Artes Mundi

YouTube video: The Visitors | Ragnar Kjartansson @HangarBicocca  

Artes Mundi is an internationally focused arts organisation that identifies, recognises and supports contemporary visual artists who engage with the human condition, social reality and lived experience.

Don't miss the chance to see contemporary art on the subject of 'the human condition'. There are artworks to view in three venues: the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, FfotoGallery at Turner House in Penarth and at Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre. 

I spent a wonderful hour watching,  listening, sitting, wandering around  Ragnar Kjartansson's  The Visitors (2013). If as I do you enjoy  live music, art and people this is an overwhelming and emotionally affecting work, it  left me feeling rather positive about the human condition . 
http://www.artesmundi.org/en/artists/ragnar-kjartansson



Other works are more difficult and deal in dark subjects, I am thinking particularly of Dutch artist Renzo Martens 'known for his satirical and disturbing video documentaries in which he travels to war-torn countries and places himself narcissistically at the centre of the action, demonstrating how Western spectators consume distant trauma. In 2012, Martens helped found the Institute for Human Activities and initiated its five-year Gentrification Program. By means of strategic inversion Martens comments on the ways in which Western media depict the non-Western world'.
http://www.artesmundi.org/artists/renzo-martens

A Conference will be held at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Straight from the Horse's Mouth, in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University School of Art and Design will be a series of talks and conversations offering a rare opportunity to hear the Artes Mundi 6 shortlisted artists speak about core themes and concerns that are central to their practice.

Cardiff Metropolitan University School of Art and Design, Llandaff
Wednesday 21 January 2pm - 6pm
Thursday 22 January 10am - 5pm
Tickets and more information here (conference followed by a social gathering at Chapter, Canton at 7pm).


Read about all the artists here

Artes Mundi employs a team of Live Guides as mediators who have met the shortlisted artists and have extensive knowledge of their work.If you would like to walk and talk with one of the Live Guides in the Museum in Cardiff  join a  tour.  Lasting 45-60 minute the friendly and informative tours are led by one of the  Live Guides and give an overview of the exhibition and its themes.
2pm daily at the Museum (book on arrival at the Information Desk)
For talks and tours at Ffotogallery and Chapter , check their websites for further details.

Calling all performers!!! Scratch Platform - Sunday, August 31st 2014 - Four Bars, Cardiff - From 7pm

Scratch Platform is a brand new event in Cardiff and the showing of work on Sunday August 31st is the first of what will be a regular event happening every other month. The idea is to give Live Artists, Sound Artists, Cabaret Performers, Poets and other artists who perform an opportunity to show their work (whether it is ‘finished’, ‘polished', in development or otherwise) to an interested and supportive audience. The showing will start at 7pm and the venue will be open until pub closing time!

Any work that is designed to be performed to an audience needs at some point to be performed!

It will be free to take part in and free to watch. There are no ‘rules’ as such other than that any piece shouldn’t last longer than ten minutes - in order to give everyone a fair chance. There will be no competitive element and we want to encourage a very open, pressure free and supportive environment.

It’s a lovely intimate venue and we are able to provide some technical assistance- we have a PA, lighting rig and access to a projector and screen. Will will also be filming the event to offer the performers a copy of the documentation (this will be free, basically bring a memory stick or external drive and we will copy the footage to it).

At the end of each event we will have a performance from an invited artist. On August 31st this will be Foxy and Husk

We hope to draw artists and an audience from the artist communities in Cardiff and further afield. There will be an opportunity for the performers to display business cards, CV’s and other information that they might wish to share. We will also offer feedback forms that members of the audience can fill in.

If you would like to show your work then please can you send me your technical requirements (will you need music playback for example or a microphone(s)?) and give me a very brief breakdown of what your 10 minute piece will be.

bring your friends!
any questions? 

Rowan Talbot

rowan@fizzievents.com

       

Reel to Real

'Reel to Real' is a sound curating project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, designed to catalogue, digitise and  make available online, in gallery spaces and beyond, the Pitt Rivers Museum's unique archival field recordings. The content of the recordings ranges from spirits singing in the rainforests of the Central African Republic to children's songs and games in playgrounds throughout Europe.

The project website includes information about and playlists from all of the Museum's original ethnographic recordings, video and interview resources, ethnomusicology seminars, their SoundCloud account and much more. 

Reel to Real Project Website here.

Visualiser combining Bayaka sound waves and images

The related  SoundCloud account can be found here, and customised playlists and sets can be found here.

Mural in Newport destroyed

the destroyed mural

Protesters leave flowers in memory of Newport's Chartist mural

Michael Sheen a Hollywood actor and director of some note latterly famous for playing various well known figures in biopics ( Brian Clough, David Frost and Tony Blair), was born in Port Talbot. He has written an open letter to the people of Newport about the Chartist mural in the town destroyed to make way for the building of a shopping centre. He took out a full page in the South Wales Argus to protest the destruction. Newport council has been lampooned on YouTube over the destruction already.
The mural by Kenneth Budd in John Frost Square, which was made of 200,000 pieces of tile and glass, was completed in 1978 and  marked the uprising led by John Frost in Newport in 1839, where Chartists demanding political reform rebelled against authority, leaving 24 people dead. It was much loved and its passing was marked by flowers and a memorial service.
In the letter Michael Sheen  appeals to the people of Newport to make a new memorial to the Chartists. He particularly calls upon the art and design students to use their creative skills and imaginative flair to find and re-use materials that would cost little or nothing. He knows about art and design students in South Wales because some of you were part of 'The Passion'.  In 2011, Sheen starred in and was creative director of  The Passion, a 72-hour secular passion play staged in  Port Talbot  As well as the professional cast, over one thousand local amateurs took part in the performance and another thousand  volunteers from local charity and community groups helped prepare for the performance in various ways.
Michael Sheen has described it as "the most meaningful experience" of his career.

Hundreds of residents volunteered to join the cast list of The Passion which consisted of 1,000 extras

The Night Watch

A sensitive reading of The Night Watch by Guardian writer Jonathan Jones has Rembrandt depicting democracy in action , the assortment of different types of people as night falls assembled to protect their community. Rembrandt's painting is once more on show after 10 years of renovation of the Rijksmuseum hindered access to their marvellous collection.
The Rijksmuseum used imagination and digital technology and the Internet to keep their works as visible as possible whilst the museum was closed. I blogged about one of the ways they used back in November (6th). It comes as no surprise to me therefore to see that, to advertise the reopening, the Museum staged a rather wondrous re-enactment of the Night Watch in a shopping centre.

And here are Jonathan's lovely words about Rembrandt's Night Watch, words that help keep alive for us the idea that art is important ...

"In the 21st century, as democracy and community are beset by menaces from climate change to the violent economics of austerity, The Night Watch ought to be cherished as political art. It portrays not only what the Dutch, but all democracies ought to hold dear – the courage of flawed human beings to come together while acknowledging one another's individuality and difference. It is an icon of tolerance, diversity and the magic golden light that makes a society work. While these ordinary people stand guard, we feel a bit safer in our collective defiance of the dark".

sonic experimentation

 

 

On Thursday 11 APRIL 2013 at  8PM  Russian author Andrey Smirnov will be giving an illustrated talk entitled
'The WIRE Salon: Synthesized Voices of the Revolutionary Utopia:Early Sonic Experiments in the Soviet Union'.

 The talk will mark the official launch of Andrey Smirnov’s book
‘Sound In Z: Experiments In Sound And Electronic Music In Early20th Century Russia’

This publication offers an introduction to Russia’s contribution to the birth of electronic music, sound synthesis and audio technology in the early 20th Century. It is a story of politics and power, of the institution and the avant-garde, of collaboration and personal achievement, of ambition, opportunity and oppression. It is a story of remarkable personalities, curious inventions, astonishing performances, radical ideas, complex mathematics, pioneering electronics, engineering, design and experimentation. It is also a story of patents and funding applications, of success and failure, support and rejection, optimism and disillusionment, hunger and poverty.

The book produced in partnership between Sound & Music, London and Verlag de Buchhandlung Walther Konig, Cologne is currently on order and when received will be added to Howard Gardens Library .
More of Smirnov's projects here including the Laptop Cyber Orchestra (2006), Sound out of Paper (2005) and Brain JAZZ (1985/2001)

The talk and book launch will be at

 Cafe Oto
22 Ashwin Street
London E8 3DL
020 7923 1231
cafeoto.co.uk

Cafe OTO opened in April 2008 with the aim of providing a home for creative new music that exists outside of the mainstream. Cafe OTO is comprised of one large cafe/performance space open during the day as a cafe and hosting an evening programme of adventurous live music almost seven nights a week.

 

Artes Mundi (again)

I have recently attended some very interesting side events for the Artes Mundi Exhibition. A small square leaflet lists these opportunities , there is a web page  listing what's on  and also the facebook page advertises Artes Mundi events. Following these information sources I was able to attend the National Museum this week when the police horses corralled the crowds gathered in the Museum foyer using crowd control techniques, I heard beautiful music in the space occupied by Sheela Gowda's empty tin drums for tar used by Indian roadworkers, I felt sorrow-full in the room with the memorials to the dead of Teresa Margolles as a Welsh Performance artist Kathryn Ashill  counted in Welsh-was she counting the dead? When she stopped counting she whispered into our ears the words Memento Mori-'you too will die'.
 I have also attended an artists parents evening where I was celebrated for my creation (an artist daughter) and talked with other parents of artists and Darius Miksys about art, science , child rearing and mermaids and I watched a play by Miriam Backstrom where 'a director' annoyed 'an actor ' beyond endurance in her efforts to make him be a character she could then reject. I watched two films by Phil Collins and heard him in converstaion about his work afterwards with his old friend Jason Bowman.

I am also signed up for the rest of my life to stand up for any immigrants I see treated badly and not to walk on by. I have a poster and a badge to prove it created by the artist Tania Brughuera.
This years Artes Mundi has afforded me the richest art experiences I have had for a very long time. The art in the exhibition is fascinating, affecting, and says important things. The side events have been stimulating and original. I recommend you go along and investigate yourselves. If you do go to the National Museum to see the work then try go round on one of the  live guide tours. The live guides have all met the artists  and know the work well and will engage with you in talking about what you see and what you think about it.Tours take place daily at 2pm.
Artes Mundi continues until January 13th 2013

UBUWEB

UBUWEB started out in 1996 as a website devoted to concrete poetry, but it has grown to incorporate the functions of a virtual publishing house, record company and, film distributor. Poet, university professor and amateur archivist, Kenneth Goldsmith is the founder and main editor of Ubuweb. An underground project that has no institutional backing or budget of any kind, Ubuweb is an influential repository of avant garde material

Here you can find conceptual writing, dance, electronic music resources, ethnopoetics, film and video art, visual poetry and many special features. Examples include all ten albums from Obscure Records , Brian Eno’s record label from 1975 to 1978 and Six Films by and about Pina Bausch(1975 - 2006)  in UbuWeb's new Dance section (Christopher Walken dancing to Fatboy Slim anyone?) There we can review works from the career of Pina Bausch (1940-2009) including the beautiful  Orpheus und Eurydike (1975) and a documentary by Anne Linsel, Pina Bausch (2006). Other delights include: Maya Deren's complete oeuvre, a montage of Banksy doctoring Paris Hilton CDs for last year's guerrilla art stunt, interviews with Allen Ginsberg, poetry readings by Bukowski and a selection of rare art films and performance videos by artists from Carolee Schneeman and Tracey Emin to Samuel Beckett and ChrisBurden, video of BillieWhitelaw doing Beckett and  excerpts from Peter Greenaway's series of documentaries on modern UScomposers

A full list of resources is here

http://www.ubu.com/resources/index.html

Twitter is @ubuweb

Artes Mundi

Miriam Backstrom The Opposite of Me is

Artes Mundi, Wales’s biggest contemporary visual art show is back for its 5th exhibition in its new home, the National Museum of Art, on the top floor of National Museum Cardiff. For the first time Artes Mundi  is in partnership with organisations such as Cardiff-based multidisciplinary arts centre Chapter, who will provide an additional venue for some of the works.

Exhibition: 6 October 2012 – 13 January 2013
The shortlisted artists were selected from over 750 nominations covering every continent in the world except Antarctica. Their art  has one overriding theme in common; their work explores social themes, telling stories of lived experience and gives a platform for commentary on the world today.

Miriam Bäckström (Sweden)

 Bäckström’s ongoing interests explore how history is told, and processes of creating and recreating memory using photography, text, theatre and video.

Tania Bruguera (Cuba)

Since the late 1990’s Tania Bruguera’s artistic practice has often reflected back on the social, cultural and economic experience of being Cuban.

Phil Collins (England) Informed by the visual traditions of cinema and television, Phil Collins’ diverse practice is based on close engagement with place and community.

Sheela Gowda (India) For Sheela Gowda the social and cultural reality of India has formed the basis of her practice.

TeresaMargolles (Mexico) Teresa Margolles’ work focuses on the collective turmoil of the Northern Mexican social experience where drug-related organized crime has resulted in widespread violence and murder.

Darius Mikšys (Lithuania) For Mikšys, installations provide the opportunity to experiment, conceptualise, and re-imagine processes of making, displaying and engaging with art.

ApolonijaŠušteršič (Slovenia) Artist and architect Apolonija Šušteršič has focused on the social aspects of living environments manifested in art as well as architectural contexts since the 1990’s.

Events are scheduled throughout the duration of the exhibition. http://artesmundi.org/en/news/whats-on-artes-mundi/#

On 29 November an international panel of judges will award one of the artists the £40,000 Artes Mundi Prize, the UK’s largest art prize

Thomas Heatherwick: the Cauldron and a Retrospective

The English designer takes Steve Rose through his retrospective show Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary, which runs at London's V&A until 30 September

Thomas Heatherwick is a designer architect from London and the man behind the Olympic Cauldron.

 The cauldron was lit on 27 July at the end of the end of the Olympics opening ceremony, which was directed by Danny Boyle.
The design of the cauldron had been one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the opening ceremony. When the competing delegations arrived in London, they each received a copper petal, inscribed with the name of their country and the words ‘XXX Olympiad London 2012’. They carried these petals into the stadium during the opening ceremony before laying them down on the cauldron. When all the petals had been laid down, the seven torchbearers each ignited a single tiny flame within one of the copper petals on the ground, triggering the ignition of all 204 petals. The Cauldron’s long, stainless-steel stems then rose towards each other and converged to form one single flame.
Lots more on Heatherwick here
The cauldron being lit here

To celebrate the Olympic year of 2012, a temporary building a one-bedroom boat, the Roi des Belges, by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Fiona Banner has been installed on the roof above the Queen Elizabeth Hall.The building was picked as the winner in an open competition run by Living Architecture and Artangel, in association with the Southbank Centre
The riverboat building was inspired by the riverboat, the Roi des Belges, captained by Joseph Conrad whilst in the Congo in 1890, a journey echoed in his most famous work Heart of Darkness.

There is a deck, a crow's nest, a cabinet of visual curios - and a bed which slides on rails to make the most of the view over London: a panorama that stretches from Big Ben to St Paul's cathedral. An octagonal library with a curated selection of books and with twin desks looking out across the river enables visitors to use the Room as a studio space.

A range of writers, musicians and artists have been invited to stay in A Room for London, using their time there to create new works or performances. During the year the room  will transmit a programme of writing, performance and music.

Podcasts of the music, text and artworks are available to view from here
Fiona Banner’s work for the Room was  a film of a one-off performance of Orson Welles' unmade film Heart of Darkness The screenplay was performed in its entirety on board the Roi des Belges by the actor Brian Cox and is available on the website here until June 30^th

Hirst and money? here's Deller and Joy in People

Jeremy Deller opens at the Hayward today with a show entitled Jeremy Deller: Joy in People.The exhibition incorporates almost all of his major works to date including installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, performance works and sound pieces and is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery.
Jeremy Deller  won the Turner prize in 2004 without having taken even O-level art at his London public school. He emerged after the Young British Artists, who began exhibiting together in 1988, many of them wrapped up in the rising art market and collected by figures such as Charles Saatchi.
Sometimes his work – a re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave in 1984, one of the fiercest clashes of the miners' strike, or organising the ladies of the Women's Institute to show flower arrangements at the Tate – did not look like art at all.

His mum said "I tried to explain his work to the Queen when Jeremy took me to a reception at Buckingham Palace. I don't think she quite understood, but she was too polite to say."
Rugoff declares of Deller that he , "brought up questions of value" in his work. “ He has rarely made work that can be bought or sold straightforwardly. He has, said Rugoff, "heralded a new chapter when artists work as catalysts, producers, curators and collaborators … and with his interest in folk art and the creativity of everyday life he has brought attention to what other people have done".
There are some great events planned to accompany the exhibition including a David Shrigley and Jeremy Deller DJ Night on Friday 4 May 2012. Jeremy Deller’s interest in the social character of pop music is far ranging. The enthusiasms, rituals and passionate loyalty of fans have all provided the artist with inspiration. Our Hobby is Depeche Mode reflects on how people intimately embrace pop culture and embed it in the fabric of their everyday lives.The exhibition  runs until 13^th May

The Arts Desk

Anish Kapoor’s Leviathan, a commission for the Monumenta series at the Paris Grand Palais

Here's a great newletter to keep you up with a wide range of items on what's new and good in the media and the arts . Here you will find theatre and film reviews, features on matters of interest such as  'Is Classical music relevant?'or a list of this year's Festivals , and CD, DVD and book reviews and interviews with people from the arts and a comprehensive listing of whats on in cinemas, theatres, galleries and concert halls. Sign up and get a weekly round up of all this in your inbox. As well as seeing  the very latest in the arts you can also view the archives of the newsletter. To subscribe look for the box on the right hand side of this page halfway down

Easter in Port Talbot: The Passion

Michael Sheen (famous as the actor playing Tony Blair in 'The Queen' and Frost in 'Frost/Nixon') returned to his hometown of Port Talbot to direct and act in a 3 day play called The Passion  with a cast of over 1000 (14 actors and the rest members of the community in choirs and bands, amateur acting and dancing groups and ordinary people who thronged the streets).  Staging was by  Bill Mitchell and the Cornish site-specific miracle-workers WildWorks, the sound designer Mike Beer, lighting designer Paul Jarvis, and music director Clair Ingleheart. It was a National Theatre Wales , Wildworks production. The project is described here
The 72-hour performance, inspired by the biblical passion play, took place around the town on Easter weekend. During the marathon event, Sheen performed sequences on Port Talbot's beaches, hills and streets, including "The Trial" at Civic Square, "The Procession" at Station Road and "The Cross" on Aberavon Seafront.
There are some images here and here that show key moments from the Passion Play. Watch out for the filmed version on BBC in the future

Transformation and Revelation: UK Design for Performance 2007 – 2011

 Transformation and Revelation opens in Cardiff at the Welsh College of Music and Drama on March 18th. The exhibition is the work of The Society of British Theatre Designers and is a preview before it travels in part to represent the UK at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition this summer. A selection of designs will be on display at the V&A from 17th March – 30th September 2012.
Designs on display will range from Antony Gormley’s Sutra with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the Shaolin Warrior Monks for Sadlers Wells to Es Devlin’s designs and projections for the Lady Gaga Monsterball Tour. The exhibition will include drawings, paintings and photographs, 3D artefacts, scale models, specialist props, costumes and puppets, and there will be interactive exhibits from Lighting, Video and Sound designers, Theatre Consultants and Theatre Architects.
The exhibition also offers  the first chance to see inside the new RWCMD building currently under construction which is due to open later this year. The exhibition will take place in a number of spaces including the newly built Richard Burton Theatre.
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, The Castle Grounds, North Rd, Cardiff, CF10 3ER

Monday – Friday 9.30am to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday10am to 5pm
Entrance to this exhibition is free to the general public.