gift

Whitechapel Auction

admin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:24:45 +0000

Sub-Title

A Bigger Splash Whitechapel auction at the London Art Fair

End Date

Start Date

17 Nov 2001

Location

London Art Fair

Body

We were asked by the Whitechapel Art Gallery London, to contribute an artwork to a charity auction, to raise funds for their public programme.

Each invited artist was supplied with water colour paper, paints and brushes.

We decided to make an artwork that would be very, very desirable to future owners and collectors. Therefore we meticulously copied reproductions, of two Gary Hume paintings from the catalogue of the extremely popular Whitechapel exhibition in 2000; his Angel, series.

The imagery is based on the artist's photographs of enormous concrete angels on the ceiling of the Catholic Cathedral in Brasilia. Following his usual practice, he enlarged and traced the imagery in order to generate the outlines that structure his sumptuous, sexy abstracted paintings of flat, gloss, and high-key colour. We reversed the process, sort of, by tracing photographic reproduction of the paintings and making watercolour equivalents.

The paintings are beautiful, they look like Gary Hume's, and most visitors thought they were Gary Hume's. They did extremely well for the Whitechapel at auction..........

One was bought by a collector and later given to the retiring director of the Whitechapel, Catherine Lampert as a gift; the other was hastily purchased by Gary Hume's gallerist, Jay Joplin of White Cube, to keep the painting out of the market-place.

artists who kindly donated work to A Bigger Splash include; Fiona Banner, David Batchelor, Sonia Boyce, Tony Bevan, Ian Davenport, Peter Doig, Tracey Emin, Mark Francis, Anya Gallaccio, Cathy de Monchaux, Paul Morrison, Paul Noble, Chris Ofili, Julian Opie, Grayson Perry, Bob & Roberta Smith, Wolfgang Tillmans, Shafique Uddin, Jessica Voorsanger, Rachel Whiteread, Alison Wilding, and Paul Winstanley.

Free Trade visitors

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Visitors
Free Trade 2003

One Guinea

admin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:13:11 +0000

Sub-Title

Chalmers Bequest a project by Elizabeth Price

End Date

7 Jan 2003

Start Date

5 Dec 2002

Location

Hackney Museum: London

Body

One Guinea for the Collection Attendant

We were invited by artist Elizabeth Price to enact Clause Six of the Chalmers Bequest, contained within the Will of Alexander Chalmers.

Elizabeth Price has been working since December 2000 to re-enact each of the clauses contained within the Bequest.

At 5.30 pm on Thursday 12th December 2002 the collection attendant in exchange for the guinea, took the opportunity to share his knowledge of the collection with visitors.

And in keeping with the spirit of the collection –it consists of paintings, sculptures, objects of virtue, souvenirs, mantle-piece decoration and jumble sale trophies - mixed the anecdotal with the factual, the intimate with the official and the contemporary with the historical.

Alexander Henry Chalmers, died in April 1927 aged 78. Buried next to his wife in Abney Park Cemetery, he worked for forty years as a ledger clerk in the Provident Clerks Company in the City of London. On his death his will left money for his family, but not his brother, various hospitals, the bellringer at the Old Church in Stoke Newington, for a church organ, the Lifeboat fund and other charitable trusts, but most importantly of all to care for and continue his collection.

Chalmers wanted to found the nucleus of a public museum in Stoke Newington, as other great men –like Hans Sloane at the British Museum- had done before him; to turn his personal taste into public culture. He bequeathed his life-long collection and money for its continuance to the local authority.

Chalmers collected ‘to mimic the joy afforded him by our great National Treasury of Art’ but his collection was humble, feeble even; limited by lack of funds and even more so by lack of education.

What remains is the ghost of ambition, and evidence of a terrible longing. A longing shared with other collections and collectors, to be remembered after death and live on as a public good.

At the end of the project, the remnants of the Chalmers Bequest returned to the sleep of permanent storage.

Free Trade installation 4

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detail - monitor
Free Trade 2003

Reprise

admin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:10:23 +0000

Sub-Title

part of Independence, commissioned by curator Chris Hammonds

End Date

3 Aug 2003

Start Date

3 Jun 2003

Location

South London Gallery: London

Body

Reprise was part of Independence, a celebratory exhibition at the South London Gallery, marking the devolution of the Gallery from Local Authority management.

Reprise was presented by the director Margot Heller at the opening party on the 1st June 2003.

On our behalf, Margot read a speech that we found through our research in the Gallery archives. The speech was first delivered in 1893 by the founder [the Gallery began in 1868] and director William Rossiter to the Gallery Council. Rossiter was fighting to retain the independence of the Gallery by keeping it out of Local Authority control, he was fearful of swapping one form of indebtedness, inherent in financial support - from private donation to public subsidy- for another .

Rossiter lost the battle to keep the Gallery independent.

108 years later, and although the direction of the Gallery's movement is reversed - from public subsidy to a 'mixed' economy - the forms of indebtedness remain the same; the struggle for independence is being uncannily replayed, in reverse.

Reprise
A souvenir pamphlet, with annotated text of the speech delivered by both directors
ISBN 1 898 461 244
Price 20p

Published by the South London Gallery and millimeter.org

Available from the gallery

Free Trade installation logo

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installation detail - logo
Free Trade 2003

Welcome

admin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 14:08:03 +0000

Sub-Title

Commissioned by Adam Budak and Marta Tarabula to coincide with the international conference on contemporary curatorial practice, Polyphony of Voices in Krakow.

End Date

23 Oct 2002

Start Date

21 Oct 2002

Location

Galeria Zderzak, Krakow Poland

Body

Galeria Zderzak is one of the first ‘commercial’ galleries to grow outside of the state funded system of patronage in Poland. While researching the gallery through its archives, we found video evidence that the director Marta Tarabula had been welcoming visitors and introducing artists at every exhibition opening since 1985.

We edited every welcome together, and this video loop played for the duration of the project; endlessly introducing artists, and welcoming each visitor.

At the projects inauguration, we in turn were introduced and thanked, and the audience welcomed by Marta.

Welcome makes explicit the exchange of obligations between a gallerist, the artist invited to exhibit, and an audience. Although in this instance, we declined the invitation of being promoted by the gallery, and instead Welcome uses the opportunity to assist gallery Zderzak through representing the gallerist Marta Tarabula.

The Polyphony of Voices international conference organized by the Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery in Kraków focused on the problematics of contemporary curatorial practices. One of the conceits of the conference was that each panel made from international curators, would be curated by artists. With contributions from Elmgreen & Dragset, Marysia Lewandowska/Neil Cummings, Andrea Fraser, Azorro Group, Christian Jankowski and Mariola Brillowska.

Andre Fraser's remarks on the conference

Free Trade installation detail

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installation detail
Free Trade 2003

Free Trade

admin — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:48:38 +0000

Sub-Title

commissioned by Catherine Dickinson

End Date

23 Feb 2003

Start Date

25 May 2002

Location

Manchester Art Gallery: Manchester

Body

Background

The idea of Free trade is fundamental to the city of Manchester. In 1812 the anti-corn law league set out to break the restrictive practices of the aristocratic landowners, and their ability to lobby Parliament to impose import duty on grain. The middle class merchants and manufacturers who advocated Free trade understood that cheap food would mean cheap labour and increased profits. The subsequent triumph of Free trade enabled Manchester to become the largest import/export and distribution centre in England, and subsequently the British Empire. Throughout the mid 19th century the expansion of trade enabled the city to evolve into the second largest centre for commercial banking and joint stock trading; transforming itself from a manufacturer into the centre of a global market-place

Of course, the explosion of trade and extrusion of wealth began to find expression in a different kind of ‘cultural’ capital.

A stunning example of the complex web of financial and cultural exchange in Manchester, and a perfect vehicle by which to trace their movements is the Beatson Blair Bequest. George Beatson Blair was one of three brothers -James, Alexander, and George- who were all partners in a cotton import/export and shipping company. And like other newly wealthy middle class merchants, James and George turned their financial profits into cultural goods.

On George’s death, the executors of the estate estimated the collection to consist of around 30,000 artefacts, of which 5,000 were paintings. The collection filled the five entertaining rooms, twenty bedrooms, offices for staff, bathrooms, attics, halls, landings, staircases, workshops and even the pig-sty’s of the brothers house in Whalley Range. Each room was overflowing. An inventory of 4894 objects exists in the gallery archive, of which around 458 objects were eventually accessioned by the Manchester Gallery.

Free trade is not only a historical event, it is the origin of the forces of globalisation.

Through the idea of free trade it's possible to trace how national interests have been superseded by corporate priorities, and cultural goods have moved from being a by-product of economic wealth, to its source. In Manchester for instance manufacturing has been replaced by music and television industries, sport has become business, and museum and gallery visits -linked to tourism – have become beacons of economic regeneration.

Installation

After a year of research, we identified in the Beatson Blair Bequest a beautiful example of Manchester’s particular social, economic and cultural history, as well as a device with which to explore the history and conventions of the Manchester Art Gallery itself.

For the first time ever, the remains of the Beatson Blair Bequest –all the paintings, fine furniture, ceramics, silver, hardstones and bric-a-brac - have been brought together into one room. The extraordinary installation piled into the centre of the gallery challenges the conventions of museum exhibition. These precious objects are not sorted into type, period or manufacturer; the rhetoric of the museum classification, nor are they isolated in vitrines for distant aesthetic connoisseurship. Displayed as if in transit, the objects are momentarily arrested, on route elsewhere - from store to exhibition? The installation hints at the chaotic interior of Blair's house, and the huge quantity of all manner of goods that moved continually through Manchester.

Before objects become part of Gallery or Museum collections they participate in circuits of exchange. In this instance bought by the Blair's at auction and from dealers in Manchester; and in an inversion of conventional gallery labeling, each object from the Bequest carries the one piece of information that visitors are most curious about, its 1941 price. These artworks, as well as being objects of trade, were also purchased from the profit of trade.

We have turned the most complete inventory of the Bequest -4894 objects – into Gallery wallpaper. Standing Inside this ghost of the collection, you can grasp the extent of the original bequest, and notice how it was edited to fit the museum's image of itself; rather than represent the taste of the collector. See what was sold at auction, and wonder why that painting was disposed of, and this pewter tankard accessioned.

Films

Two film-loops run continuously in the exhibition, edited from amateur film found at the North West Film Archive at the Metropolitan University. One film records goods and materials pouring into Manchester via the Ship Canal for distribution via the various produce-exchanges and markets. While another pans the endless stream of products manufactured in the city for subsequent export.

Walks

A series of gentle walks took place –lead by local historian Steve Little- around and through the Free Trade exhibition, the Gallery and then out into the city. The legacy of Free trade still dominates the architecture of Manchester; visit the Free Trade Hall (1840)-now a luxurious hotel The Royal, Coal, Corn and Produce Exchanges - all shopping malls, the bridgewater canal, various magnificent wholesale warehouses -currently speculative loft-living appartments and a suite of beautiful 19th century Banks –now extravagant bars.

Lectures

Art Wealth and Riches
Sunday 10 November

A lecture by writer and critic William Morris, was first delivered at a joint conversazione of Manchester Societies at the Royal Institution, Manchester 6th March 1883.' It will be recreated by actor Steve Whitehouse.

In this brilliant and provocative lecture, writer, craftsman and socialist William Morris challenges the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester. With uncanny prescience, Morris describes our current confusion; between art and fashion, art and celebrity, and art and shopping.

Art and globalisation
Sunday 24 November

Writer and critic Julian Stallabrass will upgrade the themes of the William Morris lecture. As Free Trade is subsumed by vast exchanges of corporate capital, Julian explores the success and failure of contemporary art, amidst the commodified cultures of globalization.

A Joy Forever
Sunday 26 January

A lecture by writer and critic John Ruskin, to coincide with the Art
Treasures Exhibition was first delivered at the Manchester Athenaeum, July 10th 1857. Recreated by art historian and former actor Paul O'Keefe.

John Ruskin's extraordinary lecture attempts to build a political economy for art. He suggests that all economies could easily be divided into three components.
1. applying your labour rationally

2. preserving its produce carefuly

3. distributing its produce seasonably.

With devastating effects, this ideal economy is then laid over the production (artist), storage and distribution (museum/gallery) of the art of his time; a model that seems unchanged and relevant today.

Free Trade
Sunday 9 February 2003

Artists Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska, who devised Free Trade, talk about the project in relation to other recent work

catalogue Free Trade

Edited by the artists, with previously unpublished archive material alongside photographs of the gallery installation; features rare lectures previously delivered in Manchester by John Ruskin (1857) and William Morris (1883) and commissioned essays by historian Julian Stallabrass, artist and writer Dan Smith and investment manager Toby Nangle.

Neil's research for the lecture series was assisted by a Research Grant from Chelsea College of Art and Design.

For more information visit the Manchester Art Gallery. Free Trade was sponsored by Axa Art Insurance

Free Trade installation detail1

admin — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:00:11 +0000

detail Royal Exchange
Free Trade 2003

gift

Whitechapel Auction

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Free Trade visitors

One Guinea

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Free Trade installation 4

Reprise

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Welcome

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Free Trade

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Free Trade installation detail1