Make Art Not War - NAGW Party

Last Thursday, 11th February we popped over to the New Art Gallery Walsall to help them to celebrate their 10th birthday party.On entering the gallery we were greeted by the jolly site of lots of paper balls floating in the space. It was lovely to be back, and see Iannouis and Helen and Hannah and all the other staff. Iannouis said thanks for the card - and pointed up the stairs and said 'we put it on show.' So I went up to have a look, and was really pleased. I had got a message asking me to send a birthday card, and I did along with a gift - an Interrogation pack for the gallery archive. All of the artists who have worked with the gallery over the last 10 years were asked to send in cards, and all of these were on display in the We are Ten! show. It was also great to have another look around the Garman Ryan Collection, and it was exciting as the collection had been revived and refreshed with things moved around, and new things added. I particularly liked Bob and Roberta Smith's head in between two Epstein's. I realised that part of the reason I love the Garman Ryan so much is how accessible it is in terms of it's subject matter, and this must be because it was someone's personal collection - the intimacy and love seems to show. The other reason is I think because of the brave approach taken by the curators. Not since the Lille visit to Torcoing's Musee des Beaux Arts have I seen such intelligent, and exciting curation; where beautiful classical sculpture is allowed to converse with contemporary objects, creating new and exciting dialogues.Fiona Banner's piece 'Be There Saturday Sweetheart,' which was originally commissioned for the opening of the gallery, and taken from one of Lady Epstein's love letters, was back on display - and looking great.
The Party exhibition was also really enjoyable - and had some of my favourite artists, altogether in one place. Go and see it - it's fantastic.

Putting the love together

So all of the requests are now in from people wishing to send a love message for Valentine's Day. I have put them all in the envelopes and addressed them, and now I just need to put the stamps on, and then we are ready to go.
I think I will post them off tomorrow - since I was stingey and bought second class!

100 billet doux

I have just started a quick project for Valentine's Day.

Over ten years ago I was working on a project which involved textual messages of love.
The first part of it involved putting up quite negative texts around the city, which were in response to my romantic situation at the time. Then when I started to feel more positive I distributed messages of love around the city instead. (see photo above)
It is interesting for me to notice, by looking back at my old sketch books, that I am still using texts, and still interested in love, relationships and the public/private dichotomy today. I think at the time what I was doing was quite unself-conscious - and of course the work is more rough and ready - also interestingly the text has inverted (colourwise) and has gone from black on white, to white on black.

I have decided to repeat the activity in a way, and so here is the call for 'participants:'

It is nearly Valentine’s Day.

10 years ago around this time I went into the city armed with a fistful of 100 love messages, printed in black text on white paper.

They were messages of love for strangers.

I put them under the windscreen wipers of people’s cars – and hoped that for someone somewhere they would ring true.

My Mum told me that this could cause trouble for people’s marriages. What if a jealous husband thought his wife was having an affair as a result of my little text? I prefer to think that they made someone, somewhere feel amazing for a second.

I want to repeat the act in some way now, ten years later – but this time the texts should not be unsolicited – they should come from you.

If you want me to send someone a message of love on your behalf - simply send me their name and address, and I will send them one of the love texts in time for Valentine’s day. Email me at billetdoux@yahoo.co.uk

The first 100 people will be selected.

Free Love.

The Winner Takes it All? Book Surprise!

Today I received a very exciting, unexpected surprise package in the post...It held 30 copies of the book to document 'The Winner Takes It All?'
'The Winner...' was an event which I was lucky enough to be selected to attend, which took place in Liverpool during 2008 Capital of Culture year. It offered an opportunity for artists from across the UK to visit and explore the city, and question, discuss and debate issues arising from the cities status as capital of culture - and opening the wider debate over cultural led urban regeneration.
It was an amazing opportunity, and one that I am still thinking about more than a year later. CLICK HERE to read my original documentation of the event, which has been quoted in the book!
I am particularly pleased to receive the copies of the book as one of my photographs has been used as the front cover. The book is a document of some of the discussions which took place during the weekend, and an exploration of the context and intentions and purpose of events like this by James Buso (project manager for The Winner) plus a really interesting essay by Penny Whitehead on 'legacy,' and an article by Glasgow based artist Janie Nicholl, which sets Liverpool's award in context, through a discussion of Glasgow's previous experience of the same award.
I find the debates particularly interesting, after the articles in Stoke's local paper suggesting we should get the award.
A big thank you to all of the Liverpool artists for hosting the event, and an even bigger one to Jim, for documenting the event in this way - ensuring that these important discussions are recorded and distributed.

POST - at Trove

This Friday I will be popping along to Trove - the art space at the Old Science Museum, Birmingham where I have some work on display (see above) as part of the group show POST.
Here's a bit about it:For the forthcoming exhibition at TROVE this January 2010, curator Charlie Levine and artist Hayley Lock have invited friends and acquaintances from the social network facebook to partake in a Christmas card/collage exchange. All works posted through the physical and therefore traditional routes are to be traditionally displayed together in plan chests at TROVE. The exhibition will be an amalgamation of works responding to the idea of ‘Post’.

Artists include:

Darren Banks, Liz Bradshaw, Martyn Cross, Vicky Cull, Annabel Dover, Tracy Eastham, Rebecca Foster, Anna Francis, Anneka French, Jo Gane, Helen Grundy, Lulu Horsfield, David Kefford, Hayley Lock, Renauld Loda, MAMA, David Miller, Malcolm Moseley, Justine Moss, Alex Pearl, John Rixon, Sarah Sparkes, Emily Speed, Ana Benlloch and Stuart Tait, Cathy Wade, Edward Wakefield, Lucy Wilson, Jennifer Zoellner

The private view is on Friday night: 15th Jan 6-9pm.
UPDATE:We arrived at Trove around half six (after getting a bit lost in Birmingham) the big expanse must be where the rest of the science museum used to be. Trove is in the one remaining building - which used to house the Museum's collection of steam engines, we were told.
On arrival we were intrigued as there didn't seem to be any lights on in the building, on entering it became clear why, as we were handed a torch, with which to go and explore the art works.
In the large space were two museum chests - which viewers were busy opening in order to view the art works. This made the experience more intimate and interesting. Viewers had to collude with each other on when to close this drawer and open the next one.
I became 'partners' with a man whose face I couldn't see - looking through each drawer, and commenting on it to each other 'Are we allowed to touch them do you think?' 'What do you think that is made of?' For around 4 minutes we were confidantes - and then it was over.
The genius of the exhibition was in the experience, reading someone elses letters by torchlight, in a big old museum building. 'Post' is now set to travel to Southend-on-Sea for another showing down there, I think I may send something extra to go with it...

Romantic Proposal

My photographic/text piece 'i miss him' will be on display from 12th December until 18th April 2010 in the Romantic Proposal exhibition at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, along with 3 new text pieces, which are interspersed with video documentation of Emily Campbell's 'Love Ties' project, the large text based piece in Hanley Park. I assisted Emily on the Love Ties Project back in 2004 - talking to and working with members of the public in the park - generating texts about love. One of the ways that the texts were gathered was through a flower stall that was set up at the entrance to the park - people could select a flower and just had to say who they would give it to, and what they would say when they did.
I'm really pleased that my pieces are included in the exhibition, and I am looking forward to seeing how the work looks in the space.
Follow Up: On arrival at the museum there was a big sign outside advertising the exhibition. Once inside there was some beautiful romantic music to be heard, which attracted people towards the first floor gallery space - where a string quartet was playing. The walls of the gallery are painted a deep red colour. There are various approaches to the courtship of relationships, most of which celebrating the heart and flowers chocolate box stuff. I suppose the title of the exhibition 'Romantic Proposal' suggests this approach, but still I was surprised by the lack of balance.
My piece I think stands out as being one of the few pieces in the show to cover the darker side of romance; and what happens when it all goes wrong.
I believe that my piece talks of love and loss. My second piece 'Romantic Triptych' goes even further down the road of loss; being the birth, life and death of a relationship. This piece is shown on a video screen, and is interspersed within the video documentation from Emily Campbell's Love Ties project. Now that I have seen the way that it is displayed, I am not very happy with it; but it is an important learning curve. At the time that it was suggested I was unsure, but allowed myself to be swayed, I do now think that I should have had the strength of my convictions, and should have insisted that the work be shown as it was intended (printed and displayed as a linear triptych; birth, life and death) or not at all.

The Makers

From Friday night to Sunday night last weekend 9 artists from Stoke-on-Trent mounted a touching exhibition of arts and crafts at Artwaves, Burslem. Most of the artists exhibiting were actually craftmakers, showing a variety of lovely gifts and wares. There were some wall pieces made from wool collected from the Staffordshire Moorlands by Ruby Sufi, these peices Ruby described as 'questions' and related to Ruby's interests in biochemistry. Kate Lynch had some of her reclaimed wallpaper and recycled material products for sale, including sketchbooks and delicate wall hangings. Katie Shipley had some pieces made from recycled library books, and Deb Nicklin had a series of dolly portraits on show. The Makers was curated by Celine Siani Djiakoua, whose jewellery brightened the sapce. The lovely thing about the idea was that the individual makers started to leak into each others practices, with Ruby making some woollen beads for Celine's jewellery, Kate Lynch making some paper cases for Celine's Jewellery, and Ruby making some wolleen inserts for Kate's recycled wallets, making them into needle cases. My garden festival decoupage was also on display, fitting into the theme of reclamation and recycling.