t h e r e w i l l b e b l o o d

Went to a really great talk about blood which was organised in part by the good people over at LADA. Someone we hadn’t really had much knowledge about before was Marisa Carnesky. This is most probably due to her being more in the cabaret area of live art but all the same we’re happy to have been exposed to her work. The best bit was when she was discussing her PhD thesis and referred to Jesus as a menstrual figure due to the talk being in a chapel. This being because Christianity stole the magic of womens’ menstruation by transforming the bleeding womb into Jesus’ bleeding wounds. As if Mary’s virgin birth and the punishment of Eve weren’t already insult enough. A favourite aspect however was where Dr Dominic Johnson was discussing the various methods of using blood in performance and one of the ways was blood as suggestion. During this portion of the talk he brought up Anna Mendieta’s ‘Moffitt Building Piece’ which is a work where she poured (animal) blood and rags on a sidewalk, reproducing a trace of (domestic?) violence in a public place. Using hidden cameras, she surreptitiously filmed and photographed the reactions of passers-by to a puddle of what looked like blood and gore, seeping from under the front door onto the pavement. 

Some look, some poke it with umbrellas, some just walk by. This goes on until the man next door (the storefront window bears the name H. F. Moffitt) comes out to clean it up. Always beneficial to find more works which deal with the power of the viewers imagination over what is actually on show. Found a great quote by William K. Everson which completely captures this, “Nothing that the camera can show can possibly be as horrible as what the mind can imagine”.

f l o a t l i k e a b u t t e r f l y s t i n g l i k e a b e e

We may or may not have already mentioned that back in June, Will Marshall from Scaffold Gallery is curating an exhibition at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester and kindly asked us to be a part of it! The show is happening next month and it’s based around emerging artist’s relationship to money, and making money with their practice. It’s a really great space; 2 floors and plenty of room, so we wanted to make sure we had a good idea for it. We were considering the exhibition in Wigan and how we had several different works all contributions to an overall narrative. This was a way for us to be ambitious but simultaneously continue down the subtle road which we’re interested in pursuing; anyone can be heard if they shout but it takes some thoughtfulness to be heard while whispering. We like to think about it being similar to Muhammad Ali’s famous saying ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.’ which is a lovely way of describing something which is graceful but also strong, whether physically or mentally.

In this exhibition the narrative we’re going to construct is that of an artist (us) trying to make themselves 'sellable' but failing. The current works themselves will come in the form of a postcard rack full of postcards of our previous works, a monitor which has a Sid and Jim advert on it or some kind of explainer video of our artistic practice that's made by someone on the website fiverr, an abandoned signing table of signed photos of the Sid and Jim stock image (attached) with a roll out ad board with the same image on it and then a crumpled up (but still visible) artist cv on the ground. Our plan is to have them distributed throughout the space as opposed to being in one place; similar to a trail of breadcrumbs.

It's a variety of failed attempt to be successful/noticed; making postcards which haven't sold, a film which is supposed to act as a promotional tool but just seems impersonal and weird, a sort of fan meet up where no one showed and a cv that never got a the owner a job which has consequently been discarded.

m i s s e d o p p o r t u n i t y

The performance evening was last night and everything went incredibly smoothly! Unfortunately Nina was ill so wasn’t able to attend so her tug of war probably wasn’t as well performed as it might have been but the other three live works went down really well. Seeing Johanna’s sculptures activated very much completed them; they’re beautiful objects but seeing them put into action definitely assisted with the interpretation. Having Anaïs tell her stories last was a great idea; everyone sat on the benches, we dimmed the lights, it was perfect! Can’t thank the artists and the space enough for assisting in putting on such a great show.

Just as promised we made some time to see art. We went to the Vinyl Factory on The Strand which is currently housing ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE’ which is the Lisson Gallery 50 year anniversary show. There’s also Ryoji Ikeda’s newly commissioned A/V artwork test pattern [N°12]. The Lisson exhibition is probably a 6/10. Being able to see such a range of work in such a crazy building is amazing but when you end up making excuses as to why what’s happening is good you know it can’t be THAT good…There seemed to be little to no effort put into creating a flow or even a tenuous link between the works. The only one being the fact that all the artists show with the gallery, it is literally just everything at once, and one thing after another. The saving grace was Arthur Jafa’s ‘Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death’, a gritty compilation of found footage – Jimi Hendrix and James Brown, LA Riots, brutal beatings and shootings, the inequalities and racism of America – set to Kanye West’s, gospel-inspired Ultralight Beam. It’s the timeliest thing in the building, condensing time, place and history, giving us it all at once. Being able to watch this is worth the trip alone.

Ryoji Ikeda’s work was exciting if not a little bizarre and not because of the work itself. Usually we’re not the ones telling everyone to turn off their phones or stop taking photos in galleries; it doesn’t tend to bother us as much as others. However, in this scenario it felt incredibly strange that people would walk in on their phones, camera out, have it out the entire time taking a variety of selfies, then walk right out again without putting the device down. Are we getting old? This feels like a work that is experienced best through just that; experiencing it. Expect to see many new profile pictures Facebook drenched in monochrome binary patterns.

a n d b r e a t h e

Pre-sliced Orange Segments opened last night which was excellent! Really busy, great conversations with loads of new and old people. Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves, particularly when Campbell did his performance out on the street. Curating an exhibition is a lot of work because if the art doesn’t already exist, you end up being in a constant dialogue with the artists, discussing what would work with the space, how to take what they’ve done into a gallery context etc. This isn’t a negative by any means but it’s definitely something hard to wrap your head around if it’s not something you’re familiar with. The final press release is below.

Pre-sliced Orange Segments

PV 5th October 

5th October - 26th October

Alexander Glass, Anaïs Comer, Billy Sassi and William Dalton, Campbell Mcconnell, Elliot Hewgill, Johanna Bolton, Owen Oppenheimer, Nina Coulson, Sid and Jim, Sophie Popper, Tonya McMullan

Curated by Sid and Jim

Artists and curators Sid and Jim present an exhibition at Light Eye Mind where the gallery acts a changing room; the preparatory and transitory space where conversations happen before the final event. This is where teamwork is visible and perhaps when it is most effective. Moving forward with the idea of teamwork and the space of the Footballer’s (or general sportsperson’s) dressing room, they have combined the idea of gallery and changing room, considered what these sorts of spaces represent and attempted to dissolve the constrictive joints to produce a new intermediate zone. 

For many, sports are a catalyst for community and for others they represent a vehicle for upward mobility. The glamour of the modern professional athlete is attractive for the aspiring sportsperson, and the ritual of competition as well as the pilgrimages fans often undertake liken the ceremony of sporting events to that of a religious experience. Similarly, the locker room is seen as sanctum, a sacred place. There, the players shed their everyday clothing and change in to the uniforms that designate their specific roles. It is here where their minds focus forward onto the challenges ahead.

Pre-sliced Orange Segments takes its name from the orange slices offered at halftime during grassroots football games whilst also referring to co-operative perceptions; an isolated orange segment is not an orange, but it does contribute to one, creating a whole new entity which is “other than the sum of its parts”, Kurt Koffka, Gestalt psychologist. This collective activity of participating can be seen in sports teams and is not dissimilar from group art shows, such as this one. Art and Sport, Art fans and Sports Fans. While the two groups don’t need to be pushed together it’s interesting to consider the similarities and differences; how much of the mind set of one party falls into the same basket as the other.

Special thanks to Daniel Jeronymides-Norie and Tom Spicer.

Light Eye Mind, 176 Blackstock Road, London, N5 1HA

www.lighteyemind.com

Haven’t managed to scrape out any time to look at art in ages but now that this is complete that will change!

p r e - s l i c e d o r a n g e s e g m e n t s

Tomorrow is the first day of the install at Light Eye Mind! We’ve got the full list of artists with most of the work already in our possession reducing the stress of it not being ready on time. The full list of artists and 

Anaïs Comer is going to be enacting a new rendition of ‘Campfire Tales’ on the performance night.

Alexander Glass is showing a fresh sculpture work which continues his exploration into the visual transition between two images of stereotypical men in power, the suit and the sports kit.

Campbell Mcconnell presenting his infamous Tennis Catch Phrases on the opening night.

Owen Oppenheimer is showing ‘The Owen Project’ which consists of a set of fictitious, absurdist newspaper reports outlining the failing career of a footballer called Owen. 

Billy Sassi and William Dalton have decided to form something akin to a scout troop and take them on an excursion into Epping Forest in an attempt to try and earn a few badges. In the exhibition will be documentation of how they got on.

Another performance on the performance night will be from Johanna Bolton. She and others are going to be interacting with a new series of gym-style sculptures rendered in clay and metal.

Nina Coulson has re-imagined the two way game of tug of war into a 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 way game. Usually the tug of war but here there are much more complex systems of power and team dynamics.

Sophie Popper's contribution to the show is a series of short videos exploring the roles of people who provide encouragement and the type of encouragement they might provide.

Tonya McMullan has produced a uniform for the artists of the exhibition from altered work shirts. Her practice focuses on the exploration of everyday life in the public space

Art Enthusiast is Elliot Hewgill's contribution to the exhibition, acting as a promoter for the other artists in the show. Go to www.artenthusiast.co.uk to read the articles

The bench is also getting underway! Built all the legs now so just got to get into the space and assemble it.

l o o k i n g a t a r t i n e a s t l o n d o n g a l l e r i e s

Some exhibitions we would like to recommend/discuss include the new Ed Fornieles show at CARLOS/ISHIKAWA. This comes under the ‘recommend’ tab; it all looked very slick and the actual architecture of the space changed immensely, so that you were guided through it. It gets a little more creepy though because you know all those horrifying scenarios you see played out in dystopian sci-fi about social media? Well, Ed Fornieles is trying to make them a reality, and this ambitious little show is filled with complex and very worrying ideas. One work is a VR porn program where the body of your lover constantly shifts gender, race and shape. Enforced non-discriminatory sex, the politicisation of onanism: why have one partner when you can have all of them? In another piece, he allowed a team of ‘conversationalists’ to take over his Facebook account and conduct chats with friends. The data they compiled was used to build an artificial intelligence that could provide friendship services with no human input. He's also created a guide to building simulated worlds and a cute digital avatar whose moods are fed by global events.

Our favourite aspect of the work is its knowing nature; aware of its own cleverness and maybe even a bit smug, which makes it easy to dismiss. But he’s Patrick Bateman-esque in his sociopathic desire to push and push and push. He constantly nudges at the limits of our networked selves. And, importantly, he never neglects the aesthetics. The works accompanying the sim guide look like post-apocalyptic Jasper Johns paintings; the panels alongside the VR work look like kinky John Baldessaris. It’s interesting, and it looks good to boot. The whole show has the feel of a trade fair – as if it’s all stuff that could hit the market at any moment. It’s all a little too real.

The Ryder was another, slightly less exciting, exhibition we attended. It felt a little lazy in terms of curation since we had seen the same work at the degree show but it’s always fun to think about good artists getting good opportunities.

Cell Projects had a solo show by Mimosa Echard, which was OK but the frustrating thing was that central to the exhibition is this film called ‘The People’, which is compiled from the artist’s vast family archive of Mini DV footage all layered on top of each other. The layering meant that nothing was recognisable on the projection, leaving us with 120 minutes of abstraction in both sound and visuals.

Hannah Black’s exhibition at Chisenhale gallery titled ‘Some Context’ and is structured around 20,000 copies of ‘The Situation’, a book made up of transcribed, edited and censored conversations between the artist and friends about ‘the situation’. This theme is interpreted differently in each conversation. The books provide the stuffing – in shredded form – for the ‘transitional objects’ also displayed in the space, and will be shredded at the end of the exhibition. It felt like a clever and thoughtful way to merge the personal and the political.

f a i l t o p l a n , p l a n t o f a i l

The open call for the exhibition we’re hosting at Light Eye Mind ended a few days ago and we’ve had so many great submissions! Looks like it’s going to be a really concise show with good range of work that explores the themes from a variety of different points. We’ve also decided to host a performance night the week proceeding the private view to accommodate a slightly more intimate gathering in order for the live work to be appreciated fully; occasionally opening nights can be a little too full on to enable more conversational/subtle material. 

We’ve now got a title for the exhibition which feels as if it solidifies it slightly. It’s similar to an episode of some TV show (potentially Friends?) when a couple (potentially Monica and Chandler?) decide on baby names before they’re born and consequently they catastrophise due to their existence being more ‘real’. On this occasion, it’s a little more essential to plan for those potential issues so any catastrophising is welcomed. The title we’ve chosen is ‘Pre-sliced Orange Segments’. It’s referencing the orange slices offered at halftime during kids’ football games whilst also referring to co-operative perceptions; an isolated orange segment is not an orange, but it does contribute to one, creating a whole new entity which is, as Kurt Koffka would say “other than the sum of its parts”. And it’s this collective activity of participating which we’re attempting to highlight in both sports teams and group art shows.