Northern Art Prize

Posted on | February 4, 2012 | No Comments

Carol Huston analyses the recent announcement of Leo Fitzmaurice as the 2011 Northern Art Prize winner.

Northern Art Prize 2011. Leo Fitzmaurice. Photo David Lindsay

As announced at Leeds Art Gallery, the fifth winner of the Northern Art Prize was Shropshire-born artist Leo Fitzmaurice (born 1963). Besides pronouncing the fact that painting is repeatedly shunned by art judges generally, perhaps the appeal of Fitzmaurice’s work for the prize was its deconstruction of the everyday as part of a greater British legacy which embraces the mundane. Fitzmaurice both used this approach within an institutional context – reworking a gallery space- as well as with the external world – through stills of quotidien urban life.

Since the prize was given to an artist who rethinks the ordinary, perhaps this indicates the North’s regional taste for the familar. Or, perhaps if we may consider the North of England as a burgeoning centre for contemporary British art- the appeal of Fitzmaurice to the panel of judges is that his work recalls a legacy of early to mid- twentieth century idiosyncratically British art.

Northern Art Prize 2011, Leo Fitzmaurice. Photo David Lindsay

Namely, coming to mind is the work of the British Surrealists of the 1930s whose works emphasised landscapes and the Independent Group of the 1950s who reenvisioned the influx of a new postwar media landscape. For example, Independent Group photographer Nigel Henderson captured ordinary urban scenes of Bethnal Green in a postwar East London. Further to a reworking of the everyday, Fitzmaurice’s selected works from the Leeds Art Gallery’s collection focus on landscape – which too was a predominant preoccupation for the British strand of Surrealism.

The Way Things Appear. Leo Fitzmaurice

The most simultaneously retrospective and contemporary aspect, however, of Fitzmaurice’s exhibition was his digital slide presentation The Way Things Appear. This series of photographic stills – taken with the artist’s mobile phone- recalls Paolozzi’s 1952 BUNK presentation to a live audience of collaged magazine cut-outs using an overhead projector.

Other nominees for the prize included abstract painter James Hugonin, who is featured in Corridor8 issue 3 part 1, Richard Rigg, who was nominated as the public’s winner, and Liadin Cooke who uses natural materials to create organic works.

The Northern Art Prize exhibition continues at Leeds Art Gallery until 19 February 2012.

Category: Blog

A Silence That Never Was

Posted on | January 29, 2012 | No Comments

Robert Casselton Clark’s solo show at North Gallery, Northumbria University opens this Friday, 3 February 2012.

Artist, writer and a regular contributor to The Guardian, Robert is contributing an article on Sheffield, the city he’s worked in for the past 25 years, to the March edition of Corridor8.

A Silence That Never Was is an exhibition of three work-in-progress installations from the last three years, including a new work, The Catechism of the Goddamned Saints is a multiple-piece mixed-media installation of lyrical evocations. Photographs, watercolours, drawings and poetic fragments portray the sites of visitation, the apparitions, reflections and responses. For a link to the gallery’s website click here.

Category: Blog

Shadowing Dark Matters

Posted on | January 12, 2012 | No Comments

Stephen Iles explores the shadows in the last weekend of Dark Matters at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.

Daniel Rozin- Snow Mirror

It is necessary to submit to the Labyrinthine nature of the Whitworth’s interior, a space where contemporary art has often seemed the intruder. Held firmly within the embrace of the dominating Victorian architecture, where it finds itself bursting at the seams of the building, squeezing into corridors and onto mezzanines, It makes for an interesting psychological space, not a space that takes you by the hand and leads you around, it is a space which leaves you to your own devices, to go walkabout, to get a little lost even. You always wonder whether there was something missed? A corner unturned, some nook or cranny you left unexplored.

The exhibition begins with an interactive piece, Floating in space is a translucent screen, upon which is projected a monochromatic image of falling pixels, falling gently, uniformly, endlessly. Like the ‘static’ on the screen of a disconnected television, it gently goes about it’s business, seemingly demanding little other than for us to acknowledge it’s presence. We are free to move around the screen, behind, to the side, from afar. Then, before we move on we give the piece a final moment, we stand four square in front of it as if to say goodbye and we begin to notice something different, an outline of a figure, life size, begins to emerge. It sways gently, moves furtively and then the penny drops, the said figure is an outline, a digital shadow of ourselves. We instinctively begin to gently lift our arms, to allow the snow settle upon our limbs like radioactive snow.

A dematerialisation has occurred, our body passing from one state to the other, a shift from the corporeal to the virtual, a preparation of the body for a ritual investigation. We are reminded of the screen both small and large, of ‘Star Trek’ and of films like Spielberg’s ‘Poltergeist’. We are the ghost in the machine, a theme that is set to continue throughout the show.

Isolated by spotlights shuttered to trace the edges of the frame, hang three works by Idris Khan. Layers of translucent text are superimposed upon one another to create a ghost like image. Words are rendered unreadable by the action of repeated overlaying, acquiring a new density, the sum of the many pages. In the natural diptych form assumed by the image of an enlarged, open book, a skeletal design begins to emerge, one not unlike an x-ray of human lungs, in this virtual light-box, lines of text become a rib cage, the gutter a spine and mortal shadows make their presence felt.

Idris Khan, Thus Spake Zarathustra…after Friedrich Nietzche, 2007

There is something of the scientific in this exhibition, an attempt to explore, rather than define the notion of shadow. Technology is employed in both cutting edge applications and also in the ‘Heath Robinson’ variant, where technologies that recall the early days of cinematic shadow- play are recalled. Accompanying the exhibition is a screening of “Night of the Hunter”, the marvelous [and only] film directed by Charles Laughton [the actor who provided us with the most memorable portrait of Rembrandt]. In the movie, film noir segues seamlessly into surrealism, we see the world through the eyes of two frightened and lost children most memorably in a fantastical and dreamlike sequence where, in an attempt to escape their tormentor, the two infants take flight on a moonlit river journey, watched over by the fauna and animals of the riverbank that are shown in huge silhouetted close up. The film, a macabre fairy tale, is recalled in the installation by Brass Art, a collective of three artists.

In a darkened room, a circular table is adorned with transparent animal figurines and precise, miniature replications of the artists, all swathed in wisps of cellophane. A lamp orbits the table in a menacing ark, throwing shadows around the room as it illuminates the dreamy diorama. Gliding across the walls, shadows become animated as they accelerate and decelerate. The shadows move at different speeds, converging and shimmying between one another as if on a ghostly carousel, bringing a sense of three dimensionality and form to an aura of corrupted innocence. A sense of foreboding pervades.

Detail from Brass Art Still Life No.1

By contrast, Kiss, a video work by Luke Dubois, is a moment of time stretched euphoria and romance. Fifty of cinema’s most iconic embraces are plundered and submitted to a set of complex digital rendering techniques, The celluloid images are transposed and re-mapped among points of light that die like stars in a moment, forming constellations that last but for a second, only to explode and release their energy; projecting a tableau of memory into the depths of space. We could see it as a requiem for film as it teeters on the edge of obsolescence as it succumbs to a ritual cremation by digital transference. The accompanying audio serves as an eternal coda, a frozen aural moment that equivocates between lamentation and celebration, the ecstasy at the point of mortality. The whole effect is disquieting though strangely reassuring, with it’s semi religious overtones, a seduction is at play, the mapping out of a secular heaven.

There are the precepts of shadow as a fact and of shadow as a fiction, what is occluded and what is imagined. Whilst some works seek to inhabit that void, filling it with fantasy, fear and superstition, others choose to explore the twin notions of shadow as a duality, in terms of contrast. None more so than the installations presented by Barnaby Hosking. Motifs such as butterfly wings and the motion of waves are employed, not so much as springboards for the imagination but rather as simple conduits for cognition. video projectors are used counter-intuitivey, using light in order to project darkness, the polarising properties of absorption and reflection are used as structure, providing a framework of oscillating perceptions.

Dark Matters manages to remind us where lie the limits of our understanding, there is so much more out there, about us and of us that is concealed from view and comprehension, that remains unanswered, unquestioned even. You could see Dark Matters as an attempt to find meaning in nothingness, as it seems does Pavel Büchler. He presents us with chiaroscuro drawings of shadows, 30 in all, framed and accompanied by the stubby remains of the pencil that drew and cast them respectively, this exhausted pencil is placed at rest as if in lieu of a signature. Simultaneously drawing and sculpture, cause and effect, the works aspire to nothing more than the idea. They are a contemplation on the act of drawing and the recording of the temporal, to draw is to obscure, as we draw a curtain to block out the light, we draw to an end and as we paint with light, we draw with shadow.

Foreground- Elin O’Hara Slavick. Background- Ja-Young Ku

Elin O’Hara Slavick will be giving a talk at the Whitworth Art Gallery on Friday 13 January at 2pm.

Category: Blog

The Manchester Contemporary 2011 – A Retrospective

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | No Comments

Antony Pickthall, Head of Marketing and Communications at the Liverpool Biennial, gives his views on the North West’s leading contemporary art fair, The Manchester Contemporary, which took place in Manchester from 28 to 30 October 2011.

Opening of Manchester Contemporary, 2011

With the ballyhoo surrounding Frieze Art Fair focusing attention on London it is sometimes easy to forget that there has been an art fair in Manchester since 2009; one that presents a strong picture of commercial art galleries outside of London. The ten galleries in The Manchester Contemporary 2011 hail from Bristol, Cardiff, Gateshead, Liverpool, Manchester and Cardiff, as well as London and bring together the work of 37 artists working across diverse forms.

The artists on show reflect the established as well as the emerging, mixing painting, sculpture and digital art. As a snapshot, this year’s art fair underlines a return to painting and drawing and the strength and depth of younger artists working across the country.

Some of the local artists represented are clearly leading the development of the fair’s reputation: Iain Andrews’ painting is vibrant and strong, almost in your face with its thick layered paint ; Samantha Donnelly’s sculptures are subtly powering a commitment to ideas and Rachel Goodyear’s work is witty and confrontational.

Bristol’s WORKS| PROJECTS works with an impressive group of artists, including the highly sought after Richard Wilson and Richard Woods but work by David Mackintosh (also based in Manchester) and Edwina Ashton was especially exciting. Mackintosh has an attractive fundamental simplicity in his drawing, working with bold colour and line. Edwina Ashton’s sculptures were – it turned out – just the tip of her work’s unsettling iceberg. She makes performances and films that play with humour and the unexpected in satisfyingly surreal tributes to the extraordinary in the ordinary.

A new addition to the fair in 2011 is The Print Room. Here visitors could view and purchase a wide range of limited edition prints. Works for sale by artists from The Manchester Contemporary exhibitors were complemented by prints from a selection of other invited organisations. In addition, a series of information and project spaces included presentations from artist-led spaces, artists’ agencies and partners of The Manchester Contemporary.

There is no doubt there is considerable ambition at the heart of the three-day event but perhaps it needs to pull itself further from the orbit of the Buy Art Fair, which is not presenting critically engaged artists and appealing to a much broader market place.

It has significant partnership activity with the Contemporary Art Society and The Manchester Contemporary VIP programme was aimed at developing even stronger links to contemporary art collectors, offering them the chance to meet artists in their own studios and to develop their knowledge about what these artists aspire to achieve.

One of the ways it could do this is by developing a programme of new commissions, perhaps in partnership, in the manner of Frieze Art Fair. A series of new commissions could provide additional reason for audiences, critics and collectors to explore the work of some of the UK’s leading artists in the context of the North West and actively demonstrate why when artists are not only given the chance to stretch themselves but ably supported in the process, they can create the work that demands our attention.

Antony Pickthall is Head of Marketing and Communications at the Liverpool Biennial.
@antonpick

Category: Blog

When the Photographer met the Painter…

Posted on | November 18, 2011 | No Comments

Our photographer Steve Iles muses on preoccupations with light and gives his photographer’s perspective on the paintings of James Hugonin.

On the train to Berwick upon Tweed to take a portrait of James Hugonin, one of the artists nominated for the 2011 Northern Art prize, I gazed out of the window, watching not so much the landscape, but rather the weather and the deteriorating light. A constant preoccupation for the photographer.

Assured by Teletext that the clouds would stay away till early evening, I was beginning to feel cheated. They had been behind me on my journey as I travelled from west to east but as the route turned North they were now on my flank and making their presence felt earlier than had been promised. A flash gun always accompanies me, but the artificial zap of light is no match for the natural, and as I had been informed that James Hugonin had a wonderful day-lit studio, I had hoped not to require it’s assistance.

Light was on my mind even more than usual, having read how light and it’s effect on the landscape was of such importance to James’s painting. A choice of subject underlined by his decision to shun the metropolitan fold and to live and work in the borderlands amongst the rolling Cheviot Hills, close enough to the North Sea to experience that extra stop of light that a coastal location offers.

Upon arriving at the station and disembarking from the train, the grey skies had most definitely caught up with me. I had lost this particular race against the weather and the studio was still another half hour away. James was there to pick me up in person. Conversation ensued and I let my concerns for the light recede.

James is the first painter to be nominated for the Northern Art Prize, which can beg the question why? An attempt perhaps on the part of selectors to eschew thus far the traditional modes of production in favour of the conceptually based? Is the shortlisting of a painter a concession to the traditional? A nod of recognition to a respected and established artist I wondered?

To the studio then, and the paintings, a sudden burst of colour on a monochrome day. Tiny swatches of pigment, of equal size, arranged meticulously and democratically in mosaic, the rigidity and discipline of their placement at odds with the final result, a shimmering, rhythmic surface that pulsates and resonates, the eye unable to settle upon individual detail.

My mind wandered outside the confines of the canvas and I began to think of the work of James Turell. Whilst apparently dense, the work seemed to concern itself with the effects of light as a phenomena rather than the protocols of painting. They exude a freshness and contemporaneity that belie the fact that James had been making works this way for a couple of decades. A revelation came for me while observing them through the camera lens. Each brush stroke became a pixel.

The works spoke to me as photographs, super enlarged, exploded. I pondered further on the relationship between painting and the photograph, about the work of Gerhard Richter, the Dusseldorf school and the way in which the invention of photography 150 years ago both freed and revolutionised painting, setting the path to abstraction.

A happy coincidence? Maybe, as James’ method predates the advent of digital photography by quite some way, but, there’s never anything wrong with being just a little ahead of your time….

A free print by James Hugonin is included in the next edition of Corridor8.

Category: Blog

The shape of further things?

Posted on | May 26, 2011 | No Comments

For us, as we hope it is for you, the appearance of Corridor8 each year is an adventure. We never know fully until the last minute quite how our ideas will manifest, what exactly you will have to hold and, when you do, what shape it will take. Suffice to say that it will always be a fresh departure – exciting, novel and full of surprises! The new edition, hopefully due September 2011, will be no exception. All we can say about it at the moment is that Dust, our designers, and the editorial team, have once again banged heads, we have a plan that we are very excited about, and that we are steadily working towards its fruition. We will continue to use Corridor8 as a platform for the wealth of contemporary visual art that is coming out of the North of England, and produce a genuinely visually appealing and stimulating journal, containing the most prescient, informative and challenging content we can find. Watch this space.

Category: Blog

Corridor8 films

Posted on | May 26, 2011 | No Comments

If you came to the launch events of Corridor8 #2 last October, or even if you didn’t, the talks we gave can now be seen in two recent films.

In the first film artist-explorer and Corridor8 contributor Neville Gabie will give you a fascinating insight into his practice and a Greenland iceberg.

The other film, Art School Alternatives, documents with full coverage the various talks and workshops held during Corridor8’s symposium on the current debate on art education.

Category: Blog

Secs and Death Cells Exhibition, The Hive, Manchester, Thursday 7th April 2011

Posted on | May 26, 2011 | No Comments

In April, Corridor8 were invited by current students on the Masters of Fine Art at the Metropolitan University to curate a show around their practice. Rather than simply selecting some of their current work we took the approach of giving each artist – Nina Chua, Tiago Duarte, Nicola Ellis, Shona Harrison and Ana Rosa Hopkins – a brief for them to respond to. The new work was showcased in a one night only event at The Hive, in the less colonised edge of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. The artwork on display, visible through the plate glass windows of HKR Architect’s über modern building was professional, and was lent an edge by the eerie, pitted streets and boarded-up premises outside. It was every bit as jumpy as Hoxton when the first gallery moved there, and one yearned that a more permanent exhibition space/gallery might soon materialise in the place of this fleeting well-attended pop-up event.