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Chisenhale Gallery

LUCY SKAER: THE SIEGE

PREVIEW 25 MARCH 2008, 6:30 - 8:30PM
DATES 26 MARCH - 04 MAY 2008
OPENING TIMES WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY, 1:00 - 6:00PM
THURSDAYS 3 APRIL AND 1 MAY, 1:00 - 9:00PM
ADMISSION FREE

http://www.chisenhale.org.uk

Lucy Skaer’s new commission for Chisenhale Gallery takes a siege situation as its conceptual underpinning, and as a narrative scenario in which to physically place her large-scale drawings and sculptures. Skaer is specifically interested in two characteristics of a siege: the limitation of resources and the dramatic reordering of temporality and value that creates a heightened awareness of passing time. Within this scenario, Skaer seeks to explore a tension between the abstraction created by high capitalism, in which objects are understood in terms of exchange value or associated image, and their direct material nature, denuded of their context and meaning. The objects in the gallery will operate as both resources and protagonists within her re-staging of a siege.

A central wall splits the space into ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Interrogating systems of exchange, the objects displayed are made from materials with an inherent quantifiable value such as gold and coal. Recast in forms that negate physicality (such as numeric zeros or a sculptural expression of flight), the objects pit their own material and symbolic value against one another. The references to previous periods of art – whether through explicit use of works by Katsushika Hokusai or Constantin Brancusi or visual echoes of Dada and Surrealism – revisit violent or uncertain moments of aesthetic and historical encounter.

In the ‘exterior’ zone of the exhibition two of Skaer’s large-scale drawings lie supine on the floor. Both have been sourced from historical images of water in a moment of dramatically suspended action, pre-photographically freezing time. Based on Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’ (c. 1823) and Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘The Deluge’ (1517), each drawing is an enlargement of the original image, emphasising its physical presence in relation to the viewer. Referring to the drawings as masks or decoys, Skaer employs a system of representational drawing that both renders and diverts the route of the source image.

Enclosed behind the exhibition’s dividing wall, a group of antique tables have been adapted and used as printing plates to create the images displayed; the presence of both printing tool and print articulates the temporal immediacy of the indexical image, underlined by the recurrent use of the ‘0’ motif which, when employed in a digital countdown, marks a sense of insistent presentness. Another grouping of objects entitled Black Alphabet comprises a series of totemic sculptures fabricated from compressed coal dust. Based on the twenty-six Bird in Space sculptures Brancusi made periodically across the course of his lifetime in bronze, marble and alabaster, Skaer’s scorched re-workings crystallise the occurrence of these objects through time while foregoing the spiritual transcendence of Brancusi’s originals for a potent materiality. Each in the series is a unit of reserve: the fuel of the besieged.

Lucy Skaer was born in Cambridge in 1975 and lives and works in Glasgow and Basel. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and she recently represented Scotland at the 52 Venice Biennale. She represented by Doggerfisher, Edinburgh and Elizabeth Kaufmann, Zurich.

EVENTS SATURDAY 12 APRIL, 3PM: LUCY SKAER IN CONVERSATION WITH POLLY STAPLE

SATURDAY 3 MAY, 3PM: ARTIST ROSALIND NASHASHIBI DISCUSSES THE EXHIBITION

CONTACT CHISENHALE GALLERY FOR CV, HIGH RES IMAGES OR FURTHER INFORMATION

CHISENHALE GALLERY
64 CHISENHALE ROAD
LONDON E3 5QZ
T 00 44 +(0)20 8981 4518 / F 00 44 +(0)20 8980 7169
E press@chisenhale.org.uk
http://www.chisenhale.org.uk

Arthouse

Trenton Doyle Hancock
In collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia
Good Vegan Progression #5, 2007
Hand cut synthetic, natural and digitally printed fabric layered and stitched on fire retardant theatre curtain
216 x 648 inches

Cult of Color: Call to Color
Notes on a Collaboration
March 22 - April 27, 2008

http://www.arthousetexas.org

Arthouse at the Jones Center proudly presents Cult of Color: Call to Color - Notes on a Collaboration, March 22 – April 27, 2008.

The Story
Cult of Color: Call to Color is a chapter in Trenton Doyle Hancock’s ongoing artistic mythology. Hancock’s paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and individual performances work together to represent his characters, the Mounds, the Vegans, and other imaginative creatures, who are at the center of the artist’s unfolding operatic narrative. Hancock’s characters and their dilemmas embody themes of life and death, the struggle between good and evil, love, authority, spirituality and moral relativism. Biblical in scope, mythological in content, and comic book in style, the story tells of a battle fought between the gentle Mounds and the mutant Vegans. In this chapter of Hancock’s story we are introduced to the Vegan minister, Sesom (Moses spelled backwards) who, like his namesake, offers the possibility of salvation to the unruly and war-like Vegan followers through the intervention of a loving character, Painter. And, just as all the Vegans appear to convert to t
he goodness of “The Cult of Color,” one antagonist, Betto Watchow, resists. The ensuing violent struggles for power between these forces of will are at the core of this episode of Hancock’s tale. Balancing moral dilemmas with wit and a musical sense of language and color, Hancock creates a painterly space of psychological dimension.

The Collaboration – a ballet and an exhibition
This unique project originated with Stephen Mills, Ballet Austin’s Artistic Director, who invited Trenton Doyle Hancock and Graham Reynolds to collaborate with him to create a new ballet based on Hancock’s ongoing visual narrative. Reynolds composed the music as well as the sound environments, and Mills created the unique choreography. Hancock conceived the story, designed the costumes, sets and properties which include a backdrop curtain and fabric made in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia.

The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Cult of Color: Call to Color a new ballet commissioned by Ballet Austin and created by visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, choreographer Stephen Mills and composer Graham Reynolds. Ballet performances will be held at the AustinVentures StudioTheater at Ballet Austin, 501 West 3rd Street, April 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, with matinees April 6, 12 and 13, 2008.

The Exhibition
The exhibition traces various aspects of this original, cross-disciplinary collaboration among three Texas-based artists – Trenton Doyle Hancock, Houston; Graham Reynolds and Stephen Mills, Austin. Within the Arthouse gallery walls the artists’ inspirations will reveal themselves, and the form and structure of the work, its very essential nature, will be exposed. Additionally, the exhibition will explore the complexity of translating an artist’s visual world into a compelling, innovative performance including original music and dance. The exhibition will present four environmental installations derived from the ballet: the characters, the Forest, the Cave, the Ossitecture and the Battle. The galleries will include Hancock’s paintings, notes, drawings, and formal and informal sketches that inform the design and concept of the production, as well as artworks that inspired the backdrop curtains, stage props, and costumes. Hancock will also create site-specific installati
on elements at Arthouse. Reynolds’ entire score will be available and his sound elements will texture the artistic spaces. Mills’ working process will be represented through video and video projection as well as photographs.

A catalog will be published.

About Arthouse
Headquartered at the Jones Center in Austin, Texas, Arthouse is the oldest statewide contemporary visual art organization in Texas. Arthouse seeks to promote the growth and appreciation of contemporary art and artists in Texas. Through its exhibitions and programs in Austin and statewide, Arthouse helps nurture artists’ careers and deepen public understanding of contemporary art.
All exhibitions and programs at Arthouse are free and open to the public.

For more information on Arthouse, please visit http://www.arthousetexas.org ,
or contact Virginia Jones at vjones@arthousetexas.org or at tel. (512) 453-5312.