(Top Photo (l-r): Abigail prepares delicious goats cheese and red grape ciabatta (not bribes), The exhibit, Jonathan (left) enjoys the delicious goats cheese ciabatta over looked by Daniel, the chef.)

Yesterday I attended the PV of The Undercliff at Gallery 40 (On the corner of Foundry Street, Brighton), a video and photography project by Abigail Toll and Jonathan Hyde that mused on The Undercliff, an area between Rottingdean and Ovingdean.

The work really is rather special, I wrote briefly about it here, and both artists have a real identification and understanding of the area as both a site of memory and familiar ties, and as an uncontrollable and beautiful landscape. 

It’s at Gallery 40 until Sunday 30th October, make sure you go downstairs to watch Toll’s great film.

(My friends are very talented.)

Even though I’m not particularly fussed about The Olympics, it has thrown up a few really interesting exhibitions and historical projects focusing on the cultural history of London. Therefore I’m thoroughly excited about this particular photography exhibition at the Tate Britain, featuring the works of Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Dora Maar. The exhibition focuses on a period between 1930 and 1980, when ‘some of the best-known photographers from around the world came to London to make work about the city and its communities.’ As outsiders to London, they have a unique perspective of the city which acts as an addition, rather than a contrast to the complex photographic history of London. 
Pop-upView Separately

Even though I’m not particularly fussed about The Olympics, it has thrown up a few really interesting exhibitions and historical projects focusing on the cultural history of London. Therefore I’m thoroughly excited about this particular photography exhibition at the Tate Britain, featuring the works of Karen Knorr and Olivier Richon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Dora Maar. The exhibition focuses on a period between 1930 and 1980, when ‘some of the best-known photographers from around the world came to London to make work about the city and its communities.’ As outsiders to London, they have a unique perspective of the city which acts as an addition, rather than a contrast to the complex photographic history of London. 

For the next two weeks I have the pleasure of assisting Fabrica’s newest exhibition Cluster by Annemarie O’Sullivan. I’ve helped with Technical Production for 6 months now, mainly with video art installations, so I was particularly excited to get involved with a sculpture based installation.

Working with materials so carefully is wonderful, all the structures are held together by tension once the clamps are removed, so a slight misalignment can throw the balance of the structure, or at worse destroy it. O’Sullivan has immense craftmanship that I can only aspire to, an incredible understanding of the materials she is working with (sweet chesnut) and a passion that stems from a calling toward creating her work.

Talking to her at lunch I discovered that she actually studied Sports Science at Loughborough, and then went on to teach at a Primary School. O’Sullivan’s turn towards sculpture was born from a want and need to do create, to go outside and work with natural materials, and from this she has a great knowledge of the local natural landscape. She then went on to make outside willow sculptures and structures, and then to study a City and Guilds in Basket Making. This is the first time that she has honoured this craft on this scale, and I’m looking forward to the final arrangement of these winding cocoons. I may have sanded the prints from my fingertips (You can’t wipe off chalk marks, as the willow can’t get wet) but I’m looking forward to seeing it develop into a final installation. 

Last Friday I attended the Private View of the University of Brighton Degree Show, which had all of the disciplines offered by the university as one huge, maze-like show. This video features the Moving Image graduates, who impressed me the most with their excellent, sensitive, and exciting video art. It’s great to see talents such as this can be nurtured, and I’ve been watching the development of these artists for a couple of years, first as an admirer, and later as a friend. 

Other Work by the Artists featured:

Rowan Briscoe - One Minute Prayer 

Keita Lynch - Complexity Triptych (right) 

Joseph Evans - Kryst

Last night I attended SoundScreen, an event run by Pop Up Brighton, who run arts events and exhibitions across Brighton with the aim of showcasing new talent. Presented in a beautiful Unitarian church, this was something quite special, as artists and musicians worked together in order to create a new, sensory experience that straddles popular culture and high end art. This is something to be really excited about, as the organisation themselves are quite keen to collaborate with other arts organisations in their share of resources, spaces and events. I’m currently writing a series of mini-essays that address this, and other issues, which I’m writing more for an exercise in my own curatorial ethics, setting my own standards as such. This was great though, people were so excited to talk about the future of the Brighton arts community, which seems to have become bigger and better in the last few months.  
Pop-upView Separately

Last night I attended SoundScreen, an event run by Pop Up Brighton, who run arts events and exhibitions across Brighton with the aim of showcasing new talent. Presented in a beautiful Unitarian church, this was something quite special, as artists and musicians worked together in order to create a new, sensory experience that straddles popular culture and high end art. This is something to be really excited about, as the organisation themselves are quite keen to collaborate with other arts organisations in their share of resources, spaces and events. I’m currently writing a series of mini-essays that address this, and other issues, which I’m writing more for an exercise in my own curatorial ethics, setting my own standards as such. This was great though, people were so excited to talk about the future of the Brighton arts community, which seems to have become bigger and better in the last few months.  

‘Costume’ at HINTER, Brighton - Lauren Schneider and Albert Schlemberger

HINTER is a tiny gallery in Hove, just outside Brighton, run by local artists Lauren Scheider and Albert Schlemberger (also known as Joseph Schneider) who also work in this space (just behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz). After being welcomed with Breton cider, I had the chance to talk to both artists about their work, their process, and their studio. It’s always great to get the chance to do this, as majority of artistic production is deeply personal, so understanding their motive lends a whole new facet to my interpretation. 

Albert Schlemberger’s work responds directly to the material he works with, hence the unstretched and manipulated canvases covered in linear, textured forms. The below sculpture is almost animal with its rust coloured print, and different viewpoints lend different interpretations. I think at one point I saw a small, dilapidated monk-like figure, and I love the fact that it has this transformative quality. There is something distinctly human to it, a kind of shroud costume, which I found hard to pry from my interpretation. Schneider did discuss the possibility of future work becoming a costume, so that you would interpret the work by becoming a part of it yourself.

There’s a great consistency in Schlemberger/Schneider’s depiction of the human form, another painting I didn’t photograph showed this too, which had something very medieval and ancient about it. The tonality of the work is sombre and powerful, with a distinct earthiness to his response to the canvas, a strong taste of metal.

Lauren Schneider’s work is obsessed by the body, particularly its ability to be self-conscious and ridiculous which affects the way in which we see ourselves. The top sculpture is an obvious meditation on the harlequin; the legs are grotesquely morphed, its anatomy renders us unable to think of it walking. Therefore it exists as a surreal, inhuman figure, an absurd caricature of the assumed grace of a harlequin.

The lower sculpture plays on the idea of the bust, a classical depiction of a person’s likeness reserved for those worthy enough of a column. Lauren Schneider’s  gradually built upon form is interesting, as there is a certain amount of constraint to the form around the neck of the bulbous head. Schneider herself talked about the presence of a nun’s Wimple, a symbol of virginity and sexual restriction, and perhaps a collar can be seen. 

Looking at the process of Schneider’s work, you can see the ghost of its creation, the texture left by the polystyrene used to contain the plaster that formed the plinth is evident, which lends to its fragility. I won’t lie about the fact that I thought the base was part polystyrene, so being a naturally clumsy person, I was very aware that I could knock it over with a brush of my coat. However I think this lends to it’s strength, I’ve made it quite obvious in the past that I’m a big fan of Joseph Havel’s sculpture which casts the delicate in iron and plaster, so this evidence of process is fascinating.

Upcoming Brighton Exhibitions

Still From: ‘I See An Infinite Distance Between One Point And Another’

One of the great benefits of living in Brighton is the wealth of its art community, so I thought I’d let you all know what’s going on in the next month in case you’re in the area (and if you are, drop me an email and I’ll show you around!)

Turtle Salon @ Grey Area

14th April - 29th April 

Throughout Turtle Salon’s occupancy at the Artist Run Grey Area expect art, video art, film screenings and live music (including an appearance by The Raincoat’s Gina Birch). I’ll be at the PV on Saturday 14th April, for Amos Poe’s Empire II. This is a great, new and very exciting space for Brighton’s art scene, encouraging an open, social dialogue between a variety of artistic disciplines and their audience.

Lower Ground Floor, 31 Queens Road, Brighton, BN13XA, Entrance Up Side Street. 

Costume @ HINTER

22nd April - 13th May

A presentation of sculpture by Lauren Schneider and Albert Schlemberger. Schneiders work in particular is particularly special, an intensely internal artist that explores the complexity of identity through bound and covered figures. 

Unit 16, Unit 16, Lion Mews, Richardson Road, Hove, BN3 5RA.

‘I See An Infinite Distance Between One Point And Another’ @ Fabrica

14th April - 27th May

Fabrica sees the presentation of a new film essay by Turner Prize nominated The Otolith Group, in which Lebanese poet Etel Adnan is filmed reading excerpts of her book-long poem ‘Of Sea and Fog’, a beautifully lyrical and haunting work. I’ve already seen the work, and I’ll be writing about it later on this month, once I’ve spent a bit more time with it. The final cut of the film is my favourite, a gorgeous moment of fragmentation as the camera breaks up an ice sheet, creating new borders and islands.

40 Duke Street, Brighton, BN1 1AG

Lakeside Frequencies @ Westhill Community Hall

27th April

This new work by Rachael Melanson, a relatively new installation artist in Brighton, is something to get really involved with. From what I’ve heard, Melanson will be erecting a forest within Westhill, with each tree containing aa radio reciever. You are then given a headset, which picks up each frequency as you explore the piece. Exciting stuff.

Compton Avenue, Brighton