Contemporary Art – Delphian Gallery

Articles Tagged with: contemporary art

My Top Five – Bloomberg New Contemporaries – By Hector Campbell

My Top Five – Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2018 – By Hector Campbell

Bloomberg New Contemporaries annual open submission exhibition returned this year to Peckham’s South London Gallery for the first time in almost two decades. Founded in 1949, New Contemporaries is the UK’s leading organisation for supporting emerging talent from British art schools, helping contemporary visual artists bridge the gap between an arts education and a professional artistic practise.

Spread across both the South London Gallery’s main building and newly opened Fire Station galleries, the 2018 edition of Bloomberg New Contemporaries marks the first year artists have been included from non-degree awarding courses. The selection panel, made up of UK artists Benedict Drew, Katy Moran (New Contemporaries alumni 2006) and Keith Piper (New Contemporaries alumni 1986) have chosen 57 artists for this years exhibition, whose work spans the mediums of drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, performance and video.

Therefore, if you can’t make it to the exhibition, which runs until February 24th, here is a rundown of my top five Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2018 artists, (in no particular order).

Emma Fineman

Emma Fineman, ‘My Hometown Was Burning and All I Could Think Of Was That Sun Bleached Wall I Pictured in A Dream About The Dominican Republic’, Oil and charcoal on canvas, 2017.

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Graduating last year with an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, Emma has exhibited widely with solo shows in both San Francisco and London, and group exhibitions showcasing emerging artists such as ‘FBA Futures’, ‘Orbit UK Art Graduates Show’ and ‘RBA Rising Stars’.

Describing her work as ‘Personal narrative painting’, Emma explores our means of navigating and understanding contemporary culture. With the age of information overload upon us, Emma pushes painting’s ability to capture a snapshot of time or experience, creating works that transcend traditional narrative timelines and act as a way of journaling for the artist. The introduction of figurative elements within her fragtured painted backgrounds expressing how it feels to navigate the contemporary, increasingly virtual, world.

Emma has upcoming solo exhibitions at both BEERS Londonand Public Gallerylater this year.

Website/Instagram

Rebecca Harper

Rebecca Harper, ‘Stouping’, Acrylic and oil bar on canvas, 2017.

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Winner of the ASC Studio Prize 2018, Rebecca graduated from Turps Art School last year having previously completed post-graduate study at The Royal Drawing School.

Despite nowadays producing large-scale paintings, her artistic practice is rooted in drawing and sketching the people, places and interactions that Rebecca observes while living in London. These initial drawings are then combined and scaled up to create her paintings, often recontextualising characters and rearranging settings from multiple preliminary sketches to produce an imagined yet cohesive narrative work. The paintings therefore become both fiction and fact, a half-remembered happening or a convincing dream.

Rebecca is currently preparing for a solo exhibition, ‘Chameleon’, at Anima Mundi Galleryin St Ives later this year, previewed when the gallery presented a solo booth of her new paintings at the recent London Art Fair.

Website/Instagram

Mimi Hope

Mimi Hope, ‘Fingers Crossed’, Cast Jesmonite, 2017.

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Having completed her BA at Chelsea College of Arts, Mimi received studio space from the prestigious Sarabande: The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation.

Taken from a larger body of work exploring ideas of desire and aspirational imagery through the lens of The National Lottery, ‘Fingers Crossed’ sees the recognisable ‘Play Here’ advertising stand replicated in jesmonite. The usually airy blue plastic bubbles become a greyish totemic sculpture, evoking thoughts of permanence and certainty not often associated with The National Lottery. The once playful advertising stand now reappropriated as a tombstone to the dead hopes and dreams of those taken in my it’s former ‘Play Here’, crossed-fingers temptation.

Mimi is participating in an upcoming residency programme, Palazzo Monti, in Brescia, Italy later this year.

Website/Instagram

Francisco Rodríguez

Francisco Rodriguez, ‘Ghosts’, Oil on Canvas, 2017.

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Francisco completed an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Year last year, having previously studied both a BA and Post-Graduate Diploma at Universidad de Chile in his hometown of Santiago, Chile.

Inspired by graphic novels and anime films/television, much of Francisco’s work retains a certain cinematic quality, recalling the layout of preliminary story-boards or comic strips. Memories of the post-industrial Chilean landscapes of his upbringing act as the backdrop within which the the artist can place his nefarious figures. The artists predominantly male characters, their faces partially obscured by a hats, shadows and masks, loiter through the urban scenes, cigarette in mouth, hiding their intentions as much as their identity. Permeated with feelings of isolation and loneliness easily experienced by those first exploring a large city, Francisco captures emotion through the use of fine line work and a muted colour palette of greens, greys and oranges.

Whether viewed separately or as part of a cohesive series, such as at Francisco’s current solo exhibition ‘The Burning Plain’ at Cooke Latham Gallery(which runs until March 1st), the audience is invited to create their own narrative through the works.

Website/Instagram

Antonia Showering

Antonia Showering, Introspective Views, Oil on canvas, 2017.

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Another recently Slade School of Fine Art masters graduate, Antonia also completed her BA and Foundation Diploma at City and Guilds of London Art School and Chelsea College of Arts respectively, her education a triumvirate of prestigious London art schools.

Antonia has exhibited widely since graduating, including ‘In The Company Of’ at TJ Boultingin London (curated by The Great Women Artistsfounder Katy Hessel), ‘Kennedy-Doig & Showering’ at Baert Galleryin Los Angeles (curated by Louis Blanc-Francard) and ‘Inhabiting The Dome’ at Whiteley’s Shopping Centre in London (curated by Cara Mills).

Antonia’s paintings have the power to evoke a deep nostalgia of events you’ve never experienced, places you’ve never been and people you’ve never met. Combining a palette of golden yellows, rich reds and fertile greens with subdued, delicate brush strokes to capture the very essence of fleeting memories. Landscapes that stretch far beyond the confines of the canvas are populated by vague, often ghost-like figures repeating and reinacting the artist’s recollections.

Antonia will feature in ‘Out Of This World’ a group exhibition at Stephen Friedman Galleryin London showcasing female figurative artists, which opens February 7th.

Website/Instagram

To read more from Hector Campbell, see his Top Five from Condo 2019

Fluidity of Shape: A Conversation Between Benjamin Murphy and Igor Moritz

Fluidity of Shape – A conversation between Benjamin Murphy and Igor Moritz

Igor Moritz is an incredibly exciting young artist whom I discovered through our mutual friend Andrew Salgado. His approach to painting the human form speaks of expressionism – with the distorted and contorted form, with the awkward perspectives – painted expertly. His paintings are reminiscent of both Egon Schiele and Henri Matisse, whilst being entirely and refreshingly unique. For such a young artist, he has developed a signature style that most would be envious of. His output is incredibly consistent, whether working in coloured pencil on his specially-prepared paper, or with the more traditional use of oil paint and canvas.

October by Igor Moritz

BM – Firstly – Why are you an artist?

IM – I think over the last couple of years, looking has crossed over from something that’s passive into something that’s very active in my life. I’ve become absolutely obsessed with everything from colour combinations, facial expressions, to the perception of space and fluidity of shape. Since I have started taking so many things in, I have the necessity to let some of it out too.

BM – So is your feeling of necessity a compulsion? From my own experience, the creative act is almost like a drug I need to stay sane, and I get very frustrated if I can’t work for an extended period of time.

IM – Oh yes, definitely. You can say it’s a compulsion, where the obsession would be the looking. I get extremely fidgety and overwhelmed by everything if I haven’t been painting for a day or so.

BM – Going back to your use of space and shape, where do the distortions of and experiments with these come from? Do you see those things as they appear in your work, or do you intentionally distort them, and if so, for what purpose?

IM – I aim for realism in my work. What I mean by that is, that there is no way to portray any three-dimensional thing on a two-dimensional plane with no distortion. All things have an infinite amount of looks attached to them, and I try to grasp a bit of that essence. I will go about doing that to my advantage, by morphing it the right way to contribute to formal aspects of the work. I have noticed a fundamental change in how I see things, maybe it’s my growing astigmatism or a perception disorder.

BM – Your use of colour is also interesting, it’s as if Francis Bacon had a child with Henri Matisse, and that child grew up to be Igor Moritz. Who are your biggest influences and how do those influences trickle down into your work?

IM – Colour is another phenomenon that is an obsession of mine, and a big driving force in my work. The two you mentioned above know how to use it brilliantly, and are two of the big loves of my life. In terms of colour I’m humbled by Kandinsky’s work from the late 1930s – he seemed to have figured it out. Other artists I look up to would include people like Kirchner, Tal R, Freud, Degas and portraits from the Polish master Witkacy.

BM – So lets talk a bit about the technicality of your works. You are unquestionably a brilliant draftsman but your drawing technique is quite unusual. Tell me about the way you soak paper in linseed oil and how this alters the work.

IM – I don’t know if I can be credited with the invention of that technique but I haven’t seen it used by anyone else. What I do is soak the back of the paper in linseed oil, so that the paper has a sort-of self-lubricating feel to it. When drawing on it with coloured pencils the crushed pigment seems to connect with oil and create an opaque and vibrant finish. What is unusual is that the drawings dry like paintings would, so they do not smudge when done.

BM – Would you say your practice is dependent on experimentation in general?

IM – I just don’t want things to go stale. So I constantly try to find new and better ways of doing what I do.

BM – How have your design-based studies influenced your painting?

IM – It has definitely provided me with a greater insight and respect for objects. It has made me understand the dead things that have a lot of soul and an emotional presence too.

BM – Dead things in what sense?

IM – Sorry I got that from the Polish – in Polish a still life is called Dead Nature. I meant objects, so things like chairs, cups, tables, and scissors etc.

BM – Oh, I like it. So do you approach a ‘dead thing’ any differently to how you approach painting the living?

IM – Not anymore, I hope to be able to paint a chair with as much emotion as someone I love.

To view more of Igor’s work, please click THIS LINK

To purchase prints, please click THIS LINK

Originally published in This Is Tomorrow

Prints from Kevin Perkins and Igor Moritz NOW AVAILABLE

The two prints from our show A Long Way From Home by Kevin Perkins and Igor Moritz are NOW AVAILABLE.

Igor Moritz detail

Kevin Perkins

Limited edition print run of 15 pieces.
Supplied with certificate of authenticity to provide limited edition provenance.
Size – 30X40cm including a small white border for easy framing.
Archival Giclée print with an archival lifespan of up to 200 years.
Presented on Hahnemühle Photo Rag premium Fine Art paper.
A slightly off white, matt finish paper with guaranteed archival properties. The paper gives muted blacks with even colour reproduction, and excellent detail. It has a minimal texture and a chalky smooth cotton feel which creates smooth colour gradients.
Printed in the UK.
Global shipping available.

Kevin Perkins detail

Igor Moritz

To purchase these prints, please follow THIS LINK

To see photos of the Open Call, in which Igor was exhibited, please go HERE

To see photos of Obscurely Prophetic, in which Kevin was exhibited, please go HERE

My Top Five – Condo 2019 – by Hector Campbell

My Top Five – Condo 2019 By Hector Campbell

The annual gallery-share project Condo(from ‘condominium’) opened across London this week, with 18 exhibition spaces playing host to 52 UK and international galleries. Established by Vanessa Carlos (of participating gallery Carlos/Ishikawa) in 2016, the free collaborative exhibition programme sees London ‘host’ galleries open their doors to visiting international galleries, through a series of either co-curated or individual shows. The initiative aims to promote a sense of community between small and mid-size galleries, a sector of the art scene commonly undervalued and under pressure, through pooling resources and sharing space. With successful Condo’ editions having taken place in New York, Mexico City, Shanghai, Athens and Sao Paulo since it began, this fourth iteration of the London original is bigger than ever before. Therefore, I spent the weekend visiting all 18 gallery spaces and 52 exhibitions, so if you’re strapped for time here is a rundown of my top five (in no particular order).

N.B. All Condo 2019 exhibitions run until February 9th, however check individual gallery websites for full opening times.

Koppe Astner(Glasgow) at 22-24 Cork St, exhibiting Dickon Drury(UK), Kris Lemsalu(Estonia) and Tom Howse(UK)

Dickon Drury, ‘Pottery’, Oil on canvas, 2019.

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For this years Condo 22-24 Cork St in Mayfair played host to 9 galleries over the two floor space, my favourite of which was Glasgow’s Koppe Astner who exhibited paintings by Dickon Drury and Tom Howse and sculptural editions by Kris Lemsalu.

Slade School of Fine Art graduate Drury’s two large oil paintings employ his signature vibrant colour palette to humorously explore art historical figures and movements, with ‘Pottery’ (pictured) including references to artists such as Betty Woodman, Ken Price, Philip Guston and Prunella Clough. Howse’s work uses aspects of magical realism to question ideas of understanding, considering the myriad of ways in which humans strive to make sense of their surroundings. Finally, Lemsalu’s small sculptures fashioned from leather boots, plastic fruit and porcelain draw on ideas and imagery familiar to those who have visited her current survey ‘4LIFE’ at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (open until February 3rd). The bricolage sculptures at once simple yet intricate, beautiful yet unsettling, amusing yet profound.

Company(NYC) at Arcadia Missa, exhibiting ‘The Gossips’ by Cajsa von Zeipel(Sweden)

Cajsa von Zeipel, ‘Why?’, Silicone, aqua resin, glitter, fabric, bongs, headphones, dildo, fidget spinner, hair ties, piercings, fishhook, 2019.

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Taking its name from a commonly reproduced sculpture by French artists Camille Claudel (1864-1943), ‘The Gossips’ see’s Cajsa von Zeipel exhibit a series of four sculptures ‘Why?’, ‘What?’, ‘Where?’ and ‘When?’ each building upon one repeated cast bust. The concepts of repetition and transformation alluding to the stages of a gossiped rumour, constantly changing with each ‘W’ questioned asked. The addition of different materials and accoutrements (headphones and earpieces made of wires, chords, bongs and dildos) giving each a unique appearance while never straying so far from the base as to be unrecognisable. The four busts sit almost facing one another within the gallery space of Arcadia Missa, never making eye contact with each other as if enjoying a huddled gossip, visiting almost feels like you’ve interrupted.

P.O.W.(NYC) at The Sunday Painter, exhibiting Erin Riley(USA)

Erin Riley, ‘Impressions’, Wool and cotton tapestry, 2018.

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The three Erin Riley tapestries on display at The Sunday Painter touch on three common aspects of her subject matter, sex, drugs and violence. Riley combines hand-washed, stripped and dyed yarn with a hand-weaving process that dates back centuries to create painstakingly detailed reproductions of intimate, secretive and traumatic scenes; a tattooed women’s upper body, a drug dealers stash and the aftermath of a car crash. Using both personal and found photographs as source material for the works, Riley’s partly autobiographical work explores ideas of past suffering as a way of exposing and exorcising common struggles.

Chapter NY(NYC) at Carlos/Ishikawa, exhibiting Samuel Hindolo(USA)

Samuel Hindolo, ‘Before the Swarm on Melanie Daniels 1’, Oil on canvas, 2018

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Samuel Hindolo’s paintings often gather their subject matter from the artist’s personal archive of catalogued screenshots taken from the movies of old Hollywood, the L.A. Rebellian and West African Cinema. This source material imbues the works with a focus upon narrative and character, evident clearly in the ‘Before the Swarm on Melanie Daniels I’ (pictured), based on Alfred Hitchcock’s famous 1963 film ‘The Birds’. The titular characters are seem removed from their infamous flock, depicted instead in a melancholic scene as two birds look on from atop a power line as a third falls towards it’s implied death. This theme, of traditionally contemptible characters shown to be vulnerable and emotional, often recurs within Hindolo’s work.

Galerie Mehdi Chouakri(Berlin) at Modern Art, exhibiting Charlotte Posenenske(Germany)

Charlotte Posenenske, ‘Vierkantrohre Serie DW’, 9 Elements, corrugated cardboard, plastic screws, 1967-2007

Galerie Mehdi Chouakri presents works from three key series by the pioneering Minimalist and Conceptual artist Charlotte Posenenske. ‘Series DW Vierkantrohe’ (pictured), occupies much of Modern Art’s Vyner St location’s first floor gallery, modular sculptural elements constructed from corrugated cardboard, originally intended by the artist to be activated and altered by audience participation. Early works on paper and ‘Series B Reliefs’, consisting of early sculptural work made from aluminium and rendered in primary colours, round out the show of an artist experiencing a posthumous reassurance. Posenenske was critical of the increased commercialization of the art market during her lifetime, choosing instead to sell works at prices reflecting their manufacturing costs, and eventually stepping away from the art world completely in 1968, following significant critical interest in her work, until her death in 1985.

For more guest articles, read Charley Peters interviewing Remi Rough

Remi Rough in conversation with Dr. Charley Peters

Remi Rough (b. 1971, London, UK) began making paintings on walls and trains in South London in the 1980s. A respected train writer, Remi has maintained a dynamic presence on the street while developing a prolific profile as a studio painter, recently showing at MOCA (London), Wunderkammen Gallery (Rome), Zimmerling & Jungfleisch (Saarbrucken) and ArtScience Museum (Singapore).

I spoke to the artist about the formal concerns of his work, his relationship with definitions of his practice, and the legacy of abstraction in the ongoing evolution of his paintings.

Installation at Quarry Bay Station, Hong Kong for MTRHK and Swire Properties.
Hong Kong 2018.

[Charley Peters] How do you feel at this point in your career about definitions of your work as ‘graffiti art’? Could you say something about the relationship between your work on the street and the paintings you make in the studio, presumably they may have different audiences or you might apply a shift in logic in your approaches to both practices?

[Remi Rough] I can totally live with the word ‘graffiti’, it’s other terms I’m a lot less comfortable with. I often use the term ‘post graffiti’ as I think it best describes where I am personally with the kind of work that I make now.

I don’t consciously make any shift in logic between my studio work and work in public spaces, to me the same rules apply. If i’m honest the work outside is a lot easier because you can hide behind your mistakes due to the scale you’re working to. The studio work if anything is a more refined version of the works I do publicly.

[CP] Are there any terms that you feel comfortable with in terms of how you would define yourself as an artist?

[RR] I really think that what I do sits in-between so many brackets it’s actually quite hard to pinpoint what genre (if any), it is. Contemporary is fine for me, as I mentioned before ‘post graffiti’ as an adjective to the work is fine also. I used to use the term painter but even that has less importance to me now. I have ideas way beyond just paint on surface.

The Absolute _ 2017
Graphite, acrylic and spray paint on herringbone linen
120 x 120cm

[CP] How would you describe your working process?

[RR] Mathematical… I don’t think people really know just how much mathematics goes into the work I create. Without maths I’d be completely lost. I use geometry to plan the paintings I make and from there I start to build the images up from simple graphite lines to taped, primed sections to final colour forms. It’s a slow process with tape and paint as drying times are essential to every layer.

[CP] You engage actively in processes of collaboration with other artists. In some ways this is at odds with our conventional definitions of a studio artist – could you talk through your approach to collaboration and how it enhances or supplements the work you make as an individual artist?

[RR] As young graffiti writers we collaborated constantly. You have to remember that graffiti is the only art form ever created by and taken forward by children and with that there are less oppressive egos and much more openness to working together. We don’t have the foibles of most adult artists about working together and sharing what we do. Nowadays I like the challenge of working alongside and with other artists. I think about the end results and the process in equal terms. I get a lot from this process. For example one artist I have done a lot of work with over the past few years is NAWER from Poland. As well as being a fantastic artist and amazing designer he’s a good friend and we’ve both learnt loads from each other. Working out how to make our styles of work sit comfortably together in a space and not vie for attention against each other is a big challenge but we seem to have found a great way of working. I am not precious about my work when I’m collaborating, I think big decisions about the people you work with are very important too.

[CP] You use a very particular colour palette, how important is colour to you and how do you make decisions about its presence in your painting?

[RR] A think a lot of the colour decisions happen during the drawing process. I tend to make notes on particular palettes and see what works for what painting. Weirdly the paintings I make are often not wholly pre-meditated. A lot happens as it happens so to speak.

That said I tend to change colours quite a lot during making work too. I seem to have a strong sense of what is needed and when. I think if graffiti has taught me one thing it’s knowing when to stop.

[CP] You make many art historical references in your painting – alluding to movements including Suprematism, Constructivism and Neo-Plasticism. I find this interesting as much work that is derived from a practice on the street fails to look beyond or be defined outside of popular culture as a frame of reference. How do these modernist references provide a context for your own painting? How does your work challenge or develop what art history has shown us?

[RR] Graffiti as an art form is one of the last true abstract movements. We took letters, we distorted them and abstracted them way beyond their original form. There were no boundaries, rules or limitations. I was always looking beyond populist references whether it was Dali or Mondrian or later when I started educating myself about history of art and understanding the limitless options of where I could take my work. As I have never been formally educated in art I have always taken it upon myself to fill my mind with knowledge both academic and visual. Hence the discovery of De Stijl, Constructivism, Vorticism, Bauhas and beyond. The context for me lies in the beginnings of all these movements. I was part of the inception of a similar important and historical movement. My life and the lives of Malevich, Van Doesburg or the suprematists are intertwined. I needed to find a voice within my work, I needed to find a structure and as the letter gradually fell away, the words that I painted become the architecture that surrounds us or the magazines we read or the interiors we live in. It’s all part of our cultural fabric and seemingly more evident now then ever before as we don’t have to fight oppressive governments to be heard or seen and don’t have to hide what we do because it’s deemed inappropriate. It’s still coded language much like graffiti writing but it’s easier to translate now.

Concise
Part of the ‘Art from the streets’ exhibition at the Art Science Museum, Singapore
Singapore 2018.

[CP] At times it feels that you are appropriating modernist aesthetics, such as your works based on Malevich’s Black Square, which appear as a mashup of original referent and your own concerns with making paintings. I’m intrigued by this as a contemporary – or at least familiarly postmodern – form of authorship. Is there any direct relationship between this strategy of visual ‘sampling’ and the work you do with music?

[RR] It’s all remixing. Malevich didn’t invent the ‘black square’ he simply found a channel for it. Everything we do is a remix to a certain degree. Every word we speak has been uttered trillions of times already. Every image exists in some way shape or form already, it’s how you choose to re-imagine it that makes for interesting art. As much as I love a lot of that early suprematist work I think a lot of it wasn’t quite where it should be in terms of composition or finish. We can look at those origins now and inform new work with similarly imbued aesthetics and tweak the compositions and the finishes and add something that just wasn’t possible in the early 20th Century.

[CP] I was wondering, given your interest in formalism, how important is the presence of the ‘image’ in your work?

[RR] The image is everything and nothing. I guess it isn’t that important to me but once work becomes known as a style or an aesthetic does it not become an image by default?

My main concern with painting is to push the boundaries of this as far as possible but still retain some kind of stylistic approach. To never make the same painting twice but for the viewer to know exactly what and who they are looking at I guess.

For more work by Remi Rough, visit his website HERE

And for more by Charley Peters, visit her website HERE

Remi Rough and Charley Peters are both exhibiting as part of the three-way collaborative show Interlude at The House Of Saint Barnabus alongside Peter Lamb – on until the end of March.

For more guest articles, check out Rowan Newton interviewing Robin Footitt HERE

A Long Way From Home – RSVP for the private view now!

We are very excited to be launching our next show, A Long Way From Home with Kevin Perkins and Igor Moritz next week!

Igor Moritz

Kevin Perkins and Igor Moritz are two incredibly exciting early-career artists whose work shares a vibrancy that is expressed through their shared passions for form, line, and colour.

Two unique artists are paired because of their individual, but shared experimentations with figuration. Each artist brings their distinct perspective to their subjects, which both distorts and exaggerates certain formal qualities to enhance the whole.

The title ‘A Long Way From Home’ refers to the adventure and experimentation present in the practice of both artists, who have approached the show collaboratively despite living on separate continents and never having met in person.

The curatorial style of Delphian Gallery will make its mark on the show also, which will result in a exhibition of works by two intriguing artists, that forms together almost as if it is by one creator, while still maintaining the distinct integrity and individuality of each.

Kevin Perkins

For more details and to RSVP for free tickets visit the link below.

HERE

To request the catalogue of available works please email
info@delphiangallery.com

Exhibition kindly supported by theprintspace.

To see photos of the Open Call, in which Igor was exhibited, please go HERE

To see photos of Obscurely Prophetic, in which Kevin was exhibited, please go HERE

Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 0

Marina Abramovic – Rhythm 0

Words and illustration by Benjamin Murphy – Originally published in AfterNyne Magazine

In 1974, twenty three year old Serbian-born artist Marina Abramovic created the most poignant and shocking performance artwork to date. Rhythm 0 was a captivating social experiment, and one that has still not been surpassed 43 years later.

Gallery visitors were met with a standing but immobile Abramovic, beside her a table containing a plethora of seventy-two seemingly unconnected objects. Some were clearly intended to give pleasure: a rose, grapes, perfume, and a feather were included. Some others were more sinister: a whip, nails, a razorblade, scissors, a pistol, and a single bullet.

The audience was then asked to explore the objects and use them upon her body in any way they wish, whilst for the next six hours all responsibility for their actions was assumed by Marina.

Placed upon the table was the following text.

Instructions.

There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.

Performance.

I am the object.

During this period I take full responsibility.

Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)

At first, the crowd was sheepish and their actions innocuous, giving her the rose to hold and generally not doing much. After a while, mob-mentality took control and the crowd got more vicious. With tears streaming down her cheeks Abramovic stood immobile and stoic whilst her clothes were cut off (in a similar way to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piecefrom ten years before) and her neck was sliced with a razorblade. The man who cut her then leant forwards and placed his lips to the fresh wound and drank her blood. It left a scar that she still has to this day. She was touched in intimate places, and according to art critic Thomas McEvilley “…she would not have resisted rape or murder”.

In the post-apocalyptic dystopia we see so often in books and films, once state authority is removed society becomes feral and vicious.

One visitor put the bullet in the pistol and placed it in her hand pointing at her own neck, no doubt willing her to pull the trigger. At this point even the gallery staff thought the work had gone too far, and “went crazy”, grabbing the gun and throwing it out of the window. All the time Abramovic never moved.

She was picked up and carried to a table, placed upon it, and had a kitchen knife thrust between her legs into the wood of the table, in a symbolic gesture that symbolizes both rape and murder.

Abramovic’s ability to transcend physical and psychological pain through sheer mental strength is astounding, but it is not the main focal point of this work.

Marina Abramovic - Rhythm 0

What makes this work so frightening is that it took a simple absolution of guilt for this randomly collected cross section of society to resort to viciousness and disregard for human life. It calls to mind the Milgram experiment, in which volunteers were informed that they were required to electrocute another volunteer. The volunteers were unaware that the experimenter and the person being electrocuted were in cahoots, and any response to electrocution was staged. The confederate would be asked questions, and any incorrect answer was met with an electric shock – increasing in power for every subsequent shock.

In this experiment, the volunteer was absolved any responsibility, and therefore continued to obey the instructor, despite the obvious danger. Many of the participants showed visible signs of distress throughout, and were clearly complying begrudgingly.

It was an experiment to see if obedience to authority would overrule the volunteer’s conscience, and their natural fears for another’s safety. It questions whether the volunteers could be considered accomplices to the act, and was inspired by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, just three months before.

In Rhythm 0 however, not only did the viewers enact ‘real horror’, but they did so with relish. The audience was not acting under orders from an authority figure as they were in the Milgram Experiment, but were given the authority to act autonomously. In the Milgram experiment, most of the volunteers protested the instructions and showed many signs of extreme distress, but in Rhythm 0 they seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

One would expect that the participants would display reticence to act freely due to the Hawthorne Effect (the modification or dilution of ones natural behavior due to the knowledge that one is being observed), but this is actually not the case, as the participants showed an eagerness to experiment in ever increasing gradations of severity.

It is also possible that the absolution of responsibility allowed the spectators to play out some of their darkest fantasies. The symbolic hematophagy is suggestive of the participant assuming power or control over Abramovic, and asserting their dominance.

They saw Marina as an object, and they played with her sadistically like a cat with a mouse. They were also required to use their own creativity when deciding in which way the objects were used, and it is surprising how quickly they abandoned the safe objects in favor of the truly dangerous ones. The dehumanization that occurs is in part due to Abramovic’s immobility, in part due to her silence, and in part due to the acts of objectification enacted upon her by other members of the crowd. It is in part because the spectators saw their contemporaries enacting hostilities that they felt able to also.

She took some of the ideas originally explored just 13 years prior, and took them to their most extreme point.

Performance art is similar in many ways to theatre, but as Abramovic has shown there are some subtle but definite differences. Horror within the theatre is inauthentic, but at least in some cases, within performance art it is real.

In 1891 Oscar Wilde explored this topic in his essay The Critic As Artist.

“…Art does not hurt us. The tears that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotion that it is the function of art to awaken. We weep, but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter.”

Almost a hundred years later, Abramovic proved this to be incorrect.

For more critique by Benjamin Murphy

Chris Burden – Dormant Chaos

Santiago Sierra – The Strangeness of Reality

Conversation with Billy Childish

The front cover of Navigating The Art World art business book by Delphian Gallery

Jordy Kerwick’s FIRST EVER limited edition print release

We are very excited to be releasing Jordy Kerwick’s FIRST EVER limited edition prints.

We have two available, printed from two of the most popular paintings in his debut UK solo show Diary Of An Introvert with us in December 2018. Both are hand-signed and stamped editions of 15.

Jordy Kerwick Limited Edition

Print Specifications

Limited edition print run edition of 15.
Signed and numbered by the artist.
Stamped with an embossed Delphian Gallery seal to prove authenticity.
Supplied with certificate of authenticity to provide limited edition provenance.
Size – 50 x 70 cm including a small white border for easy framing.
Archival Giclée print with an archival lifespan of up to 200 years.
Presented on Hahnemühle Photo Rag premium fine art paper.
A slightly off white, matt finish paper with guaranteed archival properties. The paper gives muted blacks with even colour reproduction, and excellent detail. It has a minimal texture and a chalky smooth cotton feel which creates smooth colour gradients.
Printed in the UK.
Global shipping available.

Jordy Kerwick Limited Edition

To purchase, please click THIS LINK

Guest Article – Rowan Newton interviews Robin Footitt

For this Guest Article – artist Rowan Newton interviews Robin Footitt about his work, and his current show at New Art Projects in London. For more about both artists and the gallery, see their website links at the bottom.

Rowan Newton - Robin Footitt

RN – One of the first things I noticed as I entered the exhibition is that it seems to be in 3 parts. Tell me about the theme to this show and how each part plays it role within that theme?

RF – ‘Open Window’, is the second solo project I’ve had at New Art Projects, and continues a theme which takes modernism into the realm of communication through image abstraction when using technology. The perception of an open window has changed in recent times from a sense of escape and outward potential to a much more singular, internalised, anxious pursuit born out of working on layered computer screens. I liken the stages of my treatment to the exhibition theme as a series of acts, much like in opera – the topic can be a central focus in the work or a subtext to underwrite other more intimate narratives. This is similar to the way in which I work, using different materials and time signatures (“instant” objects versus labour intensive craft) to resolve and set a rhythm in the installation.

Perhaps the first act in Open Window is the series of dots connecting together, plotting grid compositions and dividing lines throughout the space. These are patterns made on Lycra, which replicate the magnification of various phone and display screens. These red, green and blue tessellated shapes were initially assembled as paper collages to reclaim the handmade and tangible act of touching a pixel. The 90 degree angular forms they make on the wall are much more mechanical and are reminiscent of linking dots together to unlock your phone or make a chain of matching candies to make them dissolve… Relationship to the screen is echoed throughout the other works – I’ve made drawings about the passing of time and maintaining your place within it, using visual significations such as placing a napkin over a drink to claim your absence (Holding Object) or indeed taking that napkin and repeatedly unfolding and refolding it in different ways as a means to kill time (Napkin Variations).

RN – The geometric shapes, can you tell me how these pieces were made?

RF – The two yellow windows, titled ‘Outlook’ and ‘Explorer’ are good examples of what I referred to earlier as instant objects. They are both made from Dibond aluminium sheet material, which I draw on with permanent marker and their shape is predetermined by this relationship. Those drawings were at the same scale as my phone screen (9:5) and these parallelograms were cut to size and produced instantaneously. Whilst the pair have a simple hard edge abstraction I enjoy the multiplicity of their purpose, like having the spectre of a ray of light cast on the wall through a window.

Rowan Newton - Robin Footitt

RN – When you say Outlook and Explorer, I instantly think of the email host and search engine, are they the source of these names? And why?

RF – Again ‘Explorer’ and ‘Outlook’ respond to the window theme but you’re quite right that they are in reference to android software. There was something attractive about those names as if you were being a pioneer looking out on the vastness of all this information. In regards to the pieces one is reflective and the other is a more matt surface so I titled them respectively.

RN – Now having a little time to live with the show as an exhibit, how do you feel about it?

RF – The work I keep returning to is ‘You Left Me’ a photographic altar piece-style triptych that hangs off the corner in the second room. The three images come from an undeveloped camera film, which I found sat inside my aunt’s camera after her passing. It was half-used and had been there for some years previously forgotten. When I processed the negatives each print had a bleached, dreamlike quality, which came partly from the fixed perspective lens, but also the deterioration of the film. It seemed apt to keep this analogue production so I scanned the prints without retouching and housed them in a bespoke hinged frame. The lack of focus toys with the arrangement to maintain a constantly shifting focal point, which I admire. It makes me nostalgic for less immediate forms of photography I suppose, where the first exposure isn’t instantly lit up by a screen and consumed just as quickly.

Rowan Newton - Robin Footitt

RN – You have worked with New Art Projects for just over 2 years, tell me about that journey?

RF – It has grown pretty organically since ‘Modern Grammar’ which opened in September 2016. Fred Mann, Director of New Art Projects has put the trust in me to develop over that period with a solo project booth at VOLTA New York in 2017 and that invitation extended to me curating group show ‘The Toast’ alongside Open Window this November.

RN – If you could make one thing disappear from the Art world what would it be?

RF – Application fees

RN – Do you have a piece of your own art hanging in your home, of so, why that piece? If not, why?

RF – I do yes. Many works hanging in my home are from years of swapping with other artists that I have either curated, collaborated with or studied alongside, and the odd bit of collecting from independent online stores.

RN – What’s next for you?

RF – Nothing I can reveal just yet but all being well I should be travelling much more in 2019…

Open Window can be viewed at New Art Projects, London until 21st December 2018

Website: www.robinfootitt.com and www.newartprojects.com

Instagram: @robinfootittart and @newartprojects

Facebook: New Art Projects London

Guest Article by Rowan Newton

Instagram: @Rowan_Newton

Website: RowanNewton.co.uk

Facebook: Rowan Newton

FOR MORE GUEST ARTICLES CHECK OUT:

Nicholas Burns – Inside the Bug Jar

Tracey Emin – A Fortnight Of Tears

Chronicling the most recent developments in Tracey Emin’s practice, ‘A Fortnight of Tears’ opens at White Cube Bermondsey in February 2019.

This major exhibition spans the entire gallery and brings together new painting, photography, large-scale sculpture, film and neon text, all stemming from the artist’s deeply personal memories and emotions ranging from loss, grief, longing and spiritual love.

Three monumental, bronze sculptural figures, the largest Emin has produced to date, are shown alongside her lyrical and expressive paintings. Developed through a process of drawing, the paintings are then intensely reworked and added to, layer upon layer.

Tracey Emin – A Fortnight Of Tears

White Cube also debuts a new photographic series by Emin titled ‘Insomnia’. Selected from thousands of self-portraits taken by the artist on her iPhone over the last couple of years, these images spontaneously capture prolonged periods of restlessness and inner turmoil.

Filmmaking has been an integral part of Emin’s career for over 20 years. To mark this, the artist will show a new film as well as the key early work How It Feels (1996), a candid and moving account of her abortions that changed her whole approach to making art.

For more great art exhibitions on right now, see this review of Chris Burden at Gagosian by Benjamin Murphy HERE

For more about Tracey Emin, see the White Cube website HERE

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