a s m a l l v i c t o r y

Our exhibition at Bones and Pearl was a definite success! Everyone we spoke to at the opening and then at the performance night seemed to really enjoy themselves and thought the work we showed had uniting themes without being repetitive. The staggered performances throughout the night meant that people who attended stayed and so at the end of the first night there was a huge number of people. We also ended up showing two works, the first being ‘is here alright?’, and then also ‘where are they now?’. We were really happy that we finally got to show it as a physical installation/sculpture as opposed to just the sound aspect. Another additional aspect of the show was the destruction of our piece ‘is here alright?’; we had previously made a film of us destroying the original but had never done anything with it and since everyone else in the show was doing a variety of performative works, it felt appropriate to re-enact this here. We invited others from the crowd to participate in the deconstruction, which we hoped would spur on others from the crowd into joining in. However, due to the nature of the evening we think that because everything was seen as a performance that people didn’t’ want to mess up the art that was happening in front of them. Just something to think about for next time.

Will and Billy’s performance was particularly funny; they staged a barbecue wearing aprons emblazoned with the phrases ‘real men don’t use recipes’ and ‘license to grill’. They continued these faux-macho personas onto the actually cooking itself; they proceeded to cook the burgers until they were burnt to a crisp and then went about putting them into buns anyway! An insightful yet funny critique of British masculinity.

We’re now preparing for the isthisitisthisit exhibition titled ‘AFK’. The central theme of the exhibition, made clear though the exhibition’s title (an acronym for ‘away from keyboard’), is the internet but in a physical sense. How the digital world interacts with the physical world and vice versa. Our piece is every recorded work by Cézanne made more ‘digestible’ through mutating them from beautiful masterpieces into data. People strive for the ease to assess a concept instantly, sourcing tools such a charts and graphs. Art, on the other hand, tends to go against the grain with reference to this idea, as something that is stereotypically pondered over and deeply considered during production and consumption. Using Photoshop we have reduced every painting by Cézanne down to a single pixel/colour. The colours are then put into an online and interactive Pantone Matching System (PMS) colour chart which, when given a colour, will suggest similar Pantone colours. By using Pantone colours we’re referencing the mass production and ‘fast-food’ culture. The PMS also provides a corresponding number to the colour. This number is then put into a graph containing all the other numbers generated, in turn producing a line graph consisting of the entire works of a particular artist – available at a glance, at ease. We’re still toying with a name for the work but have a potential in ‘line of best fit’; it’s exactly what you were instructed to find in school when creating such structures and goes along with the idea that you’re saving time and attempting to box something up into one category as opposed to allowing people think for themselves.

The newest episode of artists and friends is out on soundcloud so give it a listen >>>here<<< if your ears have got some time to spare! We’ve been pretty busy at the moment but hopefully we’ll have another episode up by the end of next week.

t h e a r t s u p e r m a r k e t

Some fun news; been invited to take part in another exhibition hosted by Scaffold Gallery in Manchester. The title is ‘How To Get Rich Quick’, and each artist is invited to make a piece of work in response to one of the ways to get rich that they have compiled into a list.

We’ve finally decided on our work we’re going to exhibit in the show with everyone from CSM. We’re going to re-make ‘is here alright?’ (but bigger and better than before). This is a work where there are a selection of art-shaped packages that look as if they’ve just been dropped off in preparation for an exhibition but are yet to be unwrapped. The work could therefore be anything that could fit into the packages. Little do the audience know they are merely empty or full of nothing more than rubbish. Along with the parcels is a delivery note to ‘William T Cost’ our designated fake artist that we use on occasions such as these. An additional aspect of this is that half way through the opening, we are going to tear open the boxes to reveal that in fact nothing lies inside. The debris will then be left for the remainder of the show.

An idea we’ve been considering recently is this notion of the snow-globe. We’ve always been interested in the notion of the souvenir and especially the snow-globe since it continues to be applicable no matter if it’s for a family holiday to Paris or a drunken, STI infused trip to Kavos. An object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it describes everything, which is why the idea of a souvenir is so intriguing because it’s actively doing this. However, a souvenir tends to be an object that is collected or purchased and transported home by a traveler as a memento of a visit. The object itself may have intrinsic value, or simply be a symbol of past experience. Without the owner's input, the symbolic meaning is invisible and cannot be articulated. We could create our own places and our own memories and insert them into this world. Making memories that would otherwise not exist.

Another idea for a work relates to the 1985 film ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’. The basic story is that a New Jersey housewife spices up her boring life by reading personal ads, especially a series of them being placed by a mysterious denizen of New York City named Susan (who is played by Madonna). The two main characters are polar opposites, one a quiet housewife, the other a free-spirited man-eater. They end up swapping places after a bump on the head causes memory loss in the former. But the defining factor causing them to re-arrange their identities is this amazing jacket that Susan wears. The jacket becomes a character in its own right and is from then on is this symbol of identity and a metaphor for the idea that we’re all assuming different identities all the time. The André Berthiaume quote ‘We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin’ is something else which relates strongly to this idea about character (or lack of). So the idea was to have this jacket slung over the back of a chair, or on a coat hook in a gallery, almost going unnoticed but still being there as this embodiment of a shift in identity. And it is this shift which is important; no one has assumed it therefor it is still open and almost waiting for its next body.

b u s y b u s y b e e s

There’s a great exhibition in Angel (closing this week!) that we would highly recommend. It’s a 3-channel film, which focuses its efforts on exploring ideas around perception. Even with the set up of the projectors; 1 projection is dominant storyteller then there are 2 secondary ones that are mostly about creating atmosphere. Suki Chan (who’s exhibition it is) has incorporated an interactive element; if one sits on a stool in the middle of the gallery, there are 3 red lights that are visible from your position. The red lights track your eyes and show the movement on one of the projections, and more of the soundtrack becomes audible when movement is detected. We weren’t too sure about this initially and just thought that it was an unnecessary demonstration of wealth and wasn’t as conceptually as thoughtful as the rest of the show. However, after sitting with it for slightly longer it became less opposed to it and felt that it did actually compliment the show due to it’s ability to create such awareness of something that is so instinctive. The film began with some first hand accounts of people's experiences of the physicality of their eyes. We took this to therefore be about eyes being this vehicle with which we perceive the world, and since a huge component of art is visual, the sense of sight is one which is utilised quite a bit in this context. We are then shown a collection of medical diagrams and drawings of eyes and examples of sight tests and visual experiments with prisms. Something quite disturbing was some footage of the way an eye darts around, consuming all the information in a given space without the user even knowing. A clever touch was a part of the film that exhibited these low-lit rooms that then had other spaces over-layed onto them, through a projection, creating a strange illusion of space; they became one and it was difficult to separate one from the other. This was certainly in keeping with the rest of the film as it was demonstrating the capabilities of the eyes in our own heads, a reason why a projection is much more applicable than a screen in this situation. A beautiful comparison to blind people was made at some point. It was mentioned that when they’re operating within the world and employing their sense of touch, they don't feel their hand, they feel the world and when we do the same, we see world, we don’t see our retinas. A fairly poetic method of explaining that, a journey and destination are subtly different. In conclusion we felt as if this was a film about the way in which we encounter art; as we said previously a huge portion of art is visual and therefore sight plays a huge role in the perception of it. Obviously this is a work which is very open due to the relate-ability of the subject; sight.

We also visited the Jerwood Drawing Prize which was OK as usual. Not really something which we find great pleasure in but occasionally there’s something which surprises! In this case there was an amazing film (that actually won the prize and a clip can be seen >here<) that appeared at first to be an animation but on reading the materials list we discovered that in fact it was white mineral ink being suspended in a cube of gelatin. The simplicity of it was lovely and the shapes it was making brought on thoughts about a future when people have films hanging on the wall as opposed to paintings.

The title and content for the exhibition with people from csm has been decided. For 'Group Effort' there's going for a opening night one night and then a performance based interactive night the next. Now we know the format just got to decide what works to show! For the opening night we were thinking that ‘it’s canapés that shade me now’ (the work where our parents make all the snacks for the show) would be a good one; been trying to fit this into a show for quite a while now and it feel like the appropriate setting for doing so. For the more performance based night we’ve been thinking that a reading of white crayon might be quite good as a way of activating it or descriptions of famous paintings (intended for blind people) which are read out with the lights off.

We’ve got quite a lot on our plate at the moment but it’s all pretty exciting! There a new show in Boston in which we’re showing our film ‘Anything I Can do is Not Art Because I'm Not an Artist’ in an exhibition titled ‘A Group Thing’. We’re also involved in an arts festival in Alfreton next week and we’re in the show titled ‘Shop Windows’ and are showing ‘Wash Away the Pain(t)’. something that’s not quite yet materialised but is in the pipe line is a show with scaffold gallery in Manchester that goes by the name ‘Get Rich Quick’ – we’ll keep you updated with this. Then the final show that’s happening is with another group of people from csm in a small gallery in Hoxton where we’re re-staging ‘is here alright?’ with ‘proper’ art crates. Something less exhibition related but still in the realms of our practice is that we’ve been asked to do a talk in Liverpool which is going to be about the idea of the non-expert, something that we’ve got huge amounts of experience in (lol), so we’re getting some ideas ready for that too.

This week has also seen the beginning of our new podcast ‘Artists and Friends’ where we’re going to discuss exhibitions, have interviews and talk over any general ideas or thoughts we might have. Check out our very first edition >>>here<<<. The final thing (told you we’d been busy) is that we’ve put our curatorial project in motion; The SketchUp Residency is going to be a project where we supply artists with a location or a brief for a commission and they take over The SketchUp Residency Instagram. When the residency is over there will be an exhibition or public artwork that exists in the place in which we originally stated in the open call.

s t o r i e s a b o u t s t o r i e s

The ‘Intimacy’ private view was a couple of days ago and was a great success! There were a huge number of people who attended and all the work seemed to be enjoyed. It was interesting to think of this work as one that could potentially be repeated and we’d eventually have this archive of exhibition openings. The set up of the chair and the side table looked great in the space but with regards to future events it might not be necessary for them to be present unless the exhibition is going on for a longer period of time. The ‘service’ nature of the piece slightly changed due to the materiality of the chair and table; not necessarily a bad thing but just something to consider for future works.  

Limoncello opened the doors to its new space on Friday with a show by Alice Browne titled ‘Forecast’. Materiality is something that we’re never hugely comfortable with and it’s definitely a word that can be tied to the work on show. Big bright colours, lines and shapes in all directions. The press release sounds promising; it speaks of Dante’s vision of the ‘malebolge’ and Botticelli’s illustrations but as far as we could see there wasn’t nearly as much of a story told with these works. We then noticed that the words ‘figuratively reference’ came in front of these more thought-provoking works which basically optimises the entire show. An aspect that is interesting for us is that this sort of work gives an insight into the gallery system and the methodology it has of making money; works such as these enable other, perhaps more ethereal, works to be manifested due to their monetary potential.

Limoncello’s new space is actually right next to Kinman gallery so we also got a look in to check out the new group show ‘Silleteros’ with Victoria Adam, Aisha Christison, Simon Mathers, Ryan Gander, Sean Steadman, Peter Sutherland, Tony Matelli, Verena Dengler and Yves Scherer. It’s a very thoughtfully curated show with the title ‘Silleteros’ referencing The Flowers Festival in Columbia. It’s always pretty entertaining seeing a Tony Matelli in real life due to the sheer attention to detail of the work. Ryan Gander’s piece also got us thinking (as usual). His piece is aesthetically similar to fossil but not one which is recognisable; shapes are disfigured by the all-over texture and once separate pieces become one.

‘In the Heart of the Sea’ is a film we’ve watched recently which stuck with us for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s a beautifully told story with amazing performances from Chris Hemsworth and Cillian Murphy causing you to truly feel their every struggle and success. Another reason is the layers of story telling that have been weaved in making the film; the structure is that the film itself is a story but it is a story about the story which inspired the story of Moby Dick. The film is already portraying itself as fiction but through the lens of fact. The comparative elements cause a slight ripple in the fabric of reality.

But the best news is that we finally have Internet! The posts will be far less sporadic from now on