Monday, June 29, 2009

Marcus Coates: "Animal Instincts" NOMA (New Orleans Museum of Art), USA



Marcus Coates: Animal Instincts, June 10 to August 23

Presented in NOMA’s new permanent video art space, Marcus Coates: Animal Instincts

is comprised of five video pieces featuring a range of work from the past 10 years.

Ornithologist, naturalist, artist, and shaman, Coates creates videos that examine

humankind’s complicated relationship to other living species. Assuming the role of a

shaman in his later pieces, Coates journeys to the “lower world” of animal spirits,

updating the historical role of a shaman as a community problem-solver. In his own

words, “you can’t escape your humanness, but the point of my work has been to explore

the degrees to which you can test that boundary and entertain the possibility of becoming

something else.” Organized by Miranda Lash, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.


image:

Marcus Coates

The Plover's Wing (The Palestinian/Israeli Crisis), The Mayor of Holon, Interpreter and Marcus Coates

2008
Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK

Marcus Coates: "EXPosition of mythology - ELectronic technology" Nam June Paik Art Center, Korea




EXPosition of mythology - ELectronic technology

EXPosition of mythology
ELectronic technology
12 June - 4 October 2009
Opening 12 June Friday, at 5pm
Exhibition Hall 2 of Nam June Paik Art Center

Artists

Nam June Paik, alan∂, Chang Sung Eun, Christoph Meier, Gregor Zootzky, Hong Chul Ki, Honore ∂’O, Javier Tellez, Jimmie Durham, Kevin Clarke, Kim Yun Ho, Mary Bauermeister, Marcus Coates, Roland Topor, Ryu Han Kil, Park Kyong, Park Jong Woo, Pedro Diniz Reis, Tilo Baumgartel, Ujino Muneteru, Una Szeemann, Ute Mueller, and Others.

Curated by Youngchul Lee

The EXPosition of Mythology - ELectronic Technology explores notions of technology, mythology and religion through the perspective of Nam June Paik's first solo exhibition in 1963, EXPosition of Music ELectronic Television. Nam June Paik's first solo exhibition is taken as representative of the thinking and concerns Paik would later explore in his practice and represents a bridge between Eastern and Western philosophies offering an alternative perspective into how technology, mythology and religion can be understood from a more anthropological perspective.

In this 1963 exhibition, Paik presented his first experiments with televisions, his prepared pianos and several other objects that invited audience participation. Paik’s use of the exhibition space, including hanging a dead cow’s head in the entrance and making people walk around a giant balloon to enter the rest of the exhibition, highlights his emphasis the viewer's participation and bodily experience. In addition, Paik also raised issues concerning the experience of time, media, history, and knowledge by suggesting different themes and concepts through the works created for the exhibition, the posters displayed, and the type of participation solicited to experience this show. The following were some of Paik's themes:

instrumentsforZenExercise,ObjectsSonores,SonolizedRoom,KindergartenfortheOld,Memoriesofthe20thCentury,Howtobesatisfiedwith70%,
HommagetoRudolfAugstein,PreparedWC,Fetishismofidea,Quesaisje?,Doityour...,Synchronizationasaprincipleofindeterminaterelationships,
Isthetimewithoutcontentpossible?,AstudyofGermanidiotology,
amongothers

For the upcoming exhibition the aim is to play with these themes, reflect on them, update them to current situations and even possibly parody some of them. Selected works will be presented alongside documentation related to different themes to emphasize the relevance and development of the concerns present in Paik’s exhibition in relation to historical, cultural and anthropological perspectives informed by a reading of the forty years that have passed since EXPosition of Music, Electronic Television.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Matt Stokes: "Club Ponderosa: Closing Party" 176, London, UK



Club Ponderosa is going out with a BANG!

This Sunday 2-9pm

2pm-4pm: Potluck Picnic

And informal discussion about

Club Ponderosa past-present-future

3pm: Music starts – featuring

A-Human

Visitor Q

Milly Blue

Camden Ceili Band

Dogtanian

Paul Askew

DJs

Crofton Black, i-ality sound system

Tom Richards


Club Ponderosa is an active social space

for music, theatre, festivals and events,

which exists at 176 for the duration of

Matt Stokes’s exhibition, The Gainsborough Packet, &c.

All events at Club Ponderosa are free.

For more info visit www.myspace.com/clubponderosa

For details of The Gainsborough Packet, &c.,

Matt Stokes’s residency exhibition at 176, visit www.projectspace176.com

Friday, June 26, 2009

Catherine Bertola: "Out of the Ordinary" Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, UK



Out of the Ordinary in Sheffield

Crafts Council and V&A exhibtion Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft opens at Museums Sheffield: Millennium Gallery on 25 June.

Time-honoured techniques. Exquisite craft. Spectacular contemporary art. This summer, Museums Sheffield will reveal the extraordinary in the everyday with a new free exhibition featuring meticulous workmanship and skill at the heart of every work. Presented by the V&A and Crafts Council, Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft will bring together the work of artists from the UK, America, Nigeria, China and Japan. Taking inspiration from the familiar and the forgotten, each of these artists has used traditional craft techniques to produce stunning contemporary works. Out of the Ordinary will feature a series of unusual and beautifully crafted installations, where each artist transforms their subject by using conventional techniques in the most unexpected of ways. Employing traditional craft skills, including embroidery, wood carving, lace-making and marquetry, the artists play with extremes of scale or re-work precious, ephemeral or everyday materials to create new and striking effects. The exhibition will feature work by Olu Amoda, Catherine Bertola, Annie Cattrell, Susan Collis, Naomi Filmer, Lu Shengzhong, Yoshihiro Suda and Anne Wilson. Scottish artist Annie Cattrell laser etches clouds inside solid blocks of glass and uses traditional lamp-work techniques to create a fragile glass sculpture representing the breath trapped inside a human lung. Lu Shengzhong, Professor of Folk Art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, uses traditional paper-cutting techniques to create large scale installations of cascading red paper, consisting of thousands of tiny hand-cut figures, evoking the imagery of traditional Chinese folk art. Japanese artist Yoshihiro Suda makes precise carvings of life-like weeds and plants, revealing the stark beauty in simple, often overlooked things. In a new commission for Museums Sheffield, Catherine Bertola will create a floor-based work in response to objects found in our metalwork collection. Finding inspiration in the Parish pattern cutlery designed in Sheffield, Bertola will create an intricate carpet of metal pins which carefully recreates these familiar designs in a playful new context. This commission will go on display alongside Bertola’s series of drawings, Bluestockings, and work produced especially for Out of the Ordinary by Olu Amoda, Susan Collis, Naomi Filmer and Anne Wilson.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Marcus Coates Wins Diawa Foundation Art Prize



We are proud to announce that Marcus Coates has won the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize; consisting of a £5,000 prize and a solo exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo.

The 3 artists shortlisted from over 800 entries are:

Marcus Coates - His film, installation and performance art focuses on the relationship between humans and other species. Coates is currently exhibiting in the ‘Altermodern’ Tate Triennial at Tate Britain.

Adam Dant - Dant’s art practice involves pamphleteering, map making and large, narrative sepia-ink drawings. Already inspiring interest in Japan, Fuji TV International has made a documentary about Dant and his work.

Bedwyr Williams - Working in a variety of media, including performance and photography, Williams’ work communicates the misunderstandings and misreadings relating to cultural identity. Williams has exhibited extensively all over the world and is the winner of the 2005 Arts Council Creative Wales Award.


Professor Marie Conte-Helm (Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation): ‘We are gratified by the tremendous response to this new initiative. Our expert judging panel has selected artists of high calibre from all corners of the visual arts. As an entrée to the Japanese art world, the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize has been recognized as a unique opportunity and one which underlines the Foundation's commitment to supporting links between Britain and Japan.’

Jonathan Watkins (Panel chair and Director of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham): ‘The artists chosen represent the diverse cross-disciplinary and cross-generational practice that is representative of the current state of British art. The work has a universal appeal touching upon areas that transcend cultural boundaries, exposing issues of language, identity and fantasy.’


Image; Intelligent Design. 2009. Marcus Coates. Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Darren Banks "Panda Malin Head" Auto Italia South East




PANDA MALIN-HEAD

Darren Banks, Robert Bidder, Joseph Carter, Danielle Dean, Amanda Dennis, James Lewis,
Neb Poulton and S/Z

Private view - Saturday 20th June 7pm - 9pm
21st June - 5th July 2009

Open Wednesday - Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment


Finding out by Experiment - You can do all these experiments with very simple apparatus. If you do them carefully, they should work first time. If you are not successful first do not be disappointed. Find out why; there is always a reason.

They have solved their problem by trial and error, which is very much the way a scientist works in his laboratory. He thinks about a problem, tries to find the answer by experiment, and if he does not succeed he goes on trying different ways until his problem is solved. If one of your experiments does not work, find out why. Correct any fault you find, and try again.

Magnets, Bulbs and Batteries A Ladybird Junior Science Book by F.E. Newing (Author), et al.


This exhibition could be described as Show and Tell.

Panda Malin-Head is an exhibition organised by Amanda Dennis and James Lewis, it aims to explore their own practice through bringing together pieces of work made by their friends, people they know and admire. The work has been chosen because there is something alluring in it, which could be described as obscure, weird, illogical or quixotic.

Auto Italia South East
1 Glengall Road
London
SE15 6NJ

autoitaliasoutheast.org
info@autoitaliasoutheast.org

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Marcus Coates is shortlisted for the "Darwia Foundation Art Prize"




Marcus Coates is one of three artists short listed for the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, introducing British artists to Japan, will exhibit their work at Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery in London from 15 June – 17 July 2009. The winner of the £5,000 prize and the opportunity for a solo exhibition at the Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo will be announced on 16th June.



Marcus Coates - His film, installation and performance art focuses on the relationship between humans and other species. Coates is currently exhibiting in the ‘Altermodern’ Tate Triennial at Tate Britain.

Adam Dant - Dant’s art practice involves pamphleteering, map making and large, narrative sepia-ink drawings. Already inspiring interest in Japan, Fuji TV International has made a documentary about Dant and his work.

Bedwyr Williams - Working in a variety of media, including performance and photography, Williams’ work communicates the misunderstandings and misreadings relating to cultural identity. Williams has exhibited extensively all over the world and is the winner of the 2005 Arts Council Creative Wales Award.


Professor Marie Conte-Helm (Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation): ‘We are gratified by the tremendous response to this new initiative. Our expert judging panel has selected artists of high calibre from all corners of the visual arts. As an entrée to the Japanese art world, the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize has been recognized as a unique opportunity and one which underlines the Foundation's commitment to supporting links between Britain and Japan.’

Jonathan Watkins (Panel chair and Director of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham): ‘The artists chosen represent the diverse cross-disciplinary and cross-generational practice that is representative of the current state of British art. The work has a universal appeal touching upon areas that transcend cultural boundaries, exposing issues of language, identity and fantasy.’


Image; Intelligent Design. 2009. Marcus Coates. Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Marcus Coates & Chrome Hoof: Coronet Theatre, London, UK


Images: (Top) by Le Gun, (Below) by Nick David

A Ritual for Elephant & Castle


Coronet Theatre, 28 New Kent Rd, London SE1 6TJ

5th June 2009 7pm - 12am

Presented by Nomad, in association with Qu Junktions.

A Ritual for Elephant and Castle is a multi-dimensional live musical performance ritual. A collusion of artist / shape-shifter Marcus Coates and the thunder- rock and disco of the mighty Chrome Hoof.

In response to the plans for the Elephant & Castle area to be leveled and for it to rise up as a new urban vision, Marcus Coates together with Chrome Hoof and Wildbirds & Peacedrums will perform their unique brand of mesmerizing music.

The performance will feature the debut of a collaborative durational set jointly authored and composed by Chrome Hoof and Marcus Coates. For them, this gig is more than entertainment; it is a functional civic rite.

“As performers we have a responsibility to work for our audience, we want this show to serve a practical function - the exploration and expression of a collective imagination that sees this place for what it has been and influences how it could be.” Marcus Coates

Accompanied by a stuffed buzzard and a trombone, Coates has been staying with residents, sleeping out in the empty housing estates and consulting with businesses and the council, arming himself with information and experience to embody the area and act as a locater of insight into this time of transition.

Chrome Hoof are an infamous London based collective of musicians best known for their live performances which transcend the clichés of contemporary rock music.

Over the years Chrome Hoof have grown in numbers, building an army of improvising multi-instrumentalists and generating a devoted cult following with their legendary live performances.

Through sound and spectacle, Chrome Hoof often induces their audiences into a trance-like state, for ‘A Ritual for Elephant and Castle’ Chrome Hoof will support Marcus Coates on his journey and assist him to articulate his findings.

Nomad was established in 2006 to facilitate new dialogues between artist, exhibition and the public domain. Nomad continually strives to build support structures for artists to explore non-traditional working and presentation methods. Their commissioning process is orientated towards increasing knowledge and experience for artists, collaborators and audiences alike.

The historic Coronet Theatre is a central focus of Elephant & Castle, it's one of the few buildings that will remain beyond the completion of the redevelopment masterplan.

For more information: www.nomad.org.uk

For tickets: www.ticketweb.co.uk