CLEAVE 2019 opened last night

Open Fri-Sun 11am-5pm to 23 June 2019 

Artists talks Saturday 15 June 2pm 

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DOWNLOAD: ARTISTS ASK ARTISTS ABOUT THEIR WORK

CLEAVE shows the work of artists Lisa Andrew, Karen Banks, Linden Braye, Jenny Brown, Sue Callanan, Socorro Cifuentes, Ben Denham, Nola Farman, WeiZen Ho, Fiona Kemp/Virginia Hilyard, Jacek Przybyszewski and Margaret Roberts. 

Sue Callanan Rediscovering Cristina Iglesias (2019). Plasterboard. I first saw Cristina Iglesias’s work in the Guggenheim, NY in the late 90’s. The large concrete and tapestry works nestled into the architecture- hard edged on the outside, soft and domestic on the inside. I’ve created a mini version to insert itself into the architecture of Articulate- the outer plaster surface continuous with the plaster walls of the space; the inner walls, revealing  the exposed paper surface of the plasterboard, with their fragile scrapings mimicking the soft interiors of Iglesias’s work.

Linden Braye Igloo 2019 (fibreglass, perspex, metal, cotton string, copper wire, plastic)

Karen Banks  aAND, 2019 Video projection, 3.22min, yellow glass 25mm x 35mm
Single channel video work projected onto glass. Using hand-processed 16mm film that has been subjected to digital manipulation the video projection re-discovers the ‘hand’ as object within the context of Dora Maar’s Untitled, 1933-34 (shown left).  Following the contours of Maar’s photomontaged image, the video traces an unfolding into an unknown landscape; it is here the ‘hand’ negotiates containment and escape.

Front to back: Ben Denham, Margaret Roberts, Virginia Hilyard/Fiona Kemp, Lisa Andrew, Jacek Przybyszewski
Ben Denham HEAT DEATH: SOMETIMES MAKING SOMETHING LEADS TO NOTHING, REPRISE (2012), single channel video, 2:43 minutes. A remake of Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing by Francis Alÿs.

Margaret Roberts  Dance 2019 (floor, wood, scenic paint+shoe polish 240x90cm).  Dance enlarges Sophie Taeuber’s Vertical-Horizontal Composition, cuts it into its parts and locates them together on the floor, aiming to incorporate the actual place of dancing that Taeuber included implicitly in her painting.    margaretroberts.org

Nola Farman   The Hermit’s Tablecloth (Version 3)

A re-contextualization of a passage from Eugene Ionesco’s Le Solitaire concerning a peaceful, solitary life besieged by the politics and power struggles of others, which are ultimately  inescapable. 

Virginia Hilyard/FionaKemp   PARE, 2019     Single channel video

The work of Andrei Tarkovsky was the catalyst  to use a 360 camera on a recent residency in Russia. For Cleave we are specifically working with the sense of ‘a peeling’ - of one side from the other - a by-product of the 360 video spheres. While moving through a space as it is being filmed, the fabric of the environment is being peeled away. What is being filmed is the body of a house in decay.  http://www.virginiahilyard.com     http://fionakemp.com

Lisa Andrew HighWayWear, 2019  polyester, plastic and pineapple silk, Wooden stand, variable dimensions. Visitors are asked to please pick cloth up and wear it.

WeiZen Ho The Subtle Beings Installation, 2018  beams, hair, perspex

I am extending upon one of the elements to the The Subtle Beings project installed in 2018 at Articulate project space.  It was a response to the conversations and stories exchanged in the communion area next to the home of one of the female shamans from the ‘Rungus’ tribe in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo), where major possession rituals take place. I am reflecting on how the roof structure of the area we were sitting in would be raised several storeys higher during ritual ceremonies and a small platform would be built close to the roof area, enough for the female ritual-maker to conduct her invocation song and dance. It is also connected with the fact that the female maternal lineage has been disintegrating as daughters are less willing to take on the apprenticeship role. weizenho.com                                                                                              

Jacek Przybyszewski TearWalkingimages 2019 (paper, tape, table, floor, wall) Walk signifies for me movement, process or transformation from one meaning to another. What interests me the most is a process… “Not only the  result, but the road to it also, is a part of the truth. The investigation of truth must itself be true: true investigation of truth is unfolded truth, the disjunct members of which unite in the result.” (Eisenstein citing Marx). This work  follows other walking works (SkyWalk mirroring sculpture and WindowWalk photography collection from Factory49 Paris 2016, Walkwithrose interactive floor wooden pieces 2018 and Walkforrose, wall blue tape drawing 2018 at Articulate).

Jenny Brown The activists cave _ charting the historical critique of capitalism. 2019 (detail). Through tapestry titled Maladaptation, Jenny Brown traces the alienating effects of capitalism that sits in the world of activist-on-the-run, Bev Smiles now caught in Kaufman’s hyperreal ‘Adaptation.’

Jenny Brown The activists cave _ charting the historical critique of capitalism. 2019 (detail). Through tapestry titled Maladaptation, Jenny Brown traces the alienating effects of capitalism that sits in the world of activist-on-the-run, Bev Smiles now caught in Kaufman’s hyperreal ‘Adaptation.’

Socorro Cifuentes  Experiencing the World as Our Own (2018, 11'43") is a rearguard remix with different ideas and experiences of activists and intellectuals regarding storytelling, orality, listening, memory and justice. This remix work is thought of as a practice of listening to important political ideas/practices, and aims to recirculate and create relationships among them.