Hell Yes # 1 - Come

Hell Yes Presents A Latento Vol. 2 – Sammelbände.
Friday 29 May 6-8pm

Hell Yes will present free copies to the first 30 visitors.

A Latento Vol. 2 – Sammelbände is the latest publication from Alex Farrar Harry Meadley and Iona Smith. Developing from the exhibition ,,Sammelbände” at East Street Arts (October 2008), the book covers the consortium’s activities throughout last year. Sammelbändes were popular during the Tudor period, as texts were widely released unbound, owners would have collections of texts and manuscripts by various authors bound together in large volumes, for posterity, cross-reference and to be more economically viable.

A Latento Vol. 2 - Sammelbände
ISSN: 1755-5787
Paperback, 208 pages
Edition of 100
£6.00

Hell Yes
PSL
Whitehall Waterfront
2 Riverside Way
Leeds
LS1 4EH

More thoughts/info on Hell Yes soon -
Hope to see you all there

Silver
http://h-e-l-l-y-e-s.com

Mr Symposium

Silver Mawson are giving a short presentation at Mr Symposium on Thursday and we'd like to have some idea of what fellow artists have made of the project.

We're not asking for a critique here, but when asked "In what way did this project impact on the production/dissemination of your work?" what do you think of? And also, could you think on how this compares with other projects you've worked on, maybe particularly more traditional studio to gallery ones?

We're reflecting on the relationship between space and production/dissemination as this is particularly pertinent to us, so any thoughts on this would be most welcome too...

Thanks
Silver

Morphic Resonance Symposium

PSL and theartmarket present

SYMPOSIUM: A QUESTION OF SPACE
How is there space for artists in our cultural landscape?

Thursday 21 May 2009
at PSL [Project Space Leeds]
Whitehall Waterfront, 2 Riverside Way, Leeds LS1 4EH
£10/£7.50 (including refreshments and lunch)

This symposium is part of a six month sequence of events and activities at
PSL comprising the exhibitions 195 Miles (in partnership with Whitechapel
Gallery) and Morphic Resonance (in partnership with theartmarket); a new
series of peer critiques; plus individual performances and activities in the
space at Whitehall Waterfront. This programme is an exploration of
artist-led activity and the development of ‘project spaces’ nationally and
internationally.

Questioning the notion of innovation and current terminology this symposium
asks: do words or phrases such as ‘artist-led’ and ‘emerging’ genuinely
represent new movements or are they merely a relabeling of older concepts?
What space is there for the artist - physically, intellectually and socially
– in the contemporary cultural landscape?

With presentations from Kerry Harker (PSL), Silver Mawson, Miles Thurlow
(Workplace Gallery), Clarissa Corfe, (Castlefield Gallery), Amy Stephens and
Rory Macbeth, Zoe Sawyer (theartmarket)

HOW TO BOOK

Space is limited to 50 people, so booking is essential. To reserve a place,
please call 07930 236383 or go to www.projectspaceleeds.org.uk

My Fellow Artists 2

Hello all

Below is a text for a sound piece I've made for the show which will hopefully be installed in the toilet corridor. It's called My Fellow Artists 2 and is the second in an ongoing series of works made for people I'm in group shows with. The first was for Zoe and co's Eclections and if you scroll down once you arrive here, it can be discovered next to a cockerel. Missives cryptic but heartfelt, with no sarcasm intended.

My fellow artists:

My name is David Steans and this statement - no, this request - is addressed to the participants of Morphic Resonance. You have all given me so much - and so freely! - that it pains me to ask of you again. Innumerable gifts and offerings: smiles, words, liquids black and hot. But ask of you again I must. I can't repay you in kind - it  would take a hundred lifetimes to reciprocate these mountains of generosity - but perhaps a few well-chosen words can express my grateful sentiments. So, please, indulge me a capricious daydream and remember that my heart, full of love, feels like it's in the right place.

I wish my legs were the length of ladders, and could stretch and bend like rubber snakes; arms just as long, like endless coils of rope. I would hang myself across the gallery like a giant hammock, calmly and contentedly awaiting the close, thick night. At day's end everybody would pack away their tools and materials, wish their fellow artists a good night, and climb up onto my suspended body. Each and every one of you rest prostate on my torso, close to one another, and sleep the sleep of the safe and innocent. My sunken chest forms a huge bowl which I fill with water. If one of my fellow artists should wake up thirsty they can lap at it like a little cat. Come daybreak, hands with spans of spades softly stroke your hair. Roused, you hear my voice, deep and dark but gentle and measured, whisper "Wake up!"  - upon which clarion call each new day of Morphic Resonance would begin. 

I warrant that when the first rolling sheep, braving laughter and derision to surmount the cattle grid's prison bars, felt as I do. The cattle grids - webs of grey metal that can turn ankle bones to splintered stick-rock candy and flock to frieze - were not overcome through hesitancy or petulant disbelief!  The rolling sheep belongs to me as a mascot to its team and by rights should belong to you too. 

mr dinner

concrete floors make copacetic mattresses

Some thoughts...

I'm using the opportunity to work freely in such a large space to take a step back from my practice at this stage by documenting a series of wall drawings. Past works can be described as fugitive in that they often are short lived and occupy ancillary spaces in museums and galleries. The drawings at PSL will be filmed being made and then erased shortly after completion. The project is structured in two 6 week phases: the first of which resembles studio practice in public and the second stage (which we're calling 'the exhibition') has more of a conventional feel of a group show.

The next stream of consciousness rant concerns the work pictured in the image above...

I'm not usually interested in revealing or emphasising the process and act of making a drawing. I'd rather start with a projected notion arrived at by research into the site and/or the context of issues dealt with in a group show and end up with a work which attempts to communicate a message via text and image and places its emphasis firmly on the viewer and their perspective. Past work has incorporated literature and narrative (both visual and verbal) which encourages the viewer to read the architecture as they read the drawings. This convention in art reached its zenith in the frescoes of the Quattrocento.

In a way this new work relates to the title Morphic Resonance, as on a formal level; stereomatic motifs and familiar insignia allude to notions of collectivity and Sheldrake's collective memory theory.

The grammar of the ornament here speaks of interplay and transition. However, above all else, this drawing is an aesthetic consequence of time and space. The optic-illusionary elements serve to reinforce the idea of art as paradox and multi stable. The hyper-temporary nature of the work draws into question the very function and value of art itself. The found insignia are geometric shapes of the sort which have regularly appeared in the 60's movement of Op art as well as in the sophisticated 3d illusionistic pattern design of many cultures including Rome, the Middle East, India and Greece.

Ornament in the context of a culture is a form of social amelioration, an act of relieving ills and changing for the better, perhaps linked to humankind's striving for Godliness through order and dominion over nature or an improved society towards utopia. Or an indication of a race's identity and their societies stage, gauged by their ornament's level of sophistication. You don't need to look further than architecture to see the signs this vernacular expression of power through design. Is the idea of relieving ills related to the compulsion artists feel to make objects and statements? What do we share that makes us artists? A gene? Was the Beuysian positivist notion of trauerarbeit due to individual or collective collective guilt? Why am I so cynical? Can art really make a difference? Can it change the world? When I ask the question 'What is art for?' by making temporary site specific drawings. I think the answer for me lies somewhere in this line of enquiry. I like to think of these works as conversations on these ideas.

Working in the space and getting an insight into, not only my praxis - which was the original intention - but also the work of the other artists has been unusually helpful. It has in addition, generated more questions than answers at this stage, which I'm rather happy about...


For the opening on the 12th of May intend to display the black and white photographic documentation of each drawing (6 in total) before erasure as the work in it's final form hung over the painted-out drawings. This project for me has been about duration and gaining a new perspective on my praxis. More to follow... In the meantime you can see more photos and video of work in progress on my faceplant page

hakol b’seder,

Ant Macari

workplace gallery

Tonight / tomorrow