The contents and their challenges

So....  lining the case with maps and postcards was easy. In fact it took longer to come up with those ideas than it did to do the work...... actually that's a lie....  

Anyway before getting onto the main subject of this post - the contents of the trunk - I am happy to say that the third map arrived yesterday so here are a few pics of the fully lined case. Isn't it lovely?

The first thing I did in relation to contents was to scale down one of the components of my own installation in the original exhibition. The suitcase full of keys has shrunk to the size of an old cigar box and has also been modified to harmonise it with the case and to slightly expand its conceptual remit.

All the other contents of the trunk were provided so it was just a matter of working out where and how they were going to go. This has been the most difficult part of the exercise. Helen Omand's fragile cradle and Penze and Fiore's figurines in particular needed to be presented in such a way that did them justice but also gave them a lot of protection.

After lots of thinking there was a eureka moment as I remembered the delightful shop fittings, displays and accessories store that I used to frequent on Seven Sisters Road. Paid a visit and right by the door as I walked in was the answer......

Not only was this item perfect in terms of display function and size it was also half price which I knew would make the Something Human team very happy indeed. Will fix everything safely in the display case and also fix the case securely in the trunk today and post results later.

There are two other content challenges. John Clang's has been resolved by fixing an old radio aerial inside the lid of the trunk and draping his photos over it. This has several benefits. The photos can be seen from both sides, the aerial effectively creates another space / dimension to the whole spectacle and it can be neatly retracted when the trunk is on transit.

The other challenge of how to display Gloria Houng's prints may be irresolvable in the short term. However, this just means that the travelling team will have to transport and display them separately until we find a longer term solution.

I will leave you with this little abstraction....

WITH(OUT) is going On The Road...

WITH(OUT) was the great little exhibition curated by Something Human at the Brockspace last December which I both participated in and reviewed (see review here).

Well.... it's going on the road and the curatorial team of Something Human have asked me to prepare it for the journey. In essence it is the entirety of the WITH(OUT) exhibition condensed into a big travelling trunk which will be presented like a theatrical installation. In keeping with the nature of all journeys it will not only take things with it but will inevitably pick other things up along the way.

The trunk and some of its contents (either modified or as presented in the original exhibition) were delivered to me a few days ago. I will start working fully on the project next week and will also be photo and text documenting the process and its challenges both here and on the Something Human WITH(OUT) blog.

In the meantime here is the awesome trunk ....

WITH(OUT) at The BROCKSPACE

I have now met four of the five curators behind WITH(OUT). The only one I haven’t met is Simone Ruth Hui which is quite funny seeing as she is the one responsible for me being in the show. I met Annie Jael Kwan, Nobuhiro Kobayashi and Anna Viani when I delivered my work and met Mirabelle Spreckelsen along with Anna again when I visited the Brockspace yesterday.

We talked a little about how the show came about and they told me that the intention for WITH(OUT) had been to transform what is usually a visiting artist guest house into a temporary gallery space for the duration of the exhibition after which it would revert to being a guest house. This ultimately meant that the space could not be completely cleared. Certain items necessary for the space to function beyond the exhibition had to remain. The result is a symbiosis between space and content that gives perfect definition to the theme of the show. 

As you walk into the space at Tressilian Road in Brockley there is an initial sense of it being an ordinary room. Quickly however the arrangement of the art takes over. Photographs, postcards, open suitcases, framed pictures on the floor, the urgent flickering of a TV screen high in a corner and a long monochrome wall chart of artist’s names.

Open glass doors give you a glimpse into the bedroom and there is a palpable sense of something being in there that draws you straight to that room. 

What you find is an entire psychodrama staged brilliantly and disturbingly from a wardrobe and some shelving in the installation work by Italian duo Penzo+Fiore. Their arrangement of colours and objects juxtapose seamlessly both thematically and visually with Helen Omand’s stark white toy cradles.

Gloria Houng’s atmospheric photographs suggest the emptiness of one too many generic hotel experiences but also create a room within the room in which you are standing - a bed above a bed, curtains beside the curtains. On the floor by the radiator like a guest’s forgotten item is one of Howard Hardiman’s Jigsaw pieces. 

This is not a bedroom with some art in it but an entire environment that in some respects encapsulates the often jagged experience of being alone in a strange place. The external environment is different but the internal environment in all its complexity remains. Spending time in this room bombards you with both emotional challenges and interpretative possibilities. There is a deep sense of anxiety, fear and loss that characterises the impulse in many to start moving in the first place. However there is also a sense of resolution and clarity about the parameters of this reality and how it can be processed. 

When stepping back into the relative calm and normality of the social space of the other room, there is a definite sense of relief. There is also a sense of fun. You can mark your height on the haphazard wall chart of artists and others created by Daniel Wallis. You can marvel at Nina Feldman's unique postcards and a fridge door covered with satellite images of 'Victoria Roads' she has visited in all commonwealth countries. 

Tucked away in corners you spy more of Howard Hardiman’s jigsaw works and the colourful splash of one of the suitcases. There is the quiet counterpoint and sublime stillness of Bianca Brunner’s photographs and you are left wondering how John Clang has managed to give his own shadow such a big personality. And as for that urgently flickering screen? There is a whole collection of videos featuring works by Yingmei Duan, The Light Surgeons, Lucia Lopez and Clemens von Wedenmayer. (CLICK LINK FOR INFO AND ONLINE SCREENINGS) 

Even all this is nowhere near the entirety of the show. The opening night featured a performance piece called Tides by Penzo+Fiore. The opening weekend featured Gourmandizing, a kind of site-specific food and storytelling extravaganza. On December 5th, Pablo Anton will arrive at Brockspace to perform and install his work in the bathroom and there will be a workshop with Daniel Wallis exploring responses to the exhibition at the weekend. 

To assemble all this work in a temporary domestic space plus a rich and varied itinerary of video screenings, performance, workshops and gourmet food on their first ever collectively curated project is really quite a phenomenal achievement. And I haven't even mentioned the amazing, newspaper-style catalogue with artist interviews, images, curatorial essays, the exhibition programme…… nor Kate Munro's delight that you find in the garden on the way out….

On the assumption that you can't keep a good pop-up down, I think the Brockspace and Something Human are definitely here to stay. 

Valerie Grove

Baggage Claim rides again...

As noted in the post below Baggage Claim is back, although reduced  to 3 rather than the 10 suitcases originally installed in the Vestry House Museum Garden in 2009.

It is featured in a show called WITH(OUT) which addresses issues of migration and identity in terms of the tension and interplay between the 'within' of the human migrant and the 'without' of the changing physical location and environment.

The show has been put together by a group of 5 young curators each based in a different country and collectively known as Something Human. Reflecting this curatorial internationalism Baggage Claim was found online by a curator living in Singapore who was searching for artists and work that would reflect the thematic subject of the show.  What is also very interesting about this project is that it takes place in a residential house transformed temporarily into a new pop-up gallery space  in Brockley, South London.

It opens on December 30th and I will post up more pics and comment about the whole show later but in the meantime here's a preview of what's in the suitcases. Unfortunately, most of the original exhibition ended up in a skip so the only work that has been exactly replicated is this one:

What is nice about this version of Baggage Claim, however, is that I have been able to incorporate a subsequent exhibition into one of the recreated cases. In 2010 I did an installation called Random Library in which part of my collection of international, and often bi-lingual, poetry books were wrapped in Japanese chiyogami paper.  This obscured the titles of the books so that viewers had to  make selections based on the appeal of the paper the book was wrapped in, rather than a judgement about its content.  These books now fill the second case.

The third case is the Case for Art. All those materials that get carried around from place to place  when you're not sure what's coming next, not sure exactly what you will find there and not sure how much money you're going to have. You may not always use them but it's reassuring to know they are there....

Catching up with myself..

This blog hasn't had much happening for a while. This doesn't mean I'm not doing anything ... it just means that I haven't adjusted yet to doing everything on a phone rather than on a laptop. A lot of stuff is compatible with a small hand held device but I generally have more to say than I can fit in a tweet and a lot of images to edit and upload. Also I am more interested in the blog as archive rather than opinion. A degree of historical coherence is always useful.

Anyway... this 4 monthly update is basically going to consist of a bunch of pics from the epic 'Survival of the Fittest' which ran from early August and was so cool it was extended through to mid October. Some great feedback for this show and Mr. Team MSK was a huge hit with just about everybody except one kid a few days before the show ended who decided to pull him over.

I wasn't there but it was quite a drama apparently. The Waterworks management had to remove Mr. MSK to placate the parent of the completely freaked out kid who narrowly avoided being pinned down to the floor by the skeleton that he had insisted on provoking. What is amazing is that the skeleton has been pulled and poked and spun and stroked by hundreds and hundreds of adults and kids alike over the past 3 months and hasn't moved an inch. The force which this kid must have put into ensuring his downfall is really quite something. Eyewitnesses confirmed that parent half heartedly told child not to pull the skeleton after which child redoubled efforts and ended up scaring the shit out of himself as skeleton attacked. Good ... serves him right!!! Skeleton completely unfazed by whole experience.....

Big thanks to Tim Vine for the images and an extra big thanks for this one.......

More sooner than later as the next show opens at the end of this month. It's called WITH(OUT) and is a curated show in the Brockspace in South London. I will be revisiting 2009's Baggage Claim  for a show by international artists about international itinerancy.....