Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Darren Banks: "Seeing in the Dark - A Group Show" CIRCA site, Newcastle, UK


Seeing in the Dark
- A Group Show

Preview: Wednesday 19 October, 6 - 9 pm
Exhibition continues: 19 October - 12 November 2011

CIRCA
Curtis Mayfield House,
Newcastle upon Tyne

Featuring work by

John Adams, Kevin Atherton, Darren Banks, Jon Bewley, Ian Breakwell & Mike Leggett, Noel Clueit, David Critchley, Benedict Drew, Mat Fleming, Ken Gill, Richard Grayson, Emma Hart, Tina Keane, John Kippin, Hilary Koob-Sassen, Stephen Partridge, Heather Phillipson, Peter Todd, Maria Theodoraki, Belinda Williams

Seeing in the Dark is an exhibition and series of events inspired by artist run groups from the 1970s and '80s, such as Newcastle's Ayton Basement and Basement Group, and London's 2B Butler's Wharf. These groups were formed by artists with diverse practices (music, performance, film and video) inhabiting vacant industrial spaces to produce opportunistic and eclectic events.

Over four weeks Seeing in the Dark will occupy one floor of Curtis Mayfield House, a one time industrial space a stone's throw from the original Basement Group venue, to celebrate the influence and legacy of those artist-run spaces, extending this into the present with a contemporary focus. The exhibition will revisit key works from the '70s and '80s by artists associated with those groups among others, alongside contemporary media and performance artists' work, bringing together moving image and live performance by some of the most innovative artists working in the UK, from the past thirty years to the present day.

These are hybrid cross-disciplinary, sometimes collaborative works that reverberate with a spirit of playfully serious enquiry and exploration; they are often wry, humorous and irreverent, revelling in language and wordplay, realised through film, video, spoken word, musical performance and installation.

image:
Darren Banks
Clusterfuck 2 (Don't Look In The Basement Remix), 2011 (Still)
Video
Duration 05:10 Minutes (Looped)
(DB0066)
Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery