlow was influenced by both the local leisure history of Portobello Beach and the recent global economic crash. The title is taken from Black Swan Theory, put forward by writer and senior Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the existence of high - impact and rare events that lie outside the realm of expectations. Miles Thurlow makes sculpture, drawing, and installations. His work references the demise of modernism and the rise of quick fix, cheap alternatives; investigating the architecture of modern day living and our relationship with the products of consumer culture. Miles Thurlow was born in 1975 in Colchester, Essex and lives and works in Newcastle and Gateshead, UK. Also showing: City Beach Exhibition, presenting the outcomes of the year-long Imagine Porty Prom programme including commissions by Michael Pinsky and Grennan and Sperandio, runs Thurs - Sun 29th July - 29th August at: Portobello Public Art House, 56 Kings Road, Portobello, Edinburgh, UK, EH15 1DX. Only 20 mins from Edinburgh City Centre on buses 26 and 15. Big Things on the Beach is a public art trust in Portobello, a seaside suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was formed by a group of residents in 2003 to explore the potential of the seafront as a site for engagement with public artworks by both emerging and established artists. Since 2004 we have commissioned artists to create substantial temporary artworks, trained ourselves and others in the process of commissioning public artworks through international site visits and guest lectures and successfully raised funding to these ends. Big Things on the Beach is a Charity Registered in Scotland (Scottish Charity Number: SC 35107) Image: 'Black Swan', 2010, 13 Fruit Machines, fixings and waterproofing. Portobello Beach, Edinburgh. Commissioned by Big Things on The Beach, Courtesy the artist and Workplace Gallery.

Marcus Coates: "Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service" BBC Radio 6 Music 25th July 2010

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t6rgr/Jarvis_Cockers_Sunday_Service_Live_From_The_Port_Eliot_Festival/ Listen to Marcus Coates interviewed by Jarvis Cocker on his BBC 6 Music Programme 'Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service' Broadcast on:BBC 6 Music, 4:00pm Sunday 25th July 2010 Duration:120 minutes Available until: 6:02pm Sunday 1st August 2010 image: Marcus Coates Follow The Voice 2009 Video Still Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Jennifer Douglas & Paul Merrick: "Northern Futures" The Civic, Barnsley, UK

Workplace Gallery is pleased to announce that Jennifer Douglas and Paul Merrick have been shortlisted for the Northern Futures Award. Selected Artists: Kit Abramson (Lancaster) Samantha Donnelly (Greater Manchester) Jennifer Douglas (Gateshead) Paul Merrick (Gateshead) Daniel Staincliffe (Manchester) Liz West (Sheffield) The most talented emerging creatives from across the North of England have been named in the shortlist for the Northern Futures 2010 Award, selected by a panel of international experts from the fields of fashion, film, fine art and 3d design. An exhibition of the work of these future stars opens at The Civic, Barnsley on July 28, with final prize winners announced on August 17 at an exclusive awards evening where category winners will each be awarded £1500. Celebrating the best in northern creative talent. The north of England has produced some of the most innovative and respected creative individuals the world has seen. Artists and innovators such as Henry Moore, Vivienne Westwood, Damien Hirst, Mike Leigh, Danny Boyle, David Hockney and Peter Saville, to name just a few, illustrate the wealth of talent that the north produces. Art and culture is integral to the renaissance of the north. Northern Futures celebrates the future talent emerging from the north, seeking to identify and encourage future Westwoods, Hockneys, Boyles and Savilles into successful creative futures. The prize will cement the north as a hotbed of new creativity and showcase our talent to the world. Northern Futures Exhibition opens at The Civic on 28th July 2010. The public can take part in voting for an overall 'Peoples Choice' winner. Award Ceremony: Overall Winners announced:  August 17th 2010 (7-9pm) The overall category winners will be selected from the Northern Futures exhibition by the judges and announced at the Northern Futures Award Ceremony on the 17th August 2010. Access to judges and finalists will be available for photography and interview on the 17th August. Fine Art Judges Helen Pheby, Curator at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield Karen Newman, Curator at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, Liverpool Claire Turner, Comme Ca Art, Manchester Gavin Delahunty, Curator - Fine Art at MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art Sheila McGregor, Chief Executive, Axis (Leeds) Ann Bukantas, Curator, Walker Art Gallery (National Museums Liverpool) Julia Bell, Visual Arts Co-ordinator, Baltic (Gateshead) images: Jennifer Douglas The Voice of Silence, 2010 Light bulbs, Rubber flex, Paint Pots, Morse Code Sequencer, Steel, Paint Dimensions Variable (JD0042) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery Paul Merrick Untitled (Construction) Green, 2009 Aluminium, stainless steel, metal primer, spray paint, florescent strip lighting 190 x 160 cm (PME0081) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Marcus Coates: "The Denominator" Port Eliot Festival 2010 , Cornwall, 23 - 25 July

Marcus Coates Port Eliot Festival 2010 http://www.porteliotfestival.com Marcus Coates featuring new performance "Denominator" a dj set, mixing between man made sounds and birdsong. Brought to us by Jeff Barrett, Robin Turner, and Andrew Walsh, Caught By The River is hosting the same special area by the estuary%u2026 But this year they're also creating their own unique bird hide chill out area with Matt Sewell, The Bird Effect programme curated by filmmaker Ceri Levy, evening bonfires, Rough Trade record area and more surprises to be announced shortly - as well as Chris Watson's incredible Nature Disco, a festival highlight for many last year. "Caught By The River was born on a bankside a little over two years back during an idle day's casting," explains Robin. "The idea - a website that would document lazy days out - became a reality a few months afterwards. Without a great deal of nurturing, it soon grew into a place that people could eulogize about the things that made the working week bearable - books, records, art, nature, angling, drinking, even cake baking. The approach was exactly like putting together a fanzine - an unshackled, uncynical torrent of enthusiasm. Here was our modern take on something hardwired in as part of punk rock culture, only this time the patron saints were Roger Deakin, Chris Yates and Chris Watson rather than Johnny & Joe; the sound of razored guitar strings replaced by bird song and the gentle plonk as the float hits the water." Their recent book, Caught By The River: a collection of words on water (hailed as "an exceptional new take on nature writing%u2026 a rock n' roll nature book even") is an evocative anthology of the best new nature writing, presented in a collection of essays on some of our favourite rivers, covering the entire length of the country. Contributors include Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Roger Deakin, Jon Savage, Irvine Welsh, Jarvis Cocker, Bill Drummond, Edywn Collins and Chris Yates to name a few.

Matt Stokes: "Among The Nightingales" Tatton Park Biennial, UK

Matt Stokes Among the Nightingales http://www.tattonparkbiennial.org Rosetherne Room, Stableyard Mereheath Lane Mere, Cheshire East WA16 6, United Kingdom Saturday 17 & Sunday 18 July Saturday 31 July & Sunday 1 August Saturday 28, Sunday 29 & Monday 30 August 12:00 noon and 2:00pm Curated by Clarissa Corfe on behalf of Castlefield Gallery, Among the Nightingales brings together nine single channel film and video works by international artists including: Mounira Al Solh, Jordan Baseman, Oliver Beer, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Samson Kambalu, Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry, Jan Mancuska, Matt Stokes and Pablo Wendel. Image: Matt Stokes Long After Tonight (Terry), 2005 - 2006 Photographer: Pete Dibden C-type on diasec, 80 x 80 cms (MS0024)

Darren Banks: "The Dictionary of Received Ideas" 16 curators from Goldsmiths College at Q, London

Darren Banks The Dictionary of Received Ideas http://thedictionaryofreceivedideas.com Q 5-8 Lower John Street, W1F 15 - 18 July 2010 11:00am - 5:00pm Private View: Thursday 15 July 6:00 - 9:00pm Molly Bretton - Joey Holder | Zoe Charaktinou - Nicolas Vass | Caryn Coleman - Darren Banks | Matteo Consonni - Candida Powell-Williams. Kianoosh Motallebi, Elisabetta Alazraki | Bridget Donlon - Charlotte Warne Thomas | Patrick Gibson - Garrett Phelan | Hannah Gruy - Eloise Hawser | Oliver Martinez Kandt - Ben Cain,   Michael Dean,   Bradley Pitts | Thom O'nions | Matteo Pollini - Koki Tanaka | Pavel S. Py - Tymek Borowski | Bérénice Saliou - Guillaume Soulatges & Nadia Agnolet | Erica Shiozaki - James Wright | Ana Luiza Teixeira de Freitas - Elena Damiani | Ming-Jiun Tsai - Johann Arens | Dan Wang - Jasmine Cheng The Dictionary of Received Ideas celebrates the independent and diverse practices of the Goldsmiths College MFA Curating Programme. The exhibition has abandoned an overarching thematic agenda to encourage an array of curatorial approaches and ideas. For four days, Q will host a series of individual projects between curator and artist, performances, and talks. An appropriate venue for The Dictionary of Received Ideas, Q's interior as a former antiquarian bookshop has engaged participants to respond uniquely to the site. Taking its title from Gustave Flaubert's satirical text The Dictionary of Received Ideas, the exhibition highlights artistic oppositions and establishes a narrative between these explorations.  Working against uniformity, the project takes on the ironical clichés of what group exhibition making can be. The Dictionary of Received Ideas intermixes a variety of mediums - painting, drawing, installation, video, and sculpture. This collusion of objects and ideas is an intentionally messy manner in which to understand that each curator and artist produces work that is distinctly their own. UK artist Darren Banks incorporates found and made film footage into sculpture and installation to explore his ideas about horror, the domestic, science fiction, defunct technologies, creation, and the unknown. He conflates high and low culture exploring his own perception of sculpture and its relation to film and memory. By appropriating iconic images of sculpture through the history of film and re-presenting them as his own work, Banks restructures filmic images and adds to his existing sculptural language. He establishes a dialogical relationship with these previous films through appropriation and montage. His folding of the past into the present is a strong example of how some contemporary artists are building upon the legacy of horror and creating new artistic narratives with the genre. The Palace Collection consists of eleven VHS horror videos from the Palace Picture Distribution and Production Company, a company established in London, England (circa 1982) as a distributor for cult cinema and international art films. This installation negotiates collective horror history, effects of new technology, and ideas of the collection. It is also powerfully aesthetic. Also on view will be Palace Video, a 6-minute video where the opening credit sequence by Palace Pictures has been manipulated into a pulsing visual collage. Image: Darren Banks Palace Collection (Detail) 2010 Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Mike Pratt: "JAMBON" Moving Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, 01-15 July 2010

JAMBON Moving Gallery Location: Former Coroners Court Building, Beneath the Swing Bridge, Quayside, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK 01 - 15 July 2010 Preview: 01 July 2000 - Late Andrew Maughan Andrew Sandercock Graeme Durant Mike Pratt Richard Moat Michael Haddock Jambon are a recently formed arts group of five members (Andrew Maughan, Andrew Sandercock, Graeme Durant, Mike Pratt and Richard Moat). Leading both an independent and collaborative practice, the members of JAMBON use the model of the group show (although they do not limit themselves to this outlet) when exhibiting together - in order to cross-examine their disparate commonalities. Recent activity by the independent members include Brut, Brut, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (Graeme Durant), Cumberland Sausage, Extraspazio Gallery, Rome, Italy (Mike Pratt) and Bilderberg 2010: Don't call it a pow-wow! Auth Charlie Skelton, The Guardian, June 2010 (Andrew Maughan). Image: Mike Pratt Bombay-Badboy pII, 2010 crystical, wood, enamel paint, foam, wire, wool fabric and parcel tape 159 x 65 x 106 cm (MP0120)

Joe Clark: "RE:animate" Oriel Davies Gallery, 26 June - 18 August 2010

Joe Clark Oriel Davies Open 2010 RE:animate Oriel Davies Gallery The Park, Newtown Powys SY16 2NZ 26 June 2010 - 18 August 2010 Preview: Saturday 26 June 7-9pm Thirty-nine artists from across the UK have been selected from 150 entries for this fourth edition of Oriel Davies's biennial Open exhibition, taking a theme of animation this year, from movement to non-narrative structures and the potential for audience participation. Opening up the gallery as a space for artists to expand the ideas they've proposed, the selection panel challenged wannabe residents to draw inspiration from cave drawings, magic lanterns, stop-motion films and computer-generated imagery, resulting in a diverse show of installations, projections, photography and drawings. Image: Object 2, 2010 CMYK Digital Poster Print on Plastic Substrate with Hanging Mechanism 116.8 x 116.8 cm (JCL0070)

Darren Banks, Flora Whitely and Christopher Rollen: "An Evening with Better Place Portraiture" Barbican Centre, London

Darren Banks, Christopher Rollen & Flora Whitely An Evening with Better Place Portraiture Magic and the Occult Barbican Centre 24 June 2010 6.30 - 10.00 PM Barbican Website Better Place Portraiture Blogspot Better Place Portraiture is a psychic collaboration between the artists Darren Banks , Flora Whitley & Christopher Rollen. Better Place Portraiture "The Present" Tonight Better Place Portraiture will be hosting their final bestial séance at the Barbican Art Gallery. They are inviting you to come and join them in drawing out memories of animal friends - as spirits will be cast onto paper through the medium of the pencil.  Please make your way to the reception and book an appointment with Better Place Portraiture, the receptionist will be happy to answer any queries that you may have and will explain where and when you will be able to see our psychic team.  During your appointment our medium and her meta-visible guide will endeavor to make contact and provide a portrait from beyond the grave.  Appointments will be given on a first come first serve basis and a maximum of two people can be seen at once. From beginning to end the whole process will last about 7 minutes. Please do not feel anxious, ghosts are harmless.  There is nothing to fear.  If an entity is perceived, simply view it as evidence of a living imagination. "The Past" Better Place Portraiture is a psychic collaboration conceived up by the artists Darren Banks and Flora Whiteley. They come together through a shared interest in the intuitive, the domestic, the animal and the supernatural. Since 2002 they have made several projects together exploring the human, the animal and the supernatural. Better Place Portraiture came into being in 2005 and has been performed in a number of manifestations since, including: Novotel Rooms 2, Magnifitat, Edinburgh, 2002, Mima, Middlesborough, 2004 and Magacin, Belgrade 2009, Temporary Contemporary, The Old Police station, London , Fantasmagora Better Place Portraiture,Auto-Italia Southeast, London 2009 Image: An Evening with Better Place Portraiture - still from performance Photo Courtesy of Theo Cook

Paul Merrick & Miles Thurlow: "Brut, Brut" Edinburgh Annuale, 26 June - 1st July 2010

Brut, brut Graeme Durant Owen Piper Paul Merrick Miles Thurlow 2F1 32 Sandport Street Edinburgh, EH6 6EP 27th June - 1st July 2010 Preview: Saturday 26th June 6 - 8pm Edinburgh Annuale Co-ordinated by Embassy, Edinburgh http://www.annuale.edinburghcontemporary.org/ Graeme Durant's work stems from personal reflections upon certain materials and their transformations. Durant reorders a formalist sculptural vocabulary of form, volume and matter to play host to personal memory and experience. Form and function are not clearly assignable in his work, but are a type of argument with the objects we recognize and aesthetically accept. Graeme Durant was born in 1987 in North Shields UK and currently lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne having completed a BA in Fine Art at Northumbria University in 2009. Owen Piper often constructs replicas of existing objects in alternative materials, creating a space where the boundaries between sculpture, furniture and abstract structures are blurred. Usually employing domestic materials Piper alters and amplifies the final construction allowing interplay between scale, subject, and meaning. Owen Piper has exhibited at Tramway, Glasgow and Witte de With, Rotterdam, Holland. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Kaiserpassage 16/21a, Karlsruhe, Germany, Inbox: Glasgow, Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City, and Busco Similar at Collective Gallery, Edinburgh. Paul Merrick combines painting with sculpture, and the made with the ready-made. Investigating colour, shape and architectural arrangement whilst consistently referencing back to Painting as a subject and discipline in and of itself. 'Raised Painting' series is a continuation of his interrogation of painting and process in relation to the found object. A scrap aluminium surface is raised above the floor supported by modular utilitarian fluorescent lighting units, semi clad in sterling board to reveal the innards within reminiscent of a defunct and stripped back Donald Judd style minimal sculpture which asserts itself through challenging and beguiling the viewer to accept it as Art.   Miles Thurlow makes sculpture, drawing and site-specific work. His work is deliberately paradoxical - at once conceptually sophisticated and yet aesthetically bare. Referencing the demise of modernism and the rise of quick fix, cheap alternatives; his work investigates the architecture of modern day living and our relationship with the products of consumer culture. Recent exhibitions include Tomorrow The Future, Fishmarket Gallery Northampton, King Fisher's Tales, Union, London, Good Riddance, MOT International, London and Morro, Projecto 270, Lisbon, Portugal. Thurlow is co founder and co Director of Workplace Gallery, Gateshead with Paul Moss.

Ant Macari & Oliver Beck: "Rapid Prototyping #1: Lone Toke" The Star & Shadow Cinema, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Ant Macari & Oliver Beck Rapid Prototyping #1: Lone Toke Vernon & Burns Meets Lied Music The Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK 23 June 2010 8:00pm - 1:00 am Mark Vernon and Barry Burns in collaboration with Luke Fowler Ant Macari & Oliver Beck Susie Green Witness the inception of a post-rock band, amidst mediated visions of stoner culture; through short lived paintings and bass lines. All mixed up and misinformed by the 'summer of love' hangover that is West Coast America. Ant Macari's work is based around drawing and writing, makes reference to tattoo art; heraldry, medieval illuminated manuscripts, esoteric knowledge, curiosa and myth. Through the recombination of sources and genres - often in the context of interventions in galleries and public spaces - Macari encourages a close reading of the cultures he references. Synergising painting with sculptural physicality, the work of Oliver Beck focuses on a tendency to treat the art object as one would a hunting trophy head. Visual artists Macari and Beck share a common interest in Americana. Specifically West Coast American punk and DIY culture from the 80s and 90s as a manifestation of escapism to youths growing up in rural and suburban areas in the South of Scotland. Macari and Beck grew up in Galashiels and Kelso respectively; they first met in Gateshead some years later while working as technicians at BALTIC CCA. Both share an interest in performance and art as a way of exploring the potential for reciprocity between image, text, sound and audience. This is their second outing which is one step closer to achieving their aim of becoming a real band. Their motto is "stay pure, stay poor."

Darren Banks: "Film Lounge The City and The Stars Programme" Stills, Edinburgh, UK

Darren Banks Film Lounge The City and The Stars Programme Stills, Edinburgh, UK http://www.stills.org 19 June - 18 July 2010 Film Lounge is Stills' new, permanent, moving image exhibition and resource space, presenting changing programmes of artists' film. Film Lounge provides a platform to experience and explore a diverse range of films by Scottish and international artists in a unique screening environment. Examining experimental approaches to film-making, the programmes respond to the ideas underpinning Stills' main exhibitions and create themed presentations of both historical and contemporary works. The five films that make up the first Film Lounge programme, explore the city as a seething network of information, within a rapidly expanding universe of details. Between them, the five artists map out physical environments, model imaginary natural systems, track the movements of the stars across the sky, blur the boundaries between science and science fiction and unpick narratives from stories and images found online. Darren Banks  Its not the End of the World 2009 Jeanne Liotta  Observando el Cielo 2007 Karen Russo   Target 090313977 2009 Semiconductor  Sound of Microclimates 2004 Thomson and Craighead Flat Earth 2007 This special Film Lounge screening will present Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair's film London Orbital, a mesmeric 76 minute documentary concerning the psychogeographical mappings of the world's largest motorway, the M25 using interviews, archival footage and voiceovers. The film journeys back into the past to arrive at the future, enroute engaging with history and the occult, excavating the past through H.G Wells - War of the Worlds and Bram Stoker - Dracula with musings on surveillance, shopping, terrorism and Essex gangsters. Image Darren Banks It's Not The End Of The World, 2007 Single Channel Video DB0041 courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Marcus Coates: "Adaptation: Between Species" The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada

Marcus Coates Adaptation: Between Species The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada http://www.thepowerplant.org 19 June - 12 September 2010 Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Cory Arcangel, John Bock, Olaf Breuning, Marcus Coates, Robyn Cumming, Mark Dion, FASTWÜRMS, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Shaun Gladwell, Lucy Gunning, Nina Katchadourian, Louise Lawler, Hanna Liden, Hew Locke, Sandra Meigs, Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, Jeff Sonhouse, Javier Téllez Curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs Responding to the contemporary desire to go "back to nature," The Power Plant's summer group exhibition highlights inter-species encounters. What happens when humans, animals and the natural world meet? What forms of communication, mis-communication, intimacy, and exchange ensue? As the industrialized world further encroaches on the natural world, species live in ever closer proximity. Yet many people feel profoundly cut off both from natural environments and from their own animal natures. Our deep longing to connect with non-human life forms is reflected in contemporary phenomena ranging from the boom in pet ownership and the widespread anthropomorphism in popular culture to the upsurge in vacations that promise to transport us to unspoiled lands. However, despite this deep-seated sense of alienation from nature, the species are in fact closely related. For instance, as Donna Haraway notes in her book When Species Meet, 90 percent of human cells are filled with the genomes of bacteria, fungi, protists, and such, with only 10 percent comprising human genomes. 'Adaptation: Between Species' explores this commonality between the species and considers the various forms of intelligence and knowledge they share. It also asks what our interactions with other species reveal about our human as well as our animal natures. Highlighting the urge to observe, touch, live with, and mimic other species, the exhibition delves into the intimate and, at times, uncanny fusions that result. From another perspective, 'Adaptation' looks at the facility that animals have in adapting to our domestic and urban environments, including the ability to "train" their masters. Coinciding with the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, the exhibition considers how adaptation functions as a form of biological and cultural survival. 'Adaptation' also builds on Roger Caillois' 1935 essay "Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia"-which was central to Surrealist thought as well as to Jacques Lacan's theories of the Mirror Stage-to think through the spatial, aesthetic and psychological nuances of camouflage and assimilation. However, 'Adaptation' also takes a realistic view of human/non-human dynamics: it acknowledges the unbalanced and exploitative power relations that too often characterize our society's attitudes toward other life forms. This focus on the interface between humans and other species builds on a rich body of critical work that is emerging in various disciplines, from policy and law, philosophy, anthropology, science, and cultural studies, to animal rights and environmental activism. Influential studies include Giorgio Agamben's The Open: Man and Animal, Jacques Derrida's The Animal That Therefore I Am, Gilles Deleuze's The Body, the Meat and the Spirit: Becoming Animal, Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, and Donna Haraway's impressive oeuvre on human/animal relations. Academic institutions are also addressing similar questions. In Ontario alone, a recent studio art class at the University of Guelph explored the phenomenon of "cultural followers"-animals that thrive within human environments-and in 2009 the Ontario College of Art & Design launched a module on Biomimicry & Design. 'Adaptation: Between Species' presents the work of leading international artists alongside that of newer figures whose work has gained international attention. Ranging in tone from reverent to decidedly iconoclastic, and created with media including photography, film/video, sculpture, and painting, works in the exhibition examine the lure of primeval states and primitive behaviours, and the urge to understand oneself as wild at heart. SUPPORT DONOR: The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation Image Marcus Coates Journey to the Lower World (Beryl), 2004 Archival Inkjet Print 115 x 115 cm MC0013 Photography Nick David. Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

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Matt Stokes: "Right Right Now Now" Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung, M.1 Hohenlockstedt, Germany

Matt Stokes Right Right Now Now Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung M1 http://www.arthurboskamp-stiftung.de 12 June - 22 August 2010 Sven Augustijnen, Friederike Clever, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Heinz Peter Knes, Denise Mawila, Eline McGeorge, Gareth Moore, Roseline Rannoch, Matt Stokes Right Right Now Now focuses on artistic positions that build on journalistic, sociological, and scientific formats and strategies, this does not assimilate, but rather develops their own aesthetic description of the world. The focus of this work traces historical events, describing social and cultural contexts, but always avoiding a traditional analytical summary. What value can be added to these events, through application of artistic language? Right Right Now Now is a plea for narrative and subjective forms of expression. The potential of the featured artists is their subjective positions and often obsessive gaze. While these artists supposedly marginalise, neglected details or move selective personalities into the concentrated attention, they also open up new perspectives on the familiar. They develop independent languages and thus make history, as well as the presence of subjective perspective accessible. Curated by Katja Schroeder image Matt Stokes Real Arcadia (Never Been to Belgium), 2003 12 x archive ink-jet prints on paper 72 x 57 x 4 cm (MS0007) courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Matt Stokes: "These Are The Days" WILFRIED LENTZ - ROTTERDAM, Holland

Matt Stokes These Are The Days 29 May – 10 June 2010 Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam http://www.wilfriedlentz.com The fourth and last show in our May program – a weekly program featuring a performance or installation by a visual artist that centers on the use of recent historical music or sound – presents these are the days (2009), a work by Matt Stokes (GB, 1973) that explores the efficacy and actuality of Punk Rock as a widespread subculture in Austin, Texas, USA. Commissioned by Arthouse in Austin, these are the days was one of two works produced by Stokes as a result of his close work with the Austin music scene and extensive research into anti-establishment musical genres within the city, particularly Punk and Hardcore. The show consists of a large two-channel film installation, which was made by staging two separate events. During the first, Stokes filmed the audience at a free, all-ages gig he organised with a young Punk music promoter, held at Broken Neck, an informal skate and music venue. The second part of the work brought together five members of different Austin-based Punk and Hardcore bands to create a soundtrack for the silent film shot during the gig. This track was filmed during a session at a recording studio. Both elements are shown side-by-side, as a kind of diptych. While the Punk crowd is seen reacting and dancing on the left screen, the band plays the improvised soundtrack to it on the right screen. A reversal of roles between audience and performers, the film installation examines the concept of response, and portrays a musical subculture that challenges notions of causality, originality, tribute and circularity. Matt Stokes' artistic practice is marked by anthropological enquiry and an interest in events or informal movements that bind people together. Taking a variety of forms—from organizing events and assembling archives to making films and creating sculptural installations—Stokes' works are often collaborative in nature and frequently take place outside the traditional gallery space. Music subcultures have been central to the development of his most recent projects, which have focused on their ability to shape lifestyle, beliefs and create community. Acid House and Black Metal are among the genres of music he has explored, poetically revealing music's intrinsic ability to create communal experiences, devotion and fellowship through the quasi-religious experience of dance. Amongst Stokes' most noted works to date include Long After Tonight, a 16mm film that conveys strong emotional and spiritual content of British communities associated with the Northern Soul scene. Matt Stokes was born in 1973 in Penzance, England and currently lives and works in Newcastle/Gateshead, England. He received his BA from Newcastle University in 1997 and was the 2006 recipient of the esteemed Beck's Futures Prize, awarded by the ICA in London. Forthcoming exhibitions include a solo show at the Fridericianum (Kassel), group show at Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung (Hohenlockstedt), and film programme of the Tatton Park Biennial. Past exhibitions include venues such as 176 (London), Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead), Lentos Kunstmuseum (Linz) and Witte de With (Rotterdam). The opening will be on May 29th from 8 till 10 pm and the show is running through June 10th. The gallery is only open by appointment.

Richard Rigg: "Cage Mix" Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK

CAGE MIX: SCULPTURE & SOUND A group show featuring works by Sam Belinfante (b.1983) Graham Gussin (b.1960) Christian Marclay (b.1955) Jeremy Millar (b.1970) Katie Paterson (b.1981) Paul Ramirez Jonas (b. 1965) Katja Strunz (b.1970) Richard Rigg (b.1982) BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art SATURDAY 29 MAY - SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2010 BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art presents Cage Mix: Sculpture and Sound, a group exhibition featuring work by eight contemporary artists. Opening on Saturday 29 May it precedes and compliments the Hayward Touring Exhibition John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day which opens at BALTIC on 19 June. The eight artists featured in Cage Mix: Sculpture & Sound bring together works that imagine and explore sound through scores, graphic notation and other forms of translation. All these artists are associated with the expanded possibilities opened by John Cage's radical writings, lectures and creative experimentation; their art traversing what might be called a universe of sound stretching across time and space. Artist and composer John Cage (1912-92) was unconventional in so many ways, questioning the boundaries of composition with his rethinking and re-presentation of the score. His lectures on music in the 1940s and 50s were catalysts to entire series of new movements in art such as Fluxus and happenings and continue to be significant to contemporary artists working today. One early work of his which acts as conceptual focus for this show is Fontana Mix, from 1958; a graphic notational score, made through the superimposition of transparent sheets. Consisting of twenty pages covered with a mix of curved lines and dots the performer constructs the score by layering these sheets through chance operations. Once completed the performer is left with a series of time-brackets where action(s) may take place. Radically, in Fontana Mix, Cage created both a composition and a means for making new ones: a site where performance and direction is both overlapped and confused. Several of the artists in this show also use ideas of chance and create a role for viewer engagement. Central too is the notion of the mix and the power of juxtaposition, all relevant to an experience of contemporary urban life. Cage Mix: Sculpture & Sound includes work by New York based artist Paul Ramirez Jonas; with Paper Moon he has created a scaled version of the moon comprising 165 individual sheets of paper. The sentence 'I create as I speak' is repeated over and over again, as one long text. A lone page, a fragment of the image, is removed from the wall and left on a lectern while the public is invited to read this piece of the moon either out loud or to themselves. Katja Strunz has a constellation of components arranged on the slate floor comprising a series of brass and steel rods and parts from left over musical instruments, circular cymbals and the horn of a trumpet. Like sentinels marking time they appear associated with the production of sounds and form a bridge to astronomical listening; an aerial station of weathered instruments, the sounds of origins, and the source of the big bang. Newcastle artist Richard Rigg has created a visual conundrum with Before Interruption (2010) by creating a glass bell jar containing a brass bell. The bell is attached to a simple device that allows it to chime however the intermittent actions of a vacuum pump, suspends the sound of the bell leaving us with a bell that moves, but that we can no longer hear. Graham Gussin shows three works, including a large wall drawing in blue ink. Here sound has been put through a software program that translates it into image, producing a kind of audio map or territory, a new landscape of peaks and troughs. Another work, Vortex Mix, uses the cover of five vinyl records, placed on spinning devices on the wall. Cage Mix: Sculpture & Sound is curated by Alessandro Vincentelli. GALLERY INFORMATION: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead Quays South Shore Road Gateshead NE8 3BA UK Website: www.balticmill.com ADMISSION FREE Opening hours: Monday - Sunday 10.00 - 18.00, except Tuesdays 10.30 - 18.00 image: Richard Rigg Untitled, 2010 (detail) Ink on Paper Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Peter J. Evans and Richard Rigg: "The Glass Delusion" National Glass Centre, Sunderland, UK

The Glass Delusion National Glass Centre, Sunderland, UK. http://www.nationalglasscentre.com 21 May - 3 October 2010 Artists include: Meris Angioletti, Celia Baker, Alan Bennett, Malcolm W. Browne, Annie Cattrell, Attila Csorgo Katharine Dowson, Peter. J. Evans, Thomas Florschuetz, Helga Griffiths, Carla Guagliardi, Susan Hiller, Christoph Keller, Jorge Macchi, Cristiano Mangione, Anne Vibeke Mou, Matt Mullican, Joao Penalva, Roger Penrose, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Richard Rigg, Fred Sandback, Beryl Sokoloff/Clarence Schmidt, Jana Sterbak, Vedovamazzei, Alfie West. Artefacts and objects from: Beamish Museum, Co. Durham, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums, The Science Museum, London and Great North Museum Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne. The Glass Delusion was the name given in the late Middle Ages and Baroque times to a form of depression. The syndrome evokes a psychological separation between reality and imagination. Sufferers were obsessive, compulsive, driven by irrational fears and envisioned themselves to be made of glass, hence delicate and vulnerable to scrutiny. More than any other material glass lends itself to speculations: as a transparent membrane it separates and connects, magnifies yet shrinks, reflects and deforms; it is a barrier, yet allows light to pass through it, it can be delicate as well as deadly and its attributes are appropriated in many symbolic ways: the Glass Brain and the Glass Man; mirror image, alter ego, Doppelganger, and split personality all come to mind. It is this duality, the ability to combine opposites, that is the inspiration for this exhibition of contemporary art, artifacts and scientific objects that tell the story of human attempts to reconcile the physical and mental worlds. Curated by Grainne Sweeney, National Glass Centre and guest curator, Alessandra Pace. Images: (above) Peter J. Evans The universe and you IV, 2004 Graphite on Paper 64 x 88 x 5 cm (PJE0006) courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK (below) Richard Rigg Weighing Scales, 2005 2 x Weighing Scales 42 x 35 x 68 cm (RR0004) courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK