Sophie Lisa Beresford - Preview: Friday 6th May, 6-9pm

Image: In The Pizza Shop (Dance Shop) on Culture Award Night (detail), 2009, Photograph, Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK. Sophie Lisa Beresford Preview: Friday 6th May 2011 , 6 - 9pm 7th May - 11th  June 2011 Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 5pm (or by appointment) Workplace Gallery is pleased to announce our first solo exhibition by Sophie Lisa Beresford. The work of Sophie Lisa Beresford addresses the order and status of 'things' and situations, and beyond that our held assumptions about the way in which we live and our cultural stereotypes. Through a polygenetic assimilation of established and global cultures as distinct and diverse as Hinduism, and Makina Techno music, Beresford reorders the totemic symbols of those cultures to reflect her own emergent philosophy and theory of the universe and her position within it. Beresford's practice emerges unashamedly from within the 'Charva' culture of the North East of England. Gleaning her subjects and ideas from all aspects of her life Beresford presents an intuitive detailed portrait of her culture. Through a constant process of reflection and re-examination Beresford employs a variety of means incorporating Dance, to-camera monologue, sculpture, painting, text and photography often mixing technology that enables her to record thoughts and situations quickly and directly such as iPhone screen grabs, built in laptop cameras and microphones, and compact digital cameras, with an ongoing interest in slow meticulous techniques that have been used across cultures for millennia such as Jewellery making, beading, and embroidery. Beresford's performances and videos see the artist delivering un-choreographed and spontaneous high-energy dance routines to hardcore dance music in locations ranging from the privacy of her bedroom and domestic interiors, to public spaces such as Pizza Takeaways and Museums. Regardless of the privacy or otherwise of the location Beresford appears compellingly immersed in a trancelike state that calls into question any projected anxiety the viewer might have about losing control of oneself in the company of others. Alongside these vigorous 'Dancing' works Beresford presents 2 large-scale and contemplative video projections that focus on the conceptual underpinning and display of jewellery handmade by Beresford after a period of time living in Arizona and studying Native American jewellery making techniques. A large slow moving and posturing hand wearing a crystalline ring floats enigmatically in front of a large sheet of Gold leaf that fills the screen. Adjacent, a projected slide show text work reveals Beresford's intimate reflections on the experience of traveling through Arizona, and the significance of Jewellery, characteristically offset by Beresford's repeated use of emoticon symbols and reference to popular culture and mass-produced consumer products. "To understand the world in a new way :) your way. And your way is the way to be.  …. Jewellery has become a part of my life. I dream in Jewellery." Sometimes I don't know what I think is an embroidered text work made using gold thread encrusted with sequins and precious stones. The pointed sentence overlooks a large shallow plinth offering a collection of objects and artefacts each customized by Beresford with intricate beadwork and crystals in complex geometric formations. The altered objects, which include a Gourd, a £20 note, a pipe, and a children's book are shown alongside Jewellery hand made by Beresford, each piece made as a gift for a specific individual. Beresford's fascination with people and how they relate to both her and wider world is further explored in Magic Numbers; an iPhone relentlessly playing a slideshow of screen grabs Beresford has made when she has been alerted by an incoming message or call that has also coincided with the time showing a 'Magic Number'. Throughout the exhibition are a series of photographs drawn from Beresford's daily life. Hindu Goddess is a confrontational image of the artist covered in blue paint and with shocking pink lipstick. Beresford's portrayal of herself in the form of goddess. Anonymous Handprints is a photograph of Beresford's backside taken immediately after she was "pestered" for sex in her local park on her way home one evening. As a "compromise" Beresford allowed the two Lads to "smack her arse" as hard as they could on condition that they documented it for her afterwards on her camera phone leaving red raw hand prints on the artists backside. In marked contrast Me n Barney show the artist decorated in handmaid jewellery with a tame Barn Owl perched on her shoulder, the two looking completely comfortable in each other's company. Pasty Pigeon is an image of a 1:1 scale Pigeon made by Beresford from Greggs pasties - an iconic 'speciality' of the North East of England, Pasty Pigeon is a macabre object that met a sinister end when Beresford fed it to the real pigeons outside of Tesco's superstore in Gateshead. Sophie Lisa Beresford (b. 1986 Sunderland, UK) graduated from Sunderland University in 2008. Exhibitions include Group Exhibition VeSch, Vienna, Moving Image New York, USA, Mural Newspaper Abrons Art Center, New York, NADA Art Fair 2010 Miami, USA, Sideshow Nottingham, Summer Residency Exhibition Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, Psychic Geography Workplace Gallery, Dancing The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, /Slab in the City Sunderland, TOMORROW THE FUTURE Fishmarket Gallery, Northampton, "All My Favourite Singers Couldn't Sing...", Workplace Gallery. In 2010 Beresford was awarded the The Journal Culture Awards- Newcomer of the Year. Sophie Lisa Beresford lives and works in Sunderland, UK The next exhibition at Workplace Gallery will be a solo exhibition of new work by Matt Stokes opening on 24th June 2011. To celebrate the opening of Sophie Lisa Beresford please join us afterwards at Central Bar in Gateshead. Kindly supported by

Miles Thurlow: "Chris Hawtin/Miles Thurlow" Malgras|Naudet, Manchester, UK

Image: 'Figure with Wardrobes' 2010, Miles Thurlow, Resin, PU Foam, Polystyrene, Wardrobes. courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery CHRIS HAWTIN / MILES THURLOW 29th April – 21st May 2011 Preview 28th April 2011 6 – 8pm Malgras|Naudet is a new space for contemporary art, a space in which things might happen.... MALGRAS|NAUDET IS PROUD TO PRESENT ITS INAUGURAL EXHIBITION FEATURING SELECTED WORKS BY CHRIS HAWTIN AND MILES THURLOW. EXHIBITING TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE PAINTINGS OF HAWTIN AND THE SCULPTURES OF THURLOW ARE A REFRESHING DISPLAY OF UNREAL LANDSCAPE AND FAMILIAR OBJECT. "The exhibition’s heady combination of visceral imagery alongside sculptural minimalism complements each artist aesthetically and thematically and with a sincerity that surpasses expectation. The cybernetic organisms of Hawtin’s canvas seem to come to life in Thurlow’s glutinous monuments and bring together both of their intentions as a questioning of the functionality and location of the real and unreal in art and beyond." Open Friday – Saturday 12.00 – 18.00hrs or by appointment Nearest train station: Manchester Piccadilly Notes for Editors: Chris Hawtin and Miles Thurlow both live and work in the UK. Between them, they have exhibited in London, Stockholm, Lisbon and beyond. For a copy of the press release or more information, please contact Helen Collett on +44 7825 88 47 39 or at questions@malgrasnaudet.com. +44 7811 26 77 52 things@malgrasnaudet.com www.malgrasnaudet.com www.twitter.com/malgrasnaudet www.facebook.com/malgrasnaudet www.malgrasnaudet.tumblr.com

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Darren Banks: "Defective Science" Sala Dogana, Genoa, Italy

DEFECTIVE SCIENCE curated by Gabriella Arrigoni Darren Banks Davide Bertocchi Cesare Bignotti Sarah Ciraci Andrea Dojmi Jacopo Miliani Marie Velardi Sala Dogana, Palazzo Ducale p.zza Matteotti 9, Genova 23 April - 15 May, Tuesday to Sunday 15.00-20.00 Opening Friday 22 April h 18.00 Free admission http://www.gg6.comune.genova.it/node/557 Defective Science is a group show featuring video works and installations focusing on the relationship between science and pseudo-science. Seven artists have been invited to elaborate the fake documentation of a number of different phenomena, somehow based on scientific postulates. At the same time, their real possibility of existence is into question and eludes any appropriate scientific methodology. Among the topics present in the works on show: extraterrestrial life, teletransportation, the 2012 catastrophic prophecy, life hidden in inanimate objects and theories about the nature itself of our own Universe. The project aims to investigate how contemporary society relates to scientific knowledge, a complex relationship hang in the balance between absolute trust toward the progress and a mystic attraction for the mysterious and the unexplainable, with the result of an unexpected association of science with the magic and the irrational. image: Darren Banks Phantom Sock, 2006 Umbro Sock, Orbit Building System, Wool 50 x 30 x 19 cm (DB0024) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Paul Merrick: "Remade and Readymade " Constantine Gallery, Teesside University, UK

Remade and Readymade Tony Charles Greg Cox Paul Merrick Lewis Robinson Private View 6 - 8pm Wednesday 27th April 2011 26th April - 20th May 2011 Opening Times: 9am - 4pm Mon - Friday Closed on Weekends and Bank Holidays Constantine Gallery, Teesside University Middlesborough, TS1 3BA "Home is no longer a dwelling but the untold story of a life being lived"_ John Berger The work in this exhibition alludes to the domestic environment in one form or another. Each artist works with the domestic image to a greater or lesser extent to convey individual concerns. The use of found or discarded material is also another characteristic of the work whether it be metal rust filings or reconstituted furniture. The process of making exists somewhere on the threshold between production and destruction. These artists enjoy the physicality of material and its transformation into the new found imagery. Dislocation, dismemberment, disintegration and distillation are fuel for these works contradicting the culture of 'home neat home.' "In contrast to the ambivalent-even antagonistic-relationship between domesticity and modernism, the postmodern are witnessed a kind of homecoming in high culture, as artists and designers have (re)turned their attention to domesticity. Specifically the idea of home today is caught between the stasis of nostalgia, historical fantasy and dynamism of activist engagement with the future: on the one hand, the home functions as a potent image or symbol, on the other it exists in all the complexity of daily experience in a three dimensional world." 'Not at Home; The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture' (Thames and Hudson 1996 p23) Sharon Haar and Christopher Reed We live in a century where the domestic appears transient and elusive. Paradoxically, home suggests familiarity, comfort and security and yet it can be a theatre for the absurd, strange and bizarre. Is it a state of mind or a place? These works reflect that uncertainty in uncertain times. We now live in a culture where DIY is cool, the DIY stores reign like cathedrals to the flat-pack and a proliferation of makeover TV shows invade our living space. The discarded, disguised and remade. Image: Paul Merrick Untitled (Chair), 2009 Sterling board, ply wood, aluminium, gloss paint 81 x 48 x 56 cm (PME0082) Courtesy the artist and Workplace Gallery

Catherine Bertola: "To be forever known" Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, UK

To be forever known Catherine Bertola 16 April - 8 July 2011 Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth To be forever known is a sound installation by artist Catherine Bertola, created in response to the Brontë Parsonage Museum and its collection as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme. To be forever known is accompanied by a series of photographs, Residual hauntings. Catherine Bertola creates installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Her interest in the Brontë Parsonage Museum centres on the contradictions between past and present that lie at the heart of the museum. The house can be seen as a 'period set', a reconstruction of the past onto which we project our own thoughts and feelings. To be forever known attempts to breathe life back into the space and reinstate a sense of the creativity that once filled the air of the house. Using scientific methods of revealing the resonant harmonies and tones of architectural spaces, Catherine Bertola has sought to capture the sounds of the Parsonage. The artist recorded herself reading aloud extracts of the sisters' letters. These recordings were then played and re-recorded over and over again into the space, until the words become unintelligible whispers and the resonances of the room are revealed; the sisters' thoughts and feelings once again haunting and jarring against the silence. Residual hauntings is a series of photographs of the artist ‘performing’ domestic rituals and actions described in written records. These simple ghostly vignettes reanimate the spaces of the Parsonage as they once were. Catherine Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976 and studied Fine Art at Newcastle University. She has created site specific installations for a variety of sites and contexts, for organisations such as Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), V&A Museum (London), Millennium Gallery (Sheffield) and the National Trust. Catherine Bertola has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M R Fricke, Berlin. To hear a brand new podcast that includes an interview with artist Catherine Bertola talking about her artwork and inspirations, download the 'Art Yorkshire' iPhone App from the Apple App Store or visit http://art.yorkshire.com Conversaziones As part of To be forever known, Catherine Bertola will curate three 'Conversaziones', a term used by Victorians to describe small social gatherings held in their homes (where people would meet over tea to debate topics of the day). Catherine and a series of invited speakers will discuss themes relating to the exhibition, together with a small audience. The evenings will take place at the Brontë Parsonage Museum after hours, and refreshments will be provided. Thursday 12 May, 7pm Radical Women Lucasta Miller and Jane Robinson discuss the role of radical women, from the original Bluestockings to the 20th Century suffragettes, who like the Brontës, transcended perceived ideas of femininity. Jane Robinson is author of Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education. Lucasta Miller is a writer and critic, and author of The Brontë Myth. Thursday 16 June, 7pm Everyday Lives Ann Dinsdale and Suzanne Fagence Cooper take us through the domestic rituals of an early 19th household, to discover how the Brontë sisters would have occupied their time outside of writing. Ann Dinsdale is Collections Manager at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Suzanne Fagence Cooper is V&A Research Fellow at Buckinghamshire New University, has written several books on Victorian art and culture, and has been a consultant for BBC programmes including What the Victorians Did for Us, and Simon Schama's History of Britain. Thursday 7 July, 7pm Between the Lines Historian and biographer Kathryn Hughes explores how artefacts and historical evidence can help us to access the people and places of the past. Kathryn Hughes is Professor of Lifewriting at UEA. Her biographies include George Eliot: the Last Victorian and The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton. She is a journalist and critic, regularly writing for The Guardian and appearing on BBC Radio 4. Image: Catherine Bertola Residual hauntings (detail) 2011 Triptych of Photographic Prints 15.2 x 20.3 cm (Framed) (CB0092) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Jo Coupe: "A Distance Between Two Points " AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

A Distance Between Two Points Jo Coupe & Linda Persson 15th April Preview 7-10pm 16th April - 4th June 2011 www.airspacegallery.org Gallery Open Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 5pm The phenomena of our experiences, the existence of matter, and its related situations, can be explored through a variety of means. Art, the sciences and philosophy offer propositions that are challenged through a set of criteria and conditions. A Distance Between Two Points, explores crossovers within art, the sciences and philosophy where the artists use materials, images and objects to create positions of experience that explore our understanding of physicality, value and perception. It is within the gaps, between the known and the unknown, where our curiosity can be sparked and open up new dialogues. AirSpace Gallery is delighted to be showing Jo Coupe and Linda Persson together for the first time. Linda Perssonʼs work takes the form of sculptural installations (using moving image, performance, and sound) to confront and entice the audience into emotional queries on representation, value and the event. How the works are situated, and how the body navigates them, create tension that becomes as important as the space the works occupy. Three newly commissioned pieces are shown here under the collective title of Disappearance of the world, resemblance of the object. In the first of the pieces, Cradle Game (sculptural video installation), conversations about the origins of our development of knowledge, through our understanding of material, and contemplations on our societal use of this knowledge take place. Golden hands appear to play a disembodied game of paper scissors stone, out of sequence and disconnected, systems of value are negotiated through a performative act. In Dark Fossil, (film installation), on one screen we see a fossil fragment being traced back and forth in a dark void, the object continually transitioning between the visible and invisible as it moves. On the other screen a disembodied hand follows the contour on the ruins of the birthplace of Remus and Romolus, in Rome, forming a questioning dialogue of ritual, myth and history. Perssonʼs work can be considered playful and destabilising, where contrasts and contradictions in the actions of parts of the body or phenomena create interesting questions regarding perception and our value systems. Jo Coupe uses readymade objects and invisible forces to create witty sculptural tensions between the gallery space, the viewer and the object. In Solid Air a series of stepladders appear entrapped in the space by a web of strings, however on closer inspection the strings appear to be floating in mid air. The impression of entrapment and stability immediately becomes more tenuous and the entire structure less stable. Another new piece, Tacky, throws an alchemic proposition at the viewer, as we come across a golden strip of Blu-tack, half unrolled and encrusted with jewels. Crystalline Energy was a temporary sculptural piece in a specially constructed gallery space in the basement of Lynemouth aluminium smelter in Northumberland. The whole space bristled with magnetised keys, coins, jewellery, nails, paperclips...the kind of thing you find in the bottom of your drawers. These stuck together in lines, forming impossible strands, which traced the contours of the magnetic fields. A series of pinhole photographs are here on display; the medium was chosen partly as the magnetic fields prohibited the use of more sophisticated equipment. Here, Coupeʼs interest centred around the powerful electromagnetic fields which are a unique by-product of aluminium production and its ability to produce phenomena (levitating coins, keys sticking rigidly from walls and cameras producing black or distorted images), the kind of things which are, in a different context, seen as evidence of supernatural activity. Persson and Coupe both work with base material compounds that offer tensions of meaning, stability and value. How we may harness and understand these qualities is at the very core of our cultures and societies. The sciences are often seen as a world of facts and figures, concluding in explanations for phenomena that would ordinarily appear baffling. The artists in this exhibition are interested in how art and the sciences can question through proposition. Not everything we encounter needs to be explained, in cold facts. The form and structure of the works in the exhibition allows us to suspend our rational mind and begin searching for alternative explanations and their consequences. Progress occurs in both success and failure. Linda Persson was born in Stockholm and graduated from Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2002 and Winchester School of Art in 2005, and have since been living and working in the U.K / Sweden. Persson is the founder of an artist run project XRAY and Xray online which occupy knowledge as a tool to engage and emphasise experimentation in contemporary video / film / performance/ sound and writing. She has forthcoming exhibitions at Liste, Berlin (Normalcy Bias 2), Drawing Room, London and SAGS at Woodmill projects, London. Persson has previously exhibited at Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Sydney, Australia, Studio44, Stockholm, Sweden, Art Container, Tallin, Estonia, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, U.K, Utsikten Kunstsenter, Kvinesdal, Norway. Perssonʼs work is held in private collections internationally. Jo Coupe was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1975 and graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Newcastle University in 1998. After 12 years as a practicing artist, studying for an MA at Goldsmiths College, living for a time in New Orleans and London, she now works out of a converted post office in Gateshead, consulting experts in fields as diverse as jewellery, botany, and electronics. Recent projects have included a residency with global aluminium producer Alcan, a commission for Tatton Park Biennial and a solo show at Workplace Gallery, Gateshead. Jo Coupe is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and her work is held in public and private collections internationally. Image: Jo Coupe Solid Air, 2011 Stepladders, String, Magnetic Field height 12.5 cm height 4 7/8 in (JCP0083) Courtesy the artist and Workplace Gallery

Darren Banks: "Drawing 2011 Biennial Fundraiser " Drawing Room, London, UK

Drawing 2011 Biennial Fundraiser Darren Banks Silent Auction 18 May 18:30 pm Exhibition 7 April - 18 May 2011 Tues - Sun 12:00 - 18:00 Drawing Room was initiated by curators Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout to provide the major European resource for contemporary drawing.  It has delivered an ambitious international programme of solo and group exhibitions that have included established, emerging and historical artists.  Many of these exhibitions have toured to galleries and museums throughout the UK and beyond.  Their scope, interpretation and dissemination have been broadened through partnerships with individuals and institutions that have generated publications, a programme of in-conversations and symposia and learning projects. Those who have contributed to the Biennial Fundraiser include established artists - Jake and Dinos Chapman, Michael Craig Martin, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon, Liam Gillick, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum, Damien Hirst, Michael Landy, Paula Rego, Gavin Turk, Cerith Wyn Evans - alongside many other key artists at different stages in their careers. Drawing Room Tannery Arts Brunswick Wharf 55 Laburnum Street London E2 8BD Tel 020 7729 5333 Fax 020 7729 8008 www.drawingroom.org.uk mail@drawingroom.org.uk

Cath Campbell & Miles Thurlow: "NATURAL LANGUAGE[nach-er-uhl lang-gwij]" Vitrine Gallery, London

Natural language (nach-er-uhl lang-gwij) Friday 1 - Tuesday 26 April 2011. Daily 24-hour. FREE. Artists: Nicole Bachman; Cath Campbell and Miles Thurlow; Johanna Hallsten; Chris Grieves and Richard Battersby; Adrian Lee; Cary Leibowitz; Ant Macari; Linda Persson; Chris Shaw. 'Natural language(nach-er-uhl lang-gwij)' picks at the intrinsic tendencies of language through an exhibition of works that incorporate text, verbal, and visual mediums. Emerging from the idea of language as a malleable system of complex registers - particularly correlations between written, aural and visual forms, works have been brought together in order to speculate the subtle 'vice-versa' current between these common affinities. Featuring audio, 3D, 2D, 4D, performance and published material, works collectively explore the abstract and often irradicable nature of the ways that language immerse into and transpire from narrative structure- in its widest sense. Artists have been invited to participate in the exhibition for their own investigations into language cross-hybridisations. The process by which artists engage with language based material will also be explored, whether as a structural strategy; as an instructive aspect or as a means to develop forms of deviance arising from socio/political discourse. Works presented in this exhibition have a link with fiction, autobiographies, political discourse/activity, critical theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis and music. In tandem with with the work in the gallery, guest speakers have been invited to talk formally around ensuing themes from the exhibition. We will also host a screening of artists moving image. Curated by Natasha Rees. ................................. Opening event and preview: with a screening (in the cinema, at 7pm) of the last in a series of seasonal video works by Chris Grieves & Richard Battersby, independently published materials by artists and curators including El Von Brown of X marks the Bokship; VERSUCH from Gil Leung and me and my friends - a continuing project by Nicole Bachman; performances by Enda Deburka, Fred Gehrig, and Benedict Seymour; Natasha Rees & Josephine Wood will play a dubplate recording and Dean Kenning compiles a thematically tailored DJ set. ................................. Talk, screenings and performance: Date April 9 2011 4pm - 6pm FREE. A discussion around the transpiring themes from the exhibition and language structures within contemporary creative practice. Various moving image works; and an audio work by Johanna Hallsten. Event introduced by Natasha Rees with guest speakers. Full details to follow. RSVP Michael@vitrinegallery.co.uk.

Workplace Gallery at The Armory Show 2011, New York

Workplace Gallery at The Armory Show 2011 presents: Eric Bainbridge Catherine Bertola Marcus Coates Jo Coupe Laura Lancaster Mike Pratt Matt Stokes Wolfgang Weileder PIER 94 MARCH 3-6, 2011 BOOTH 545 www.thearmoryshow.com For a full list of available works please contact info@workplacegallery.co.uk image: Matt Stokes Prelude to Cantata Profana: Paroxysm's rehearsal room, Kassel, 2010 Lightjet print, Diasec Mounted 171.4 x 120 cm 67 1/2 x 47 1/4 in (MS0052) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery Kindly supported by

Laura Lancaster: "Visual Artist of the Year" The Journal Culture Awards 2010

Workplace Gallery is delighted to congratulate Laura Lancaster on winning the Visual Artist of the Year at The Journal Culture Awards 2010. Workplace Gallery represented artists again dominated the shortlist with Jennifer Douglas also a finalist. image: Laura Lancaster Untitled, 2010 Oil on board 51.5 x 61 cm, 20 1/4 x 24 1/8 in (LL0385) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Matt Stokes: "The Distant Sound" De Hallen Haarlem, Netherlands

MATT STOKES - The Distant Sound 26.03.2011 - 13.06.2011 http://www.dehallenhaarlem.nl De Hallen Haarlem presents the first solo exhibition by Matt Stokes in a Dutch museum. This British artist is chiefly known for his video work in which he investigates underground currents in contemporary music. The museum is showing new and recent work by Stokes, in which he focuses on the subcultures of grindcore and Northern Soul. The exhibition can be seen from 26 March through 13 June, 2011. The English artist Matt Stokes (b. Penzance, 1973) does work in which performance, music and social engagement flow together. Stokes generally produces video work that zooms in on the social and visual codes of specific subcultures, and which is preceded by a period of intensive research and active cooperation with local communities. For instance, in the past he has made work on the folk tradition in Camden, hardcore punk in Austin, Texas, and the Northern Soul movement in Dundee. Rather than the documentary form which is usually employed with subjects of this sort, Stokes opts for a more subjective approach in which he is guided by the reconciling and liberating aspects of the shared musical experience. In a co-production with the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel Stokes realised the video installation Cantata Profana especially for De Hallen Haarlem, in which grindcore, an extreme punk/metal variant, is central. In Cantata Profana (2010) a piece of classical music is performed by six grindcore vocalists, all familiar figures in this radical current in music. The monumental six-channel video installation which is to be seen here combines the raw vocals of grindcore with the stately, ‘respectable’ structure of the classical composition. In the confrontation between traditional aspects of Western musical history and eccentric contemporary genres Stokes exposes their shared roots, and these fundamentally contrasting elements are merged into an exciting new hybrid form. For the composition of Cantata Profana Matt Stokes worked together with the British classical composer Orlando Gough, who wrote a modern interpretation of a classical cantata. Stokes then invited six singers from England, Germany, America, Norway and The Netherlands to simultaneously record the six voices of the cantata in a music studio in Berlin, while he filmed the singers separately with six cameras. This is illustrative of the way in which Stokes works: for all his studies into subcultures he seeks the cooperation of people who are active in them, and with regard to the final result there is what could be called ‘shared auteurship’. Thus his work is always a collective production in which the shared experience, both social and artistic, plays a crucial role. For the rousing dance film Long After Tonight (2005) Stokes brings a Northern Soul evening in a church in Dundee back to life, as devotees of the genre demonstrate the characteristic athletic manner of dancing. The visually compelling and rhythmically edited Long After Tonight is an ode to the ecstasy of the dancing, and an homage to the North of England working class soul music of the 1970s. The title of the exhibition, The Distant Sound, refers both to the physical sensation that arises when approaching a live concert, and to the remembrance of something that is past – two notions that are invariably present in Stokes's work. image: Matt Stokes Cantata Profana, 2010 Six-channel HD video and audio transferred to synced hard-drives Duration: 06:48 minutes (MS0048) Photograph: Nils Klinger Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK Installation View: 'No Place Else Better Than Here' - Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany

Marcus Coates: "Self-portrait as Worcestershire" Movement, Worcester, UK

10.03.11 - 16.04.11 MOVEMENT Platform 2 Worcester Foregate Street Railway Station WR1 1DT T. 07590 075185 info@movementtimetable.com Self-portrait as Worcestershire MOVEMENT proudly presents Self-portrait as Worcestershire, a series of videos and photographs that document a number of early performances by English artist Marcus Coates. Many of these were made while staying in the Malvern Hills, 10 miles from MOVEMENT, and furtherafield at Grizedale Arts between 1997 and 2000. The series includes the photographs Self portrait as Worcestershire and Natural (1998) Red Fox and Goshawk (1999) and the short film Stoat (2000). Marcus Coates is best known for performances in which he attempts to mediate between the human and animal. The work shown at MOVEMENT are early examinations of this process exploring humaness in a rural environment more densely inhabited by wild creatures than by people. Field and forest become the studio and the behaviours and appearance of indigenous animals and the landscape that they inhabit are embodied in a physical and immediate way; Coates is buried in the topsoil, becoming the landscape, he crouches on all fours dressed head to toe in red to become a fox in a Worcestershire field. Perched precariously high in a distant tree, he becomes a rare bird, the Goshawk and learning, albeit clumsily, how to move stoat-like he wears a special pair of homemade shoes, to replicate the bounding stoat. These attempts although futile become an unconscious exploration of our definition. In Natural, Coates adorns himself with a ragged wig, a false beard and a smearing of mud. The idea of what is natural becomes a superficial and romantic notion which requires a cultural and perhaps biological distance and separation from our modern selves. Other recent exhibitions by Marcus Coates include: The Trip, Serpentine Gallery, London, 2011; The Sydney Biennial, 2010; Psychopomp, Milton Keynes Gallery, 2010; Altermodern: Tate Triennial, London, 2009; Kunsthale Zurich, 2009; Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo; Manifesta 7, Trento, Italy, 2008 Image: Marcus Coates Red Fox (Self Portrait), 1999 Archival Inkjet Print 90 x 90 cm (MC0002) courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Marcus Coates: "The Trip" The Serpentine Gallery, London

03.03.11 - 02.05.11 The Serpentine Gallery Kensington Gardens London W2 3XA T 020 7402 6075 information@serpentinegallery.org The Trip The Serpentine Gallery, in collaboration with St. John's Hospice, London, launches a major new project by UK-based artist Marcus Coates. The film is produced as part of the Serpentine's ongoing Skills Exchange project and is the result of a long-term residency by Coates at the hospice. Coates began the project by asking hospice outpatients to suggest ways that vicarious action could enrich their experiences and offered to enact unfulfilled dreams on their behalf. Suggestions ranged from the creation of an exhibition of photography, to a parachute free-fall, to a trip to the Amazon. The last of these requests, made by the late Alex H., was realised by the artist in 2010. Coates was given precise instructions for the trip. He was asked to travel to an isolated village in the Amazon jungle and to ask the indigenous people a set of prearranged questions. The project was an exchange, Coates offered a way of expanding Alex H's imaginative world beyond the hospice and in return Alex H. offered Coates a challenge to see the world for someone else. The Trip presents audio recordings of the conversations between outpatient and artist firstly as they plan the journey and then as they share the memories following Coates' return. While Coates' work is well known for questioning the role of the artist in relation to a range of social issues or problems – often in conjunction with official governmental organisations – in The Trip he develops this central concern through exchanges between individuals, bringing a level of sensitivity and intimacy to the resulting presentation. Presented in collaboration with St. John's Hospice. Image: Marcus Coates The Trip 2010 Documentary photograph Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK MC0134

Cath Campbell, Peter J. Evans, Laura Lancaster and Rachel Lancaster: "Graphite" Gallery North, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

28.01.11 - 23.02.11 Gallery North Squires Building Sandyford Road Northumbria University Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST Tel. 0191 227 3105 gallerynorth@northumbria.ac.uk Graphite Graphite was named by German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789, an allotrope of carbon the name is derived from the Greek, graphein meaning: to Draw or Write. The precise, and formal, relationship between the material's name and it purpose, or action, will be explored through the work in this exhibition. Graphite will consist of emerging and more established artists, many with alumni links with Northumbria University, The exhibition explores work that engages drawing (in graphite) as a formal instrument for conveying aesthetic, conceptual, or philosophical ideas. The exhibiting artists are: Alice and Joe Woodhouse, Michael Mulvihill, Jane Millican, (Vane Gallery), Louise Hopkins (Doggerfisher Gallery), Richard Forster (Ingleby Gallery), Cath Campbell, Peter J Evans, Laura Lancaster, Rachel Lancaster (Workplace Gallery). The approaches of these artists evoke the practice of Vija Celmins. An Artists' talk and the launch of the publication 'GRAPHITE' will take place on Thursday 17 February at 5pm followed by refreshments. Image: Rachel Lancaster Water 2009 Charcoal on Paper 35.5 x 29.5 cm courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

"Laura Lancaster", DLI Art Museum and Gallery, Durham, UK

22.01.11 - 13.03.11 DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery Aykley Heads Durham DH1 5TU T. 0191 384 2214 Laura Lancaster Laura Lancaster's works use photographs, slides and cine films of strangers - found in flea markets, junk shops etc. as their source, translating them into drawings, paintings and installations. The translation of these lost images becomes at once a devotional act on the artist's part; an attempt at rescuing these images from obscurity. The appropriation of found imagery allows for a focus on the painting process itself and the exploration of the slippage between artistic intention and result, which is mirrored in the source material's own failure to carry out the task it was made for. These are now the lost moments and memories of strangers which raise more questions than they answer, the moment in time they were made to fix is gone. Image: Laura Lancaster Untitled 2009 Graphite on Paper 76 x 57 cm (LL0257) courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Workplace Gallery at Moving Image Art Fair, New York

Workplace Gallery at Moving Image Art Fair 2011, NY present: Sophie Lisa Beresford & Cecilia Stenbom Moving Image March 3-6, 2011 Waterfront New York Tunnel 261 11th Avenue (between 27th and 28th Streets) New York, NY 10001 Thursday - Saturday, March 3-5, 2011: 11 am - 8 pm Sunday, March 6, 2011: 11 am - 3 pm www.moving-image.info Moving Image, a new art fair of contemporary video, will take place March 3-6, 2011, during the Armory Show in New York and within walking distance of Independent. Located in the Waterfront Tunnel event space between 27th and 28th Streets with an entrance at 261 11th Avenue in Chelsea,  Moving Image will be free to the public. works on display at Moving Image (images above): Sophie Lisa Beresford The First and Second Creation, 2009 Single channel video 19min 14 sec (SLB0020) Cecilia Stenbom Alive - An Essential Guide to Survival, 2010 Single Channel Video Duration 14:22 minutes (CS0061) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Workplace Gallery at The Armory Show 2011, New York

Workplace Gallery at The Armory Show 2011 presents: Eric Bainbridge Catherine Bertola Marcus Coates Jo Coupe Laura Lancaster Mike Pratt Matt Stokes Wolfgang Weileder PIER 94 MARCH 3-6, 2011 BOOTH 545 www.thearmoryshow.com For a full list of available works please contact info@workplacegallery.co.uk image: Matt Stokes Prelude to Cantata Profana: Paroxysm's rehearsal room, Kassel, 2010 Lightjet print, Diasec Mounted 171.4 x 120 cm 67 1/2 x 47 1/4 in (MS0052) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Richard Rigg: "Broken Fall (organic)" Galleria Enrico Astuni, Bologna, Italy

19.02.11 - 29.05.11 Galleria Enrico Astuni, Bologna Via Iacopo Barozzi, 3 40126 Bologna Italien fon 39 051 4211132 info@galleriaastuni.it Broken Fall (Organic) The fear of falling is as old as mankind. Falling is the symmetrical opposite of flying and and has been pictured according to different conceptions of weight—of the body which falls to the ground. Falling is also linked to walking badly, staggering, jumping, getting lost, and also to failing.In modern and contemporary art, falling has become an intentional action. An action that involves the artist’s body and often the fate of the image of the work of art. Acrobats, tumblers, clowns, Charlie Chaplin’s or Buster Keaton’s gags, people clinging onto cornices or windowsills in Alfred Hitchcock’s films, Philip Petit the tightrope walker suspended between the Twin Towers in New York, through to the trajectories tried out by Bruce Nauman or Bas Jan Ader: these are all examples of figures of artistic experience linked to the action of falling. At the same time, falling also has to do with the practice of painting and the processes that were introduced in the twentieth century. Starting with Jackson Pollock’s drippings, it moved through to works made by splashing colour on surfaces placed on the ground rather than being fixed to a wall. Artists: William Anastasi, Paolo Chiasera, Simon Faithfull, Mathilde ter Heijne, Hannu Karjalainen, Christoph Keller, Cristiano Mangione, Andrea Melloni, Paolo Parisi, Luca Pozzi, Richard Rigg, Jens Risch, Arcangelo Sassolino, Roman Signer, Annika Ström, Bill Urmenyi, Luca Vitone, Robin Watkins/Torben Tilly Giovanni Iovane and Alessandra Pace’s Broken Fall (Organic) reflects on this condition of falling in works of art. A fall that, ever since the early twentieth century, has proved to be a distressing and yet brilliant strategy for failure. The exhibition will take place at Astuni Public Projects in Bologna, Italy (19 February-29 May 2011), and follows Broken Fall (Geometric)—also at Astuni Public Projects in Bologna (April-September 2010)—and the book Broken Fall Rise and Fall of Pictures, recently published by Silvana Editoriale, Milan (160 pages, Italian & English). Image: Richard Rigg Cloth Arranged to Look Like a Jacket (Self Portrait), 2010 Cloth 10 x 60 x 44 cm 4 x 23 5/8 x 17 3/8 in (RR0034) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery