An alternate gallery space, tactileBOSCH is adaptable, almost chameleonic in its nature
Auxesis: Through The Lens / Reduplication of the Real
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
23rd January till 13th Febuary
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Taking the premise from the Greek word to ‘increase’ AUXESIS challenges the viewer to look at themselves and others or reflections thereof ‘through the lens’ in a hyperbolic situation. Its very term disproportionate to the level of drama ensued. i.e. Its an EPIC show of experimental, photography, video, film, sound and live action…The body’s of work to be shown at tactileBOSCH evoke the dangerous lawlessness of the subconscious & the frenzy and fissures that exist within us all.
Curator: Neil Jefferies
Artists:
Marlene Almeida, Paul Avis, Mal Bennett, Ric Bower, Mal Bennett, Christine Callahan, Johnathan Caswell, Mike Cousins, James Dean Diamond, Chris Evans, Ben Glencross, Sianed Jones, David Marchant, Robert S. Pugh, Ronny Schon Craig Thomas, Sara Tierney, Jody Watkins + Dawn Woolley
Opening night features music from Andy Taylor + Ads Ballard
Reduplication Of The Real
Monday, February 1st, 2010
More images of Reduplication of the Real
21st January till 6th Febuary @ The Old Library in Cardiff City Centre
One of the main shortfalls in the critical understanding of Performance Art is the lack of awareness among contemporary curators of how to successfully curate the medium into the context of a traditional white walled gallery space. The primary reason for this is likely to be the additional layer of complexity involved in curating Performance Art as the curator is unable to see the work prior to its creation and so is unable to fully visualise how it will relate to, and be framed by, its context. A difficulty that is increased further by the fact many performances transform throughout their duration, deviating from the artists original aesthetic and even thematic intentions. This makes it particularly difficult to integrate the medium into an exhibition space alongside other less transient Art forms and has led to performance regularly residing in the more unkempt venues of more experimentally minded artist run organisations and co-ops.
However, interest in Performance Art has increased rapidly over the last decade as artists and writers embrace the themes of anti-commoditisation and anti-commercialism that the Art form inherently embodies, which in turn has led to an increased level of attention from those running the more established venues. This has led to a number of successful attempts to incorporate performance within the programme of established venues such as Merina Abramovic presents… at the Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester and the Performa biennale in New York as well as notable local events such as Common ground at Plan 9 Gallery in Bristol.
This increased acceptance then helps facilitate a broader range of new initiatives on how to exhibit the medium. One of these curatorial approaches is the collection and preservation of the mediums physical by-products with a view to exhibiting them. One of the main exponents of this both locally and nationally is the Trace Gallery & Collection that retains and exhibits a selection of the soiled, embellished and battered objects left at the end of a performance. The inspiration for Reduplication of the Real is a similar premise, just instead of props it focuses on the photographs taken to document the performances.
The photographic documentation of Performance Art events is seen often as just a prosaic method of recording the act for future reference, which means its strengths as a stand-alone Art form are rarely tested. Yet, many of these images are fascinating, poignant and even humorous in their own right. They are a montage of esoterically linked everyday objects juxtaposed with a performer, focused in their entirety on a single action; all frozen in a single frame. The photographs, with their distorted everyday actions and objects, can come across as something anywhere between an uncanny distortion of the everyday and a gross and disturbing dream-like sequence.
However, beyond their aesthetic impact, like performance Art itself, the exhibition of these images asks questions about the nature of Art itself. The images capture a single instance from a performance and isolate it from the context of both the space outside the frame and the other actions carried out in the performance. By doing so they distort, sometimes beyond recognition, both the imagery and thematic of the source performance. This alteration of original intentions in conjunction with the little or no co-ordination between the photographer and artist and the way the images are uploaded and distributed among peers, truly tests the notion of authorship and artistic intention and their relation to both artistic quality and monetary value.
Reduplication of the Real is an attempt to highlight the strengths many of these images possess and poses the idea of them as artworks in themselves with there own unique qualities.
Curator: Neil Jefferies
Artists:
Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron, Phil Babot, Bean, Benjamin Bellas, Anna Berndtson, Adina Bier, Angus Braithwaite, Rose Camastro-Pritchett, Kate Clark, Leighton Collier Roux, Florian Feigl, Linda Franke, Werther Germondari, Ian Giles, Brian Hastings, Faith Johnson, David Kefford, Robert Ladislas Derr, Kate and Paul Lindholm, Justin McKeown, Jeff Thompson, Paul Wiersbinski
Building Up-Not Tearing Down
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
More Images of Building Up-Not Tearing Down
11th – 18th December
Building Up–Not Tearing Down is the result of a four-day residency involving six young artists from Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. As a conclusion to the series of city visits ending with December eleven the residency is an attempt to create a microcosm, or Petri dish experiment of what might happen if the three cities worked together in the realisation of an exhibition or project. The invited artists were granted complete freedom to chose their thematic remit, manipulate the fabric of the building and decide how much they would co-operate with each other.
As an exhibition space tactileBOSCH is predominantly known for performance and installation, work that by its very nature often leaves small remnants once the performance has concluded or the installation deconstructed. Many of these small reminders such as stray splashes of paint, dents in the walls and floors, hooks and pulleys in the ceiling often remain untouched during the post-exhibition clean up due to the vastness of the gallery and thus become more permanent then the original artwork. The six artists have continued in this process of augmentation and supplementation of the venue through creating a selection of delicate and unobtrusive works throughout the gallery, many of which could remain well into the future.
The artworks of Building up-Not Tearing Down do not hold an overt presence in the space nor are they pointed out through a map or set of plaques but instead the audience must search the vast space for each artists multiple contributions. It is during this process of exploration that they themselves will also become better equated with the fabric of the building that is itself a palimpsest of architectural and aesthetic features. The collaborative nature that the artists have approached in the making of the exhibition, to the extent of creating secrecy that excluded the residency organisers from knowing much of what they planned, perhaps provides a glimpse of what the Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff trinity could become.
Curators:
Neil Jefferies & WARP
Artists:
Rhys Core, Fraser Cook, Sarah Farmer, Joanne Masding, Alistair Owen, Jason Pinder
Review
I went to Cardiff yesterday with other west Wales friends to join in with December 11, a day of arts events and visits in Cardiff organised by WARP g39 and Chapter Arts. The day marked the end of an experimental collaboration of artists from Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff.
We started the day at Tactile Bosch to see Building Up Not Tearing Down, an exhibition of residency work from Rhys Coren and Fraser Cook (Bristol), Alistair Owen and Jason Pinder (Cardiff) and Sarah Farmer and Joanne Masding (Birmingham).
The work involved subtle interventions into the gallery space – so subtle indeed that we were required to actively search them out. It’s the sort of thing that can be quite intimidating if you’re not comfortable in ‘Artworld’ and not a Tactile Bosch regular, there’s a lot of scope for staring at details, trying to work out if they are art or not. Once I’d decided to embrace my self-consciousness, I really enjoyed it; the slight tension and discomfort became part of the experience; all part of the ongoing debate about the nature and function of art. The beauty of the experience was to intimately engage with this amazing, semi-decayed space with its peeling paint, cobwebs, buckets for the leaky ceiling (the most prominent objects in the room – and the first focus of enquiry), odd bits of ironmongery etc. I found myself watching other visitors to see if I could hijack their finds. I watched someone discover a really discreet piece involving guitar strings tautly installed along a number of beams and tuned to different notes – and then enjoyed pinging them myself in his wake. Delicately beautiful, intimate and democratic – the show was a gentle, funny celebration of the space and its artful decay.
Kathryn Campbell Dodd
Polluted Minds
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
The polluted minds exhibition rolled into town last month featuring the work of four illustration students from UWIC. It was located over at the international Art space tactileBOSCH and was the brainchild of Bill Giles, Adam Travers, Dave Hazelgrove and Richie lee.
Upon arrival, you’re first impressions of the building are of somewhat confusion- a cold building in a dark corner of a housing estate in Llandaff north. However, through the doors lay a vibrant, dynamic illustration exhibition boasting the unstoppable talent we have here at the Cardiff School of Art and Design.
Towering cityscapes merged with sinister characters, elegant floral illustrations entwined with abstract shapes. It really was an attack on the senses. There were numerous pieces in the exhibition-broadly collaboration works based around the theme ‘pollution’.
Auxesis: Performance
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
More images of Auxesis: Performance
10th – 14th November
The word Auxesis has many uses in contemporary society from linguistics to law to biology, yet all present day interpretations stem from its Latin origin word ‘Auxēsis’ which means ‘to increase’. This suggests process emphasised performance, work that builds and develops its surroundings as opposed to tearing it down. It is with this in mind that each artist will be offered an opportunity to take up a fleeting residency in their own chosen area of the gallery interacting, manipulation and embellishing their specific context over a certain duration.
tactileBOSCH is not a traditional gallery space but a vast and complex venue that juxtaposes the striking beauty of the Victorian era beams, bricks and mortar with the austerity of the inserted white gallery walls. Thus each performer will not simply have a featureless stage to work with but will be challenged by the aesthetic and historical palimpsest of their environment.
Auxesis: Performance will highlight the acute awareness of the aesthetic and historical facets of their surroundings that many Live Artists bring to their performance work. It will also be a showcase of the diverse ways a performances context manipulates an artist’s specific practice and how in turn it is manipulated by the performance.
A selection of artists and collectives are invited to work throughout the week creating both instant, durational and interventionist acts within their chosen space within the gallery. Each interaction will leave with it physical leftovers which will remain in-situ alongside photographic documentation for the remainder of the festival as a testament to each artists response.
Curator:
Neil Jefferies
Artists:
Kathryn Ashill, Phil Babot, Jurgen Fritz, Florian Feigl, Mark Greenwood, Justin McKeown, Joost Niewenburg, ProtoPLAY, Paul Hurley, Shaun Caton & Brownsierra, Katyleigh Hughes, Chris Evans, Sam Aldridge, Tim Bromage, Karl Price & John Ruddick, Faith Johnson, Thomas Stevenson