A live art and video event across three venues Thursday 5 November 2009 - 6pm - midnight Exhibition continues 6 November - 5 December
On Thursday 5 November 2009, Standpoint presents a ritualistic, immersive and participatory performance, music and video event across three venues - Standpoint Gallery, Hoxton Square and the Bedroom Bar, alongside the exhibition opening of Shamanimal at Standpoint. It is an eclectic take on the traditional ritual of the British bonfire night, using the accessibility and celebratory exuberance of the time.
Programme of events:
Acclaimed UK performance and video artists Edwina Ashton, Jordan McKenzie and Aaron Williamson will collaborate to make a new performance, as moths, following the great success of their first ever collaboration �Gallery Termites� earlier this year at Studio 1.1. Ashton is known for her insightful and funny portrayals of anthropomorphised insects, Williamson for his experimental work addressing image and the body, McKenzie for his raw performance-drawing. (at Standpoint)
Plastique Fantastique (David Burrows and Simon O�Sullivan) present a homage, in their own intrinsic style, of Leigh Bowery�s infamous �rebirth� performance in Hoxton Square, at the �Fete worse than Death� in 1994. PF will birth a mythical creature. The antics of the ambiguous creature will lead us around the area and on towards the final venue. (in Hoxton Square)
I confess � a one-to-one performance developed by award winning directors Nathan Curry and Rachel Parish, housed in an original catholic confessional delivered to the site. The artists repent two stories of sins (one of which is their own, and the other is from a previous participant) to an individual listener, hoping for forgiveness. They then in turn invite a confession from the audience member. The confessional will be installed at the Macbeth. Participants can also upload their real or invented confessions to an interactive website archive. (Bedroom Bar)
The finale will be the iconic Icelandic video and performance artist Sigurdur Gudjonnson in collaboration with the poet Ofeig Sigurdursson the main singer of the band Cranium, and the artist Magnus Arnason. The performance is based on Gudjonnson's video Breed 2007 , showing at Standpoint. Filmic and musical elements are of equal importance in Sigurdur Gudjonsson's atmospheric works: to him, sound and vision are equitable compositional means on his search for the perceptible abyss that Freud called the uncanny. (Bedroom Bar)
Turhurst - a collaborative artist duo who are Charlotte Turner and Rosa Tyhurst will be guiding the public and making impromptu performances. Like private dancers, they will be available by request on a one to one basis.
In the continuing gallery show 6 November � 5 December:
Steph Goodger�s obsessive practice stems from comprehensive researches into often fantastical literary sources. She is motivated by the creation of the impossible, be that the almost unimaginable architectural fantasy of Dante�s inferno, or the closed system of an object, a single entity, a monster. Sea monsters, mythical beasts, leviathans are a central passion. For Standpoint she has made a new 4-metre multi-panel painting inspired by Moby Dick and the first measurable skeleton of a whale that was washed up on Tunstall Beach in Yorkshire in 1825. She also presents Pandemonium, her own vision of the 9th level of Dante�s Hell. (and the capital city of Hell in Milton's Paradise Lost).
Sigurdur Gudjonnson presents two acclaimed video installations. Mysterious and macabre, his videos expose a darker side of existence in a style that can be surprisingly delicate. It can also be more overtly disconcerting, for example in Breed (2007) with disquieting footage of pigs anxiously awaiting their fate in the slaughterhouse. In either case, the contrast between the artist�s sometimes gruesome imagery and his sophisticated style of production (filmed in HDV) combine in videos that are oneiric and haunting as they are compelling.
Ashton. McKenzie, Williamson � Visible for the duration of the exhibition will be the remnants/creation/nest of Lava Pa Lava the performance on the 5th by our mothartists � Edwina Ashton, Jordan McKenzie and Aaron Williamson. Also a DVD of excerpts from the performance.
For more information and images please contact Fiona MacDonald �
Venues: Standpoint Gallery, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD Hoxton Square Bedroom Bar, 62 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3AY
Tube: Old Street, Exit 2 (Northern Line � Bank Branch)
Buses: 55, 67, 149, 242, 243
Biographical notes:
Sigurdur Gudjonsson lives and works in Iceland. He is internationally acclaimed for his video and performance works, nevertheless Shamanimal will be his first major project in the UK. Selected solo shows: 2009 The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Island; 2008 Galerie Kunstagenten, Gallery Video Lounge, Berlin, Deutschland; 2008 Galerie Adler New York, USA 2007 Safn Reykjav�k, Iceland; 2007 Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, D gallery; 2006 Motorenhalle, Dreden, Germany 2006 Kunstverein Langenhagen, Langenhagen; 2006 Galerie Adler, Frankfurt,D;; 2004 Gallery Kling & Bang, Reykjavik; 2002 Gallery Priestor, Bratislava.
Plastique Fantastique is David Burrows and Simon O�Sullivan. Their solo and collaborative projects have been featured in many UK and international exhibitions. Most recently these include: 2008 - Protocols for Deceleration, Outpost Gallery, Norwich; Event Horizon as part of GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy of Art, London; New Work UK Screenings, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Channelling Performance, f a project, London; All over the new smart, f a project, London; Chymical Wedding, performance event, Tate Britain, London; Product Clearing, billboard project & exhibition at Eastside Projects, as part of NGA, Birmingham (with Simon O�Sullivan & Henrik Schrat)2007: Cut n� Paste, Peleton Gallery, Sydney; Little Monsters, Artspace, Adelaide; Amongst the Living, ICA London, MK Gallery Milton Keynes, MIMA Middlesbrough.
Edwina Ashton�s videos and performances have been highly regarded internationally, she is also a visiting lecturer at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Solo exhibitions and screenings include A Delicious Cutlet, at Camden Arts Centre 2006; Atlast, the Postman, Peer UK, London 2005; Edwina Ashton Videoworks at MoCA, Miami 2004; Recognition Part II at Arnolfini, Bristol 2003; Excusez Moi at Hammer Sidi, London 2002
Jordan Mckenzie has exhibited nationally and internationally, exploring the relationship of drawing and the process of mark making to the body. Recent exhibitions include Untitled at Length at Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston UK and Ovada Oxford; Untitled Cube Body at Wimbledon Centre for Drawing; Untitled Vetruvian at Spacex Gallery, Exeter and Untitled (Drawing Breath) at Tramway, Glasgow and Ikon Gallery Birmingham.
Aaron Williamson is a renowned performance and video artist. His work addresses the distortion, transformation or effacement of his presence. Physically intense and sometimes inflammatory, Williamson treats his own image/body as an object to be manipulated. He is profoundly deaf. Recent projects include: My ears are very far away, NIPAF 2006- Tokyo, Nagano, Nagoya and Maebashi, Japan; Tilting at a Blood Moon at South London Gallery; The Bogeyman at Beaconsfield Gallery, London; Earth Head at La Bisbal, Spain; Copa D�Amore at Halle, Germany
Nathan Curry is associate director of Tangled Feet theatre company, who are current residents at the Southwark Playhouse. Freelance theatre director. Recent projects include: HOME devised by Tangled Feet, at Albany Theatre, Deptford, Latitude Festival, Southwark Playhouse; Bufonidae by Byrony Lavery at the Bush Theatre; Movieplex for Nutkhut Theatre Company , Watch this Space Festival, NT and throughout UK
Rachel Parish is a director and dramaturg, and associate artist at Trestle Theatre Company. Parish�s directorial works have been produced and performed at Greenbelt Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Southwark Playhouse, The Albany Theatre, The Hive, Brighton, The Young Vic, Tabard Theatre and the King�s Head Theatre.
Steph Goodger was born in the UK, lives and works in France. Solo shows include Marie Hobbes Gallery, Tunbridge Wells, UK. 2006 and 2007; Galerie Roos Van Tudor 2006; Cour des Art, St Emilion, France 2005; Taigh Chearsabagh, Uist, Scotland, 2005.Recent group shows and awards include John Moores 23. 2004, Walker Gallery, Liverpool UK; Miami Art Basel, 2004; Salon des Fable. St Emilion, France and the Celeste Art Prize. 2007 Old Truman Brewery, London and Lyon and Turnbull, Edinburgh.
Turnhurst is Charlotte Turner and Rosa Tyhurst. Exhibitions include Stanley Picker project space 2009, International Women�s day exhibition at Global Caf�, Reading, and Opposition/Duality at The Gregson Arts Centre, Lancaster.
