Notes tagged with Curator

Wars During My Lifetime, Canterbury

wars during my lifetime

wars during my lifetime

Performances: Saturday 21 September 2013
11:00 Dane John Gardens
12:30 Whitefriars
14:00 24 Burgate

In a time when war is still being waged around the world a Peace Pavement in our Cathedral City of Canterbury strikes a note of hope. It is now twenty years since the European Peace Pavement was installed in Dane John Gardens and it continues to be a contemporary cultural focus for international visitors to Canterbury. To mark this anniversary it has been refurbished and will be re-launched on International Peace Day 21 September with a new artist’s commission by Martin John Callanan and related events.

A performance of Callanan’s Wars During my Lifetime will occur at sites throughout the city on Saturday 21, starting in the Peace Pavement at 11am.

An installation at 24 Burgate from 21st September to 6th October will further extend ‘Wars During my Lifetime’. It will be accompanied by a free newspaper publication, which will be distributed on the day and during the installation at various city sites including: Waterstones, Dane John Gardens Kiosk, the Cathedral Shop, Saffron Cafe, La Trappiste, Cafe St Pierre, Rymans, Browns Coffee House, Tesco, University Creative Arts, University of Kent, Christ Church University, Royal Museum and Art Gallery,

The Peace Pavement is situated at the Bus Station end of Dane John Gardens. This events are free and open to all.

The United Nations International Peace Day is observed around the world on 21st September each year.

The Peace Pavement was a collaborative project led by curator Sandra Drew involving ten European countries whose cities were bombed, like Canterbury, during recent wars. Each artist came to Canterbury and carved a York paving stone donated by Canterbury City Council. It was opened by John Drummond, director of the European Arts Festival on April 13, 1993.

The refurbishment and new artist’s commission has been organised by Sandra Drew and Sandra Pearson and funded by Canterbury City Council, St Mildred’s Area Community Society (SMACS).

Prising open the corners of the Cube: Open Cube curated by Adriano Pedrosa at White Cube Mason’s Yard

One Stop Arts

Open Cube brings together the work of 17 artists selected from an open submission and curated by Adriano Pedrosa, a former co-curator of São Paulo Biennale. Spread across two floors with distinct themes, this could easily be two exhibitions.

4/5 stars, Harriet Dopson, 21st August 2013
White Cube Mason’s Yard, until 21-Sep

The ground floor of Open Cube at White Cube Mason’s Yard addresses the ideas of “inside” and “outside” the gallery space, inspired by Brian O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube, The Ideology of the Gallery Space. Downstairs, in contrast, is a focus on more formal qualities with geometric abstraction and a recurring theme of the circular.

The ground floor is dominated by Nada Prlja’s floor-to-ceiling Peace Wall. The black, chalk board-like wall is covered with messages in German, kid’s drawings, photocopies and paint. What appears to be the end point of some community project is, however, a reproduction. This wall was created after Prlja’s Peace Wall which was part of the 2012 Berlin Biennale. The project challenged the financial divide between the upper and lower city road Friedrichstrasse (a walk away from the former Berlin wall). Here at Open Cube Pedrosa takes a controversial and originally raw work and brings it into the commercial and isolated space of the White Cube. It is an interesting experiment which really highlights the differences between “inside” and “outside” of the white cube – perhaps it is through this effort that Pedrosa is trying to prise open the corners of the cube?

Having described Prlja’s Peace Wall as dominating the ground floor, you may be surprised to learn that in the middle of the same room is a full-scale crumbling column. Made out of reclaimed construction materials, the column still oddly seems to have some kind of precious heritage sentiment attached to it that I can’t shake, as inside the walls of the White Cube the weight and prestige of the exhibit seems to exaggerate it further – perhaps that’s the point.

The ground floor also deals with another very strong political symbol: currency in Martin John Callanan’s photographic series The Fundamental Units. In contrast, Matt Ager’s delicate work Fine doesn’t quite fit in with the bold works of the of the room and his work is perhaps best appreciated above the stairway, in his work Ish, which seems to question you as you make your journey downstairs. The artists Daniel de Paula reflects Ager’s reflective mood in Toward the Great Labyrinth, a documentation of a walk which the artist took until he completed the same titled book by Hélio Oiticica. Another poetic work is Helen Barff’s display of pockets which have been separated from their cloth and filled with concrete or plaster – one of the few indexical works which feels very suited to the small room of the lower ground floor lobby.

The remainder of the lower ground floor space is a harmony of shapes, material and senses. It is extraordinary to think that the exhibition was formed through open submission with no given theme when experiencing this space. Frank Ammerlaan’s huge treated corrugate-steel disk Day’s End appears to watch over the exhibition, setting the tone of the works; the tone is circular, from the circular hole in the table of Nuno Direitinho’s table in Dialogue on Tides, to the circles of Rowena Harris’s wire mobile of photocopies and the endless loop of Nicky Teegan’s sound work Prayer Battery. There is also a richness of materials such as the thick yellow of Sarah Bernhard’s work with bee pollen and the Amish quilt which is spread over a steel structure in Caitlin Yardley’s Black Refract. The works in this room really bounce off each other and it is impossible to account for them all here. It is really is enjoyable to discover these new works, especially as this platform, White Cube gallery is usually for a select few.

It is perhaps here that I should pause on Pedrosa’s concept of an open and transparent cube, which was the purpose of the open submission. It undoubtedly is a triumph to see so many artists have the chance to exhibit together, although I do question how far the boundaries are really being pushed as out of the 2,900 applicants (the only requirement was to be available for an interview in March) over half of the artists who exhibited have studied or are currently studying at RCA or a UAL college. This does feel disappointing if Adriano Pedrosa really was aiming to challenge the “inside” and “outside” of the gallery world. Regardless, the exhibition is an ambitious summer show which really is worth seeing for the strength of both themes and the thoughtful curation of each room – especially in the lower ground floor gallery.

Original review

Charlie Levine goes inside the White Cube for a review of the current exhibition at Mason’s Yard

Art Fetch

For Art Fetch, Charlie Levine goes inside the White Cube for a review of the current exhibition at Mason’s Yard.

Like many curators, I have been hugely influenced by Brian O’Doherty’s wonderful and seminal book, Inside the White Cube, the Ideology of the gallery Space (1976).  The book, which began life as a series of Artforum essays, defined new ways of thinking about exhibitions and the contemporary white walled art gallery. So, when I heard that the latest Mason’s Yard White Cube gallery exhibition, Open Cube, guest curated by Adriano Pedrosa, was inspired directly by O’Doherty’s book, I had to go and see it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Not only is it a fascinating exhibition, but also reflects a great deal of what Artfetch believes in, and is working to achieve. The 17 artists in the exhibition were selected from an open call out for proposals – a brave thing for a gallery with the branded reputation of White Cube – as an open call invites a deluge. The gallery received over 2,900 applications, from which the curator interviewed 38 to select the final group.

This process of deliberately working with artists new to the curator breaks down the idea of curator/artists networks, drawing its concepts from O’Doherty’s ideas about the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ relationships of a gallery. The idea of opening up the application process and allowing audiences, the gallery and the curator to push themselves in terms of looking for, working with and presenting a new stock of artists is incredible, though only in terms of how top level galleries usually work. By this I mean, it shouldn’t be so unusual, and as I considered this, I began to wonder at how difficult it is for new artists to break into these ‘inside’ relationships.

This relates directly to what we are doing at Artfetch, as we believe it is vital to open the processes of becoming an art world insider, so that talented artists can come to the publics who would otherwise not have a chance to see their work. And although internet–based, face to face meetings are a vital part of our commissioning process. If the relationship and quality of work is there, we invite the artist to work with us.

Open Cube itself is broken down into two parts: on the ground floor the exhibition concerns itself with commerce, value and currency; meanwhile, the lower floor of the Mason’s Yard building looks at different forms of abstraction: including constructivist and geometric, as well as organic, amorphous, and fluid types.

Particular stand out works were by Fay Nicholson’s A is for Albers, a small stack of photocopied postcards, sliced in two by a sheet of Perspex; a series of large photographs of foreign coins by Martin John Callanan; and Jacopo Trabona’s Untitled, which was a simple few cuts on a sheet of paper made by slicing a diamond across it. But my particular favourite was Nicky Teegan’s Void a flat circle of woven VHS tape over a bent steel ring.  It summed up the show for me: defunct material (the VHS tape) re–used to create a typical fine art image – the circle.  It was creating something new and conceptual from the old and familiar.

This exhibition is excellent, from its concept to realisation.  It is a must see show that I hope is the start of a new way of thinking about artist/gallery networks, and about how we produce exhibitions and create new associations. The process itself also questions the role of the physical gallery space, as the open method of calling for, and selecting works, echoes the opportunities offered by the internet – something Pedrosa realises, as he notes his ambition for the show: to break down the “seemingly closed systems that exist in the criteria for staging exhibitions”. About time too.

Open Cube, is at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London, until 21 September 2013

Artists: Matt Ager, Frank Ammerlaan, Adriano Amaral, Helen Barff, Sarah Bernhardt, Martin John Callanan, Nuno Direitinho, Venisha Francis–Hinkson, Rodrigo Garcia Dutra, Rowena Harris, Alan Magee, Fay Nicolson, Daniel de Paula, Nada Prlja, Nicky Teegan, Jacopo Trabona and Caitlin Yardley.

Charlie Levine is Chief UK Artfetcher and Curator.

Open Cube, White Cube – Evening Standard exhibition review

Evening Standard

Curator Adriano Pedrosa pulls off a neat balance with this open submission show: the works feel raw but undaunted in these august surroundings.

Critic Rating 4 star.

Open submission shows can be sprawling affairs, so Open Cube is a rarity: Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa has culled 17 artists from 2,900 applications to create an enjoyable and coherent show. Part of its novelty lies in subverting its setting. White Cube is usually an elite stage where works fetch thousands of pounds. But Pedrosa has invited gatecrashers, most young and based in London, to take over.

Building site detritus: Adriano Amaral’s untitled column (2013)

This mischievous frisson would count for little if the work didn’t stand up to the grand galleries but it does. Upstairs there’s a sense of protest and of economic and cultural decay through Adriano Amaral’s classical column made from building-site detritus, and Nada Prlja’s reconstruction of a graffitied edifice she created in Berlin last year. Downstairs, abstraction reigns, with beautiful echoes between the works’ geometric forms and a homespun modesty in their materials. Caitlin Yardley combines textiles like an Amish quilt with rigid metal frames, while Nuno Dereitinho’s humble table and mirror are transformed into a playful illusion, seeming to hover over the floor.

Pedrosa pulls off a neat balance: the works feel raw but undaunted in these august surroundings.

Ben Luke, London Evening Standard 24 July 2013
http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/open-cube-white-cube–exhibition-review-8729546.html

Fundamental Units at White Cube Mason’s Yard, 12 July – 21 September 2013

White Cube Mason's Yard

São Paulo-based curator Adriano Pedrosa curates an attempt to “infiltrate the hierarchies of the gallery system” by inviting any interested artists to submit works through an open submission process involving an interview and selection system that closed in February 2013. Featured artists include Slade graduate Martin John Callanan and Camberwell graduate Venisha Francis-Hickson.

Open Cube, White Cube Mason’s Yard, 12 July – 21 September 2013

Open Cube, White Cube, Mason's Yard alt="Open Cube, White Cube, Mason's Yard"

Download the press release (PDF)
Download gallery information guide (PDF)
Watch Adriano Pedrosa talk about the exhibition
Buy the catalogue

White Cube Mason’s Yard is pleased to present ‘Open Cube’, an international group exhibition organised by São Paulo-based curator Adriano Pedrosa. Invited by the gallery to curate an exhibition, Pedrosa launched a process of open submission via Art Agenda in January 2013, under the title ‘Call for entries: ‘Open Cube’ at White Cube Mason’s Yard’. The only requirement was that the artist needed to be available for an interview in London with the curator, in March 2013. ‘Open Cube’ received over 2,900 applicants, of which Pedrosa interviewed 38 and selected a final group of 17 artists.

Taking his cue from Brian O’Doherty’s seminal book Inside the White Cube, the Ideology of the Gallery Space (1976), Pedrosa’s exhibition challenges the identity of White Cube as an organisation, as a physical space and as a concept, questioning the complex relationships between existent notions of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, value and economics. By opening up the curatorial selection process beyond his own networks and meeting with artists who were previously unknown to him, Pedrosa confronts what he perceives to be the standard gallery practice of seemingly closed systems that exist in the criteria for staging exhibitions.

The works in the ground-floor gallery are concerned with the concept of the ‘white cube’ and the ‘open cube’ itself, of public and private spaces, as well as value and currency. The works in the lower ground-floor gallery present different forms of abstraction – constructivist and geometric and also organic, amorphous, fluid types – yet many of these run counter to traditional modernist abstract idioms. The 17 artists included in this exhibition, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, The Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, UK and USA, have created work that seeks, as Pedrosa says, ‘to contest these national boundaries as well as the very identity of White Cube itself.’

In the accompanying catalogue, which includes transcripts of the interviews Pedrosa conducted with the 17 selected artists, he suggests that the ‘Open Cube’ is a transparent cube and sets out to reveal what goes on behind the gallery doors. Pedrosa is himself interviewed by Pablo Leon de la Barra, in order to expose his own methods and the motivations behind this exhibition. The publication is fully illustrated and will be available in September 2013.

Open Cube Catalogue

Artists:

Matt Ager was born in 1985 in England and lives and works in London. He recently completed a residency at Skowhegan School in Maine, USA and is currently part of the postgraduate programme at the Royal Academy Schools in London. Recent exhibitions include ‘Classic Poncho’, The China Shop, Oxford (2013); ‘A Nod’, Space in Between, London (2012); ‘OVERTHIN’, Gallery Primo Alonso, London (2011) and ‘DUMBO Arts Festival’, Brooklyn, USA (2010).

Adriano Amaral was born in 1982 in Brazil and lives and works in London. He is currently studying for an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London. Recent exhibitions include ‘WIP Show’, Royal College of Art, London (2013); ‘Embaixo da Terra o Cèu de Novo’, Transversal Gallery, São Paulo (2012); ‘Solo Objects’, Arco Madrid (2012) and ‘Nova Escultura Brasileira’, Caixa Cultural, Rio de Janeiro (2011).

Frank Ammerlaan was born in 1979 in Sassenheim, The Netherlands and lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy, Amsterdam and an MFA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2012). Awards include the Land Securities studio award, Degree Show, Royal College of Art (2012), a residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Calasetta, Italy (2013) and the Royal Award of Painting, The Netherlands (2012). Recent exhibitions include ‘Painting without Paint’, David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen (2012); ‘Day’s End’, Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam and ‘Stereopsis’, The Drawing Room, London (2012).

Helen Barff was born in 1974 in England and lives and works in London. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and Art History from Goldsmiths College, London (1999) and an MA in Drawing from Camberwell College of Arts, London. Residencies include Greatmore Studios, Cape Town and Gasworks Gallery/The Triangle Arts Trust, London (2008).Recent exhibitions include ‘Brood’, Bend in the River, Gainsborough (2011); ‘Things from the Thames’, Bearspace, London (2005); ‘Trident Way’, Departure Gallery, London (2010). Site-specific projects include ‘Route 12:36’, South London Gallery: Artwork on bus routes 12 and 36, London (2000).

Sarah Bernhardt was born in 1989 in Canterbury, UK and lives and works in London. She received a BA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. Recent exhibitions include ‘Co-Respondent’, Transition Gallery, London (2013) and ‘The Sand Between God’s Toes’, Pie Factory, Margate (2012).

Martin John Callanan was born in 1982 in the UK and lives and works in London. He holds an MFA from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (2005) and is currently a Teaching Fellow in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Recent exhibitions include ‘Along Some Sympathetic Lines’, Or Gallery, Berlin (2013); Whitstable Biennale (2012); Horrach Moya Gallery, Palma (2012) and ‘Deed Poll’, a performance at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2012).

Nuno Direitinho was born in 1981 in Portugal and lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art Photography from the Glasgow School of Art (2011) and is currently doing his MFA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Recent exhibitions include ‘Voies Off’, La Galerie a Ciel Ouvert, Arles, France (2012); ‘Emergents DST’, Teatro Circo de Braga, Portugal (2011) and ‘3+1’, Assembly Gallery, Glasgow (2011).

Venisha Francis-Hinkson was born in 1989 in England and lives and works in London. She holds a BTEC National Diploma in Art and Design from St. Francis Xavier College (2009) and a BA (Hons) in Drawing from Camberwell College of Arts (2012). Recent exhibitions include ‘Future Map 12’, CSM Lethaby & Window Galleries, London (2013); The Learning Resource Centre, Camberwell College of Arts (2012) and ‘Peek Show’, The Biscuit Factory, London (2011).

Rodrigo Garcia Dutra was born in 1981 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and lives and works in London. He holds an MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design, London (2009) and is currently studying for an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London (2014). Awards include Fundacão Bienal de São Paulo, Programa Brasil Arte Contemporanea. Recent exhibitions include ‘Notes to Self’, Royal College of Art, London (2013); ‘Outras Coisas Visiveis Sobre Papel’, Galerie Leme, São Paulo (2012); ‘Theory of a City or the Possibilities of an A4′, ISCP, New York City (2011) and ’17 Ingredients: Measures of Autonomy’, BASH Studios, London (2009).

Rowena Harris was born in 1985 in Norfolk and lives and works in London. She holds an MFA in Art Practice from Goldsmiths College, London (2010) and a BA in Fine Art from University College Falmouth, UK (2008). She is the founder and editor of a bi-annual art publication called ‘Misery Connoisseur Magazine’. Recent exhibitions include ‘Cold Compress’, Drei Gallery, Cologne (2012); ‘No More Icons’, Rod Barton Gallery, London (2012); ‘Believing in Things’, Van Horbourg Gallery, Basel (2011); ‘New Contemporaries’, ICA, London and The A Foundation, Liverpool (2010).

Alan Magee was born in 1979 in Ireland and lives and works in London. He holds an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design. Awards include Florence Trust Studio Residency, Arts Council of Ireland and Travel and Mobility Award. Recent exhibitions include ‘Endogenous’, Maria Stenfors Gallery, London (2012); ‘Agents of change’, Studio 1.1, London (2012) and ‘Our Lives as Things’, Occupy Space, Limerick, Ireland (2011).

Fay Nicolson was born in 1984 in Derby, UK and lives and works in London. She holds a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London (2006) and an MFA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2011). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Work with Material’, Künstlerhaus Wien, Vienna (2013) and ‘Bad Signs’, PLAZAPLAZA, London (2012). Group exhibitions include ‘A Small Hiccup’, Grand Union, Birmingham (2013); ‘Take Me Out’, Limoncello Art Projects, The London Art Fair (2013) and ‘Manifesta 8’, Murcia, Spain (2010).

Daniel de Paula was born in 1987 in Boston, USA and lives and works between Itapevi, São Paulo and Paris. Recent exhibitions and residencies include ‘Espaáos Independents ñ a alma è o segredo do Ègocioí’, Galerias Funarte de Artes Visuais, São Paulo (2013), Citè Internationale des Arts Residency, Paris (2013) and ‘Da prûxima vez eu fazia tudo diferenteí’, Pivù, São Paulo (2012).

Nada Prlja was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and lives and works in London. She holds a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Skopje, Macedonia and an MPhil research degree from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent exhibitions include the ‘7th Berlin Biennale’ (2012); Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain (2010) and International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (2009). Recent public presentations include Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2013); ICA, London (2011) and Tate Britain (2009).

Nicky Teegan was born in 1987 in Ireland and lives and works in London. She holds a BA in Visual Arts Practice from IADT, Dublin (2009) and an MA in Fine art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2012). She is a founding member of Ormond Studios, Dublin. Recent exhibitions include ‘MA Fine Art Show 2012’, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (2012); ‘SWITCH/OVER’, Wimbledon Space, Wimbledon College of Art, London (2012) and ‘Invite or Reject’, Chicago Loop Alliance, Chicago, USA (2011).

Jacopo Trabona was born in 1989 in Italy and lives and works in London. He graduates this year with an MA from Chelsea College of Art, London. Recent exhibitions include RIVAlutACTION, Riva Lofts, Florence (2012); ‘B x H x Me’, A + A Gallery, Venice (2012); ’95 Young Talents Collective’, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice (2011) and Cava delle Rosselle, Grosseto, Italy (2011).

Caitlin Yardley was born in 1984 in Australia and lives and works in London. She received an MA from Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia (2007) and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University London (2012). Recent exhibitions include ‘Changing direction after entering at an angle’, Goldsmiths, University of London (2012); ‘Peripheral Orbit’, Acme, International Residency Studio, London and ‘An Intimate Distance’, Venn Gallery Project Space, Perth, Australia (2011).

Curator:

Adriano Pedrosa is an independent curator, editor and writer currently based in São Paulo. He has curated numerous international exhibitions and was adjunct curator of the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (1998) with chief curator Paulo Herkenhoff, co-curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006) with chief curator Lisette Lagnado and co-curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011) with Jens Hoffmann. He has published extensively on contemporary art in numerous catalogues and magazines and is the founding director of PIESP-Programa Independente da Escola São Paulo.

WORDS / WORLDS: Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Practice

Date: 9 May 2013
Time: 1.30-5.30pm

9th May 2013 The Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster University: Centre for Performance and Practice

Convened to mark the appointment of Tim Etchells as Professor of Performance and Practice at LICA, Words / Worlds is an afternoon symposium focused on approaches to writing in an interdisciplinary context. The event takes its title from a two-part neon work All We Have is Words / All We Have is Worlds by Etchells, which quotes and then repeats with modification, a line from Samuel Beckett.
Beginning with a keynote paper/performance from Etchells, which opens questions relating his to text-work in different media, WORDS / WORLDS proceeds with panels and presentations from visual artists Martin John Callanan and Penny McCarthy, from curator Mathieu Copeland, from the novelist Tony White and from the performance maker and scholar Andrew Quick. WORDS / WORLDS celebrates the possibilities of a cross-disciplinary conversation between and about text-based work and writing. A statement by William Burroughs – that the purpose of writing is to make things happen – provides one point of departure for the discussions, which will see each of the participants touch upon key works and ideas from their practise as they think around texts and inter-texts, texts as interventions in, and transformations of, the world, texts as tests or probes of reality, and text as a tool for fragile and temporary world-building.

Free to attend
Organising departments and research centres: Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts

more info

Along Some Sympathetic Lines, Or Gallery, Berlin

Along Some Sympathetic Lines

Along Some Sympathetic Lines

Along Some Sympathetic Lines

Along Some Sympathetic Lines

Along Some Sympathetic Lines

23 February – 27 April 2013
Opening 7pm, 22 February 2013

Or Gallery, Oranienstr 37, Berlin 10999, Germany

Or Gallery is pleased to present Along Some Sympathetic Lines, an exhibition of artwork by London-based artist Martin John Callanan, and an archive project by curator Liz Bruchet. The exhibition considers the poetic possibilities of data and its documentation, and the tenuous process of making meaning.

Martin John Callanan is an artist researching an individual’s place within systems. Callanan generates and reworks photographs, letters and electronic data into evidence of exchanges – between the individual, the institution and the networks of power that intertwine them. The exhibition presents four of the artist’s series: The Fundamental Units, the result of amassing millions of pixels of data, to photographs, in microscopic detail far beyond the capacity of the human eye, the lowest monetary unit of each of the 166 active currencies of world, only to enlarge and print them to vast scale; Wars During My Lifetime, an evolving newspaper listing of every war fought during the course of the artist’s life; Grounds, an ongoing photographic archive which charts ‘important places’ in the world where security restrictions limit the image to the carpeted, tiled or concrete floors; and Letters 2004-2006, Callanan’s correspondence with various heads of states and religious leaders which implicate them in conversations that question their very rationale of their authority. These acts of excavating, accumulating and visualising data draw out the sympathetic aspects within documentation and in so doing, mark and disrupt the underlying power dynamics.

A second gallery features an archive project by London-based curator Liz Bruchet. The display of ephemera from the personal archive of the curator’s grandfather, a Canadian insurance salesman and aspiring radio presenter, takes its inspiration from a found audio recording – part monologue, part autobiography, and part radio show – made in 1974. Harnessing the impulses of the collector, archivist and biographer, the curator reasserts her role as custodian and caretaker to nurture narratives and give weight to the subjective remnants of one man’s life.

This exhibition is curated by Liz Bruchet.

The exhibition is possible with the generous support of Or Gallery, the National Physical Laboratory, and UCL European Institute.

With thanks to Galeria Horrach Moya, (Hiper)vincles, Whitechapel Gallery, Book Works, David Karl, and Pau Waelder.

Rhizome Editorial: The Fundamental Units

Rhizome Editorial

How did this collaboration with National Physical Laboratory come about for your project The Fundamental Units?

For six months I was having tests run all around the UK on different types of microscopes such as scanning electron microscopes, at different institutions, universities and testing laboratories. The Curator of Modern Money at the British Museum suggested an idea which eventually lead me to the National Physical Laboratory.

I ended up at the Advanced Engineered Materials Group which is part of the National Physical Laboratory, using an Alicona infinite focus 3D optical microscope.

They were really into experimenting and pushing the equipment. It took about a month of tests to get the results we see. The process involved Petra the scientist in charge of the machine writing programs to capture the data as a whole, as the machine is designed for looking in detail at one tiny part of an object. We crashed it several times working out the right solution. Each coin, which are generally around 18-20mm in diameter, take a whole night to capture. Then computers run for three days assembling the data into extremely high resolution photographic images. We are talking files too big for normal image editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. Each photographic print is from files with around 400 million pixels.

What did some of the earlier tests look like?

Many microscopes are not optical, they don’t use light, and therefore produce results that are removed from what we generally expect to see. A scanning electron microscope, for example (attached), produces images in greyscale and the electric charge greatly emphasises dust and dirt. Clean images could be obtained though sonic cleaning and plating the coins in gold, but this started to become very removed from examining these low value tokens of exchange.

Could you explain the choice to scan these particular coins? How did you get a hold of them?

There are currently 166 active currencies using coins. Using online market places and by contacting national banks I have found the lowest donimation coin for each of these currencies. At the moment, at the beginning, we have imaged one from each continent. All 166 will be imaged.

What are you working on currently?

Well, the UCL European Institute have just (five minuets ago) awarded the research project funding to image the currencies of: Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania Sweden, and the UK.

As well as this I’m working on several larger works including archive the hugh photograph archive for Grounds grounds.greyisgood.eu

 

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/dec/20/martin-john-callanan

 

The Watchful Eye – Surveillance in the World Around Us

Logan Turner included Location of I in The Watchful Eye:

This collection of art works focuses on the theme of surveillance/being watched. More and more these days, our governments know where we are, what we’re doing, and sometimes even what we’re planning to do. As curator, I feel that being under nearly constant watch is a violation of our right to privacy, and therefore I have brought together these art works to show both the irony of and scariness of being under a microscope.

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