DY-66

29 Sept - 7 Oct 2007
Sat + Sun 1 - 6pm
Five Years Gallery
Unit 66 6th Floor, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, London E8 4QN


Apparently there is something strange happening in and around the Five Years Gallery: the A.A.S. are investigating a ‘zone of instability’ and are trying to avert a disaster. The peculiar happenings seem to be originating from East End galleries. The A.A.S. believe that galleries are in fact fronts for highly illegal activities or head quarters for hostile organizations.

The A.A.S. is an undercover organisation carrying out various absurd but covert operations. It is formed from a changing collection of agents and “participants are absorbed into particular projects as required” but their suspicious behaviour may give then away. The members are given pseudonyms such as Mule, The Viking, The Philosopher, and the Shadow; their special skills, aims, and weaknesses are also recorded.

The Five Years Gallery is currently the A.A.S. control room. As a visitor you can riffle through their recent espionage activities.
The spy ring was mapped out on the wall with red string and pins – each linked to an area in the centre then linked to images and text produced from and for the spy event that had occurred at that geographical location. They do seem to be obsessed with poisoning, but I suppose this is the espionage vogue at the moment. The agents’ activities include taking ‘participants’ to different shops to spell out words from the first letter of each shop, code words most be exchanged before play can commence.

The participants’ notebooks contained information gleaned from surveillance activities in the form of notes, sketches and diagrams. Visual data was also presented mini photographs collected papers, perhaps evidence. These were quite beautiful. One of the A.A.S. participants read from this during the opening, but its content was still inaccessible to me. They also had the entire electrical grid of Birmingham on microfilm. How could I not respect these intellectual superiors now? I was in awe of the breadth of the data.

The A.A.S.’s underworld was accessible but so deep with layers of information that to truly comprehend in its entirety was impossible. What you saw was the surface of what appeared to be a total system.

Through the spying activities the protagonists respond to the signs systems and structures of the contemporary city but disregard their conventional meanings. They map out a sub system: one that questions the authority inherent within these signs and systems, creating their own, subversive to the core.

Their work reminds me of the absurdist Dadaist events where their actions appeared to be absent of any logic, in response to the barbaric First World War. This same bureaucratic, state sanctioned logic has again brought us to a war on terror where every third person could be a terrorist of some kind. Every time I go on the tube a disembodied announcer advises me to report unattended luggage and suspicious behaviour.

Invisibilism

Art exhibition by Martian Artist GRUSFMVMFVM-X3 (apologies if I have mis-spelt your name).
Went to the private view of this one. I didn't actually see anything. Apparently the the Martian was present for the P.V. but was in the 8th dimension.
32a Vyner Street,
London
E2 9DG

on show until 30 Sept

Emma Holden Affinity

7 Sept - 30 Sept
75-77 Broadway Market, London Fields, London E8 4PH

I find this venue too commercial and as a result anything displayed in there is read with that bias. Though there were one or two pieces that I liked there were too many different things on display, some framed some not. I much preferred the drawings that I saw earlier this year at August arts.

Type An Exhibition of Typographic Design

13 Sept - 22 Sept
AQFFIN
55 Commercial Street,
London
E1 6BD

Exhibiting artists; Tom Brennan, Mihoko Iwase, Reiko Kasamo, Ben Lam, Sosuke Sugiura, Miyuki Sutoh, Yoshiko Tanigawa, Sunhee Yang.

The Big Draw East

Its that time of year again. Big Draw time.
Sunday 30th September 10.30am-5pm

Free Drawing events are taking place in the East of London at various venues.
Venues include; Geffrye Museum, Sutton House, Bishops Square, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, Christ Church Spitalfields, St. Jude's Nature Park, York Hall, V&A Museum of Childhood, St. John on Bethnal Green, Queen Mary, Univerisity of London, Ragged School Museum, Ocean NDC, Ecology Pavilion.

Monster Drawing Rally

Los Angeles is holding a Monster Drawing Rally a fundraising event with lots of artists. It also includes bands as well as drawing. Check out link for more information

The Joy

The Joy
Nettie Horn Gallery
7 Sept – 7 Oct

Nettie Horn Gallery, now, not the newest gallery on Vyner Street as the stunning Wilkinson Gallery opened its doors last Thursday. Wilkinson’s is now like the White Cube, but without the Hello Magazine array of artists who are all far too famous to be interesting. On display at Wilkinson were Thoralf Knobloch paintings’ that were less drippy Doigs’ and more urban dystopian - spaces similar to Hopper.

The Joy at Nettie Horn was another group show.

Pros and cons of group shows;
• They are often only loosely themed without any critical underpinning
• Generally there is just too much work so everything looks cramped
• It is a who’s who, or who’s new kind of thing
• Works are hardly ever site specific but commodity driven
• You don’t get much of an idea of the artists practice
• Discovering new artists who’s work you love
• As an artist you have to worry less about the number of people turning up to the private view

Highlights were Louise Colbourne’s videos of white bisected cubes moving in duet - reminded me of logic puzzles at maths in school. A person standing on one leg (you just see the foot and the lower leg) wearing a golden shoe who wobbles but never falls over thanks to the editing of the film.

Andrew Ekins nipple stalagmite paint drips on tin cans producing a castle like structure was juicy and good in a naughty way, much preferred this to his painting. I never thought I could like anything that was pink.

The unfussy straight talking ‘Where did Evil come from?’ by Brian Reed; just pen on paper in a frame as you entered the space, left the question in a large space somewhere at the back of my brain.

Jerwood Drawing Prize - short list [very long list]

Selectors Avis Newman, Catherine De Zegher and Paul Bonaventura
Have managed to short list the prize to... 77 artists work. So that means that there must be at least 77 works in the show. Not the minimal response I was expecting.

Kate Adams
Caroline Ali
Holly Antrum
Alistair Ashe
Lucy Austin
Adam Ball
Catherine Bertola
James Bingham
Peter Bodenham
Glyn Brewerton
Davina Brown
Graham Brown
Christopher Bucklow
Lizzie Cannon
Jacob Cartwirght
Sunny Cheung
Ann Clare
Julie Cockburn
Ian Davenport
David Rees Davies
Adam Dix
Naomi Doble
Sarah Douglas
Luke Drozd
Mark Fairnington
Gordon Faulds
Diana Foden
Stefan Gant
Anna Maria
Patrick Gilmartin
Polly Gould
Sam Griffin
Nathalie Guinamarod
Christine Hatt
Bridget Heriz
Sarah Hope
Shareena Hill
John Holden
Tone Holmen
Sophie Horton
Mitsuko Hoshino
Melanie Jackson
Ross Jones
Chosil Kil
Tim Knowles
Minho Kwon
Vera Boele-Keimer
Irene Lees
Brighid Lowe
Ralph Macartney
Sarah McNulty
Jane Millican
Nicole Mollett
Peter Monkman
Marcela Montoya-Turnill
Claire Morgan
Catherine Morland
Donna Nicholson-Arnott
Louise Norman
Sean O' Keefe
Grace O'Connor
Eamon O'Kane
Susie Parfitt
Stuart Parkinson
Stuart Pearson Wright
Kerry Phippen
Pauline Place
Margaret Proudfoot
Giannini Giulia-Resteghini
Daisy Richardson
Mary Rouncefield
Paul Ryan
Adam Sunderland
Suzanne Treister
Alison Turnbull
Cathy Ward
Paul Westcombe

‘Drawing Topologies’ – Proposal for Municipal Acquistions Drawings

29/06/07 – 16/09/07

Stedelijk Museum
Amsterdam

The drawing topologies exhibition is both an investigation into the different areas of drawing and a means to purchase work for the Stedelijk’s permanent collection. There are two reasons why I found this exhibition pertinent; a) the division of drawing into five distinct topologies and how each practice fitted to their allocated area b), to see what contemporary Netherlands based artists are doing with and within drawing.

It was quite clear that the selectors had got beyond the conventional sense of drawing as being something on paper. The Stedelijk had dedicated a large amount of space to this show and it was not an adjunct to other seemingly more important exhibitions. The works were given space to breathe and were not competing with their labels, as is often the case. This exhibition enabled you to get an idea of the artists practice in particular because it was clearly artists rather than works that were chosen. The five topologies gave the exhibition a framing to the reading of the work and allowing a more critical reflection of the current movements within drawing.

The five topologies they chose were; laboratory exploration, representational, as drawn (meaning to draw out of yourself), narrative, and drawing as the capturing of time.

Drawing as laboratory epitomised the idea of drawing as a working out, a visualization of ideas. Explorations that now have the same status as the final outcomes that the drawings make happen. There is the temptation to look at these works without considering their position within the artists practice. What status does the artist attribute to these works? Within this section there was a fascinating but straight real time video recording of insects swarming around bright lights. [Unfortunately I can’t and couldn’t work out which artist did this piece] The lights were illuminating a concert in contrast to the delicate frenzy of the insects there was sounds of a host on a tanoy and noises from a large crowd, just out of the frame of the camera, which never moved from the insects. This wasn’t drawing as laboratory, but drawing that documented; it was a record. ‘Drawing as time capsule’ fits drawing used to document, but other works such as Marc Nagtzaam’s meticulously copied computer print outs fitted not as drawing to document, but drawing to contain and expand time. Work where the labour of making is condensed within the reading of the image. I found most of the work within Drawings as representation was much more suited to the category of narrative, especially Ina van Zyl’s dark sexual charcoal drawings, images which form part of a narrative or originate in van Zyl’s comics and Maura Biava’s possible life outcomes for an arty female. The Stedeijkt used ‘representation’ more in terms of identity construction or image making. Marijn van Kreij work which was in the ‘Drawing as Drawn’ section seemed to be dealing with issues of representation, though I found his work fascinating partly because I found it difficult to truly get inside and understand. Drawing as Drawn was the section where I imagined there to be doodles and unexplainable images and thoughts expressed or vented through drawing. Perhaps Charlotte Schieffert’s females would be better suited in this section.

The five toponyms; laboratory, representation, drawn, narrative, and time capsule are a helpful start to break down differing approaches to drawing. Drawing in relation to space, the creation of it and the exploration of it seemed to there but not acknowledged. Justin Bennett’s drawing of a large space within a building with an accompanying audio of the sound of the drawing being made, but the size of the space was drawn twice with the line and the sound of the line through the echo of the drawn line within the space.

Another area that is currently relevant that is of ‘ground’ where artists are through drawing, transforming the nature of the ground, in the case of Amalia Pica’s ‘Island’ quite literally. She drew a tropical island in the snow. The snow became the white page and at once the tropical island and the sea. I am interested in seeing an exhibition exploring how drawing is used to change, drawing of action and critique. To critically investigate the relationship between the act of drawing and what it does to the ground.

Drawing Topologies is a fantastic show case of contemporary drawing.


Exhibiting artists; Voebe de Gruyter, Nathalie Bruys, Justin Bennett, Joseph Semah, Frank Koolen, Job Koelewijn, Ni Haifeng, Amalica Pica, , Ina van Zyl, Charlotte Schleiffert, Iris van Dongen, Maura Biava, Lily van der Stokker, Rosemin Hendriks, Marc Nagtzaam, Marijn van Kreij, Sema Bekirovic, Ronald Cornelissen, David Haines, Aji V.N., Daniel Roth, Aam Solleveld, Etta Safve, Erik Odijk, Eylem Aladogan, Marcel van Eeden, Marco Pando, Ivan Grubanov, Daragh Reeves.

Manfred Muller

Manfred Muller who makes poetic geometric works some paper based moving into form that appear to look ceramic but are paper. In addition black geometric shapes on a variety of grounds such as graph paper. He also explores cuts and folds.

Leaded: The Materiality and Metamorphosis of Graphite

Just discovered this show which doesn't open until October but has work by the artists Stephen Sollins, Sara Lovitt, , Tara Donovan the art guys,[these guys are fantastic - so much fun] Marco Maggi and Creighton Michael

21 Oct - 22 Dec 2007
Bedford Gallery - USA [not uk]

Paul McDevitt at Stephen Friedman Gallery

I must confess I don't know anything about this artist's work, but I generally love the majority of what Stephen Friedman shows, not to mention my consideration that 'colony' by Tara Donovan is the best piece of work I have seen all year. [if you scroll through Donovan's work on the Stephen Friedman web site you will get to good images of 'colony'].

Paul McDevitt exhibited at the Cell Project Space. click on link and on title of post to see images of his work.
1 - 29 Sept
Stephen Friedman Gallery
25-28 Old Burlington Street
London

Rachel Cattle and Steve Richards

'Same Old Scene'
Rachel Cattle who recently exhibited at the Centre for Recent Drawing is exhibiting with Steve Richards. For the show they are showing animation and a comic. I expect everything to be very hand made with a hint of underlying horror.
Rachel Cattle's show at the Centre for Recent Drawing was excellent and so I am looking forward to seeing the 'stills' the drawings moving.

7 Sept - 8 Oct
Transition Gallery
Unit 25a Regent Studios
8 Andrews Road
London E8 4QN

Gabriel Lester at IBID projects

The reason why I am flagging up this artists work is because of his exploration of architecture. Through cuts that create viewing windows, vistas through buildings. He also makes films that seem to entirely use appropriated footage but fascinating collage of images which play with conventions of films and documentaries. The exhibition at IBID looks as if it will be focusing on his film works.

Gabriel Lester 'And Now for Something Completely Different'
7 Sept - 31 Sept
21 Vyner Street
London

Underground

Underground is mutual exploration of the process of making by three artists; Roger Ackling, Eric Butcher and Simon Granell. Though these three artists come from a painterly tradition they all produce work which is the 'trace of an act' the visual formation of the method of making, which is one way of understanding drawing.
There is a also a publication with writing by Tania Kovats the artist who also produced the fantastic resource 'The Drawing Book'.

Sara MacKillop

The work of Sara MacKillop was a sensitive jewel in East International. One of my favourite exhibitions partly because of how artists exhibiting in this show go on to become so influential, and because of the quality of the work shown.

Sara MacKillop's work was displayed on the top floor of the main building in a space delicately lit by natural light. Her work often using stationary or found papers such as record covers reminds me of geometric abstract paintings. Works where the edges of pages almost become areas of flat colour to be read in on the plain rather than receding into the background. The subtly of the change in density of pigment, and the bleaching and fading of the aged papers. The edges and the folds become the lines. I kept thinking about Kasimir Malevich's 'Black Square on a White Ground'. Calm work and want to see more.

Start Your Collection

3 August - 16 September
Contemporary Art Projects
20 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3DU

This exhibition of small works has the aim of getting people to start or add to their collection with affordable works. The majority of the works are small and a large proportion of drawings. The thing I like about these kinds of exhibitions as they are a like a mini survey of emerging artist and a large percentage of them exploring drawing. What I don't generally like about these exhibitions is the way that the work is displayed. Several works were placed in see through plastic wallets which protected them from mucky fingered viewers but totally interfered with the reading of the work. I could go on a rant here but I will stop and start talking about what I found and liked. If i had a big house and lots of money I would start my collection with the following;

Lucinda Oestreicher [Drawing of a donkey - sad and lumpy]

Keith Roberts [rough landscapes - nighttime - cut out of cardboard - inky melancholy]

Claire Beale [cut out radiator interior - empty furniture absences in everyday space]

D. J. Roberts [Non spaces in photographs, like Vija Celmins but the bits in between - photorealism that throws you back to the surface and the transitions in tone - hard pencil - previously exhibited at Lounge - favourite one was 'urban darkness' 2006 street crime seemed to be hiding in this one but filled all the space - creeping]


Robin Dixon
[colour field - watercolour bleeding + grids and lines]

Anka Dabrowska

Laura Green
[liked the pen and ink big space slightly sci-fi drawings]

If you do have lots of money and a big house you should go and buy work by these artists.

drawnapart west

The second half of this two part East West exploration into drawing. The second part being in Day Faber who's expertise lies in drawings from the 15th to 19th Centuries.
Artist included in this show [alive ones] are;
Kate Davis
Lucy Day
Leo Fitzmaurice
Kate Hawkins
Ben Long
Ed Pien
Terry Smith
Chloe Steele

Drawn Apart West 9-20 October 2007
Day and Faber,
173 New Bond Street, London W1Y 9PB
Monday – Sunday 12- 6 pm

Julie Cockburn at Forster

I recently came across Julie Cockburn's work at Forster Gallery. Though the work wasn't displayed in a space that gave it room to breathe and the other artist work in this group show was of a completely different aesthetic which meant I was unable to appreciate the other exhibitors in 'Ten at One'.

Cockburn responds to pre-existing images including maps and whole books by various manual means, such as cutting, collage and sewing. Many include beautiful elegant scribbles - but stitched. I am interested in the relationship between the stitched lines on top of the existing ground. One work 'A Bird in a Bush' looked initially as if Cockburn had just rapidly scribbled on the ornithological book, but the lines were carefully hand stitched. The response wasn't 'off the cuff', but carefully considered and laboured. The stitching is more tactile than a pencil line across a page, this to handle nature is also found in the choice of working on a book, not just pages but the whole book, but open at chosen pages. Why this page? With Cockburn's work like many other artists the response to the work seems to be 'dumb' in terms of a complete blindness to the content of the text. In a way that a child draws in a book, they know the image is there and they know what the image is of but are adding to it in a way that seems to bear no relation to the image or content. The graffiti nature of Cockburn's practice is a loving one, not one of disrespect, but it maybe territorial.



Julie Cockburn is in the group show 'Ten at One' until 31st August 2007
1 Chapel Place, Rivington Street, London EC2A 4DQ


Copy link below to see image of 'A Bird in a Bush'
http://www.forstergallery.com/Julie-Cockburn/a-bird-in-a-bush

MA Drawing Show Wimbledon

MA Wimbledon Students open their final show on Friday 7th September 2007
6-9pm [other MA courses are also exhibiting]
Wimbledon College of Art
Merton Hall Road
London
SW19 3QA

quick words on MA drawers work

Jack Hutchinson - cosmic background radiation

Tia Schmidt - scatter/arrange

Marwa Arsanios - figures and what they do...

Tom Robinson - Scene of the Crime?

Victoria King - Digital v Analogue

Fiona Meakin - Furry Touch

Knight's Move Journal

While visiting David Risley gallery I discovered a new drawing journal 'Knight's Move Writing is Drawing'. I loved it's large size, just black text on cream paper, not many pages. In the 'Editorial, A Zero Velocity of Reading?' by David Howells (July 2007), he states.
"[W]e propose instead of an expanded sense of writing as drawing that does not consign itself to a marginal category such as concrete poetry or liberated typography,[but one] that operates instead from within the "prison-house of language" itself."

I am looking forward to the next edition. For more information click on link above.

Anka Dabrowska + Emma Holden

Anka Dabrowska

http://www.julietgompertstrust.co.uk/artists/Dabrowska/index.html
http://www.sevenseven.org.uk/Artists_files/AnkaDabrowska.html

Emma Holden and Anka Dabrowska both exhibited together in 'Geography is a Flavour' at Baldwin Terrace run by August Arts. I was struck by both their work. If I read this correctly they will be both exhibiting separately later this year at sevenseven, in East London.

Emma Holden's work was organic grewing pencil of repeated pen marks. One piece was like a delicate dragon without eyes but drawn on a page from the financial times.

Anka Dabrowska's delicate water colours and fragile pencil lines are often on different grounds such as paper bags. Though the lines and the execution are delicate the subject matter is of things remembered from Dabrowska's past such as military helmets camouflaged.

UBS Openings: Drawings from the UBS Art Collection

Tate Modern
4 May – 4 Nov 2007 [free entry]

Drawings by artists includes: Charles Avery, George Baselitz, Alighiero e Boetti, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, John Currin, Bruce Conner, Walter Dahn, Joel Fisher, Helen Frankenthaler, Lucian Freud, Robert Gober, Philip Guston, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Franz Kline, Markus Lupertz, Rosemari Trockel, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw, Michele Zalopany.

I wandered to the over populated Tate Modern to check out the drawings that were on display. Like the density of people at the Tate the drawings were also slightly too cramped.

These are notes that I made while I looked and walked around.

Alighiero e Boetti Aerei 1978 – ball point pen – plane spotting put into a picture, he his making the sky with his pen marks

Galaxy #1 (Coma Berenices) Vija Celmins – Still powerful, but the galaxy needs to breathe and it can’t do it next to the Boetti.

Untitled 1961 Helen Frankenthaler – blobs and spirals – a dedication that becomes part of the drawing

Untitled (Drawing No. 1) 1988-9 Joel Fisher – the curved red ochre graphite line gone over with black becomes almost the same register as the ground, the hand made paper with its rough edge.

Coiled Paper 1973 Edward Ruscha – the image throws you back to the ground of the image with its own subtle undulations within the frame.

Untitled #5 (Double Sink) 1985 Robert Gober – My eye looks at the ripped out sketchbook edge (series of vertical holes along the left edge of the page), I glance at the title and back to the image. I see two bodies, two figures and wonder which side left or right made the drawing. Who is the significant other, so close that you would share dirty water with? Traces

Untitled 1971-2 Cy Twombly – A wrong tilted grid that automatically makes me see Agnes Martin’s grids and lines that remind me of a tree in winter scratching on the glass in the wind.

Hunters’ Cabin Charles Avery – Drawing has x-ray vision.

STUART MURRAY - CELL PROJECT SPACE

Stuart Murray, Cell Project Space,
16 Jun – 22 July
258 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA

Stuart Murray is a Spy


Crap jobs I have had include:

• Putting the walnuts in walnut whips [I only did this for a day but the girl next to me fainted on the conveyor belt (imagine this bit)]
• Peeling potatoes by the sack load [I did this sitting outside a pub and daydreamed about being in an early Van Gogh],
• Stuffing letters to opticians and ophthalmologist in a grand Georgian room that was supposedly used to be Jack B. Yeat’s studio. When no one was looking I searched the room for paint drips but found none.
• Packing Brylcreem lids into boxes hurriedly trying keeping up with the machine, while a South African man shouted at me over the noise, describing how beautiful his country was with wonderful wild flowers.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t sent to the much-discussed ‘chicken factory’. What happens to you there is still very much a mystery, perhaps it is a place where you become a non-person and never manage to escape the underworld.

The best thing about the crap jobs was that I wasn’t really like my other workers; I was there undercover, an artist. I was a spy. Stuart Murray is also a spy.

When I walked into Cell I found a crisp white pure space, where clean attractive people looked at the results of Stuart Murray’s undercover information gathering, contained in books arranged on tables. He has recorded his interactions with the homeless, drunks and fellow temporary workers. These temporary people are the ones who society perpetually tramples and rejects, people we try to hide and move on: actively ignore.

This data is in the form of pen drawings of the individual and hand written record of what they said. Reading them transported me to a dismal gloomy Glasgow underworld. I could smell the fags, piss and alcohol. How many different ways can you ask for money? How many strategies are there for apologetically giving nothing? My favourite person in ‘On the Street’ was the woman who asked Murray not for money but if he lived in a house. If so, could she live with him?

This exhibition is crammed full of moments with people who are normally hidden. Lots of people should see this show, especially not just the art world.

MARK OUT

Artists: Simon Barker, Teresa Carneiro, Patrick Adam Jones and Onya MacCausland
Respond through to the architecture of the Phoenix Gallery

23 Jun - 21 Jul
PV 22 Jun
10-14 Waterloo Place, Brighton

Atsushi Kaga - Bunny's darkness and other stories

24 May - 30 Jun
Mother's Tank Station, 41-43 Watling Street, Ushers Island, Dublin 8

Delicate pencil drawings of a Bunny that lives in Dublin. See link for further info.

Drawing Day - IMMA

Irish Museum of Modern Art Ireland - Drawing Day 26 May 2007
A day to celebrate drawing in everyday life.
workshop lead by; Brian Fay, Róisín Lewis, Christine Mackey and also to see work by resident artist Fernanda Chieco.
There is also a lecture titled Contemporary Drawing: Trend or Development by Arno Kramer.
For further information click on title of this post then link under Drawing Day section to download a word document.

GordoN SHRIGLEY - pencil drawings

2 May - 25 May C4RD, 61-63 Cudworth Street, Bethnal Green, London
Gordon Shrigley an artist who also wrote the book, 'Spatula - How Drawing Changed the World' (2004). Which I read some time ago and has if I remember correctly writing from various fields, perhaps including Maths?
Unfortunately I am going to miss this any most other shows in May as making art Elsewhere on the other side of the pond.

Some time Now - Brian Fay

24 April - 9 June - LAB, Foley Street, Dublin 1
Exhibition of Digital Drawings recording, marking time of the cracks of paintings and stresses on films that have both aged over time. "The intention of the work is to record the affect time and history has had on the materials and supports." [from press release]. I am interested in the bringing together of these contrasting technologies, paint/film (analogue) then via the trace, the hand into a digital drawing.

‘Listening to Adam de la Cour’s Harem’

The swirls, lines and marks become sounds: fingers run over guitar strings producing an audible cord, the visual trace of the conductors baton as it beats out time. Adam de la Cour’s drawings are, in part, the depiction of choreographed movements in space that make a noise, even if it is silence bordered on each side by an audible presence. In De la Cour’s work I stop seeing an arrangement of marks on a page but envisage what these marks and gestures will, or could be, and sound like. They are sounds in my consciousness. Serge Tisseron states in ‘The Spatial Development of the Manuscript’ that “the earliest drawings are not guided by a visual exploration of space but by an exploration of movement.”i The drawings in Harem are not visual but an exploration of gestures, a score of unfixed choreographed movements that make sounds.

Recently I met someone who only listened to music live which caused me to reflect on my own appreciation of music, one that is mediated through a storage device, an object. My Ipod contains an expansive space, and this space never escapes its container, even when it is played, because when I plug in my headphones I go inside the sound box and noise happens around me in its own generated landscape; I exist within the sound-scape, within the objects space. This internalisation and immersion of listening is in opposition to drawing and live music in which the movement is inseparable from the sound/mark. When looking at a trace I recreates its making. Tisseron states that “[i]n writing as in drawing, the “thrown-out” gesture conjures a trace, a line. This “line,” which seems tied to his movement, is used by the inscriber to pull back that thought that has been cast out in the act of inscription.”ii In drawing, the casting out of thoughts allows for the creator/thinker to think another thought, it allows for time (the succession of thoughts) itself to progress.iii Seeing drawing enables a belief that the past thoughts/moments can be recaptured.

Adam de la Cour’s paper based works contain parts of Manga comics removed from their original narrative. Reading them I see onomatopoeia, a crash, a smack. De la Cour says that “Manga are noisy” iv he listens to them through seeing. In Japan they read from right to left. I raise my hand and move it across an imaginary page in order to comprehend that way of reading. De la Cour states (in reference to the performance of his drawings) that “the narrative […] was originally designed for right to left/top to bottom reading (as in traditional Manga) it can be approached in any way the performer wishes, even in page order.”v When we fragment frames of a comic and re-contextualise them, they still have a narrative quality attached to them. They are part of a great whole. They have a next and a before. The re-contextualised frame causes the other drawings around it into part of the progression.

How the musician/conductor interpret the musical score changes, fashions and trends occur in this subjective annunciation of signs and shared codes on the page. The performance is a one off, not truly replicatable. When the drawings/scores are performed (another author producing their own response to what they see/read) the mark/sound is again cast out onto the space/page. The making and the mark/sound are reunited.


P. 33 Tisseron, Serge, ‘All Writing Is Drawing: The Spatial Development of the Manuscript.’ In Boundaries: Writing and Drawing, Yale French Studies No. 84, (Yale University, New Haven, 1994,) p. 33
Op cit p. 36
In reference to discussion with D. Gamez on his book What We Can Never Know: Blind spots in Philosophy and Science, (London, Continuum 2007)
Adam de la Cour, ‘Harem: The Object as Score’ supporting text accompanying exhibition Harem, (C4RD, London 2007)
Adam de la Cour, supporting text

Adam King: Distant Echo Wilderness

After popping into the White Cube I wandered up to Dalston to see Adam King’s show, ‘Distant Echo Wilderness’. It was refreshing to see the playful, colourful work, and a contrast to the sombre paintings by Eberhard Havekost. The Lounge Gallery was overgrown with cut out floral patterns, balloons, organic floral textile blob like sculptures with kitsch ornaments and records. As self proclaimed stationary addict, I immediately identified with the proliferation of paper clips, rubber bands and the odd bulldog clip. Though I felt that I would have focused more on the works if there had been less of it, perhaps one less wall piece. It was a riotous sensitive show, and apparently Charles likes his work enough to have got out of cheque book for it! I wish the number of people who trail through the White Cube would go to ‘Distant Echo Wilderness’ but I doubt that will happen.

On until 14 Apr
Lounge 28 Shackelwell Lane, E8 2EZ

Drawing Exhibitions: London

Annie Whiles: CUCKOO Danielle Arnaud contemporary art
9 Mar - 15 Apr http://www.daniellearnaud.com/ 123 Kennington Rd. SE11 6SF

You Are Here New Works bu Jill Baroff Gallery N. von Bartha,
2 Mar - 28 Apr http://www.jillbaroff.net/ 136b Lancaster Road, W11 1QU

Charlotte Posenenske Between the Bridges
15 Apr - 24 Jun http://www.betweenbridges.net/Posenenske.html
223 Cambridge Heath Road, (corner of Three Colts Lane) E2 0EL

Stefan Bruggemann Obliteration Series Blow de la Barra
22 Mar - 12 May http://www.blowdelabarra.com/07bruggemann.php 35 Heddon Street, W1B 4BP

The Drawing Factory The Crypt, St Pancras Church, Euston Road, NW1 2BA
14 - 27 Apr http://www.thedrawingfactory.com/ PRIVATE VIEW FRI 13 APR

Leonor Antunes Dick Smith Gallery
30 Mar - 29 Apr http://www.dicksmithgallery.co.uk/ 74 Buttesland Street, N1 6BY

Ailbhe Ni Bhriain: Aftermath Domobaal
30 Mar - 5 May http://www.domobaal.com/exhibitions/40-07-ailbhe-ni-bhriain-01.html 3 John Street, WC1N 2ES

Drawing 2007 - Biennial Fundraiser The Drawing Room
19 Apr - 9 May http://www.drawingroom.org.uk/intro.htm 55 Laburnum Street, E2 8BD

'It was the best of Time Outs, it was the worst of Time Outs' Peter Davies, David Ersser, Graham Hudson
SEVENTEEN 18 Apr - 19 May PRIVATE VIEW 19 Apr 17 Kingsland Rd, E2 8AA

Adam Dant -Menageries and Monuments Hales Gallery
16 Mar - 21 Apr http://www.halesgallery.com/exhibitions/ex_07_dant.php Tea Building, 7 Bethnal Green Rd, E1 6LA

Cary Kwok Herald Street
23 Mar - 29 Apr http://www.heraldst.com/ 2 Herald Street, E2 6JT

Torsten Slama Illustrated Visions Of The Future
14 Apr - 28 May Hotel http://www.generalhotel.org/302 53 Old Bethnal Green Road, E2 6QA

Construction Time Again Lisson Gallery
22 Mar - 4 May http://www.lisson.co.uk/exhibitionDisplay.asp?ExhibitionID=62 29 Bell Street, NW1 5BY

Paul Senior A History of Things A Nifty Fine Gallery
5 Apr - 6 May http://www.aniftyfinegallery.co.uk/ 59A High Street, South Norwood, London, SE25 6EF

Momentory Momentum: Animated Drawings Parasol Unit
3 Mar - 12 May http://www.parasol-unit.org/ 14 Wharf Road, N1 7RW

Lost, Found and Imagined Salt Projects
http://www.saltprojects.com/lostfoundimagined.html 28 David's Road, Forest Hill, SE23 3EX (see web site for opening times)

DIrty Nature Standpoint Gallery
20 Apr - 19 May http://www.standpointlondon.co.uk/spgallery.html 45 Coronet Street, N1 6HD

Marcel Dzama Timothy Taylor Gallery
8 Mar - 13 Apr http://www.timothytaylorgallery.com/index_1024.html 24 Dering St. W1S 1TT

MOMENTARY MOMENTUM: Animated Drawings

3 Mar - 15 Apr 2007
Parasol Unit
14 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW
Comprising of work by: Francis Alys, Robert Breer, Paul Bush + Lisa Milroy, Micheal Dudok de Wit, Brent Green, Takashi Ishida, Susanne Jirkuff, William Kentridge, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Jochen Kuhn, Zilla Leutenegger, Arthur de Pins, Qubo Gas, Christine Rebet, Robin Rhode, Georges Schwizgebel, David Shrigley, Tabaimo, Naoyuki Tsuji + Kara Walker.

John Armleder: About Nothing. Works on Paper 1962 - 2007

South London Gallery
2 Feb – 25 Mar 2007

This exhibition of Armleder’s drawings fills almost all the wall space of the South London Gallery. It includes a snowflake wall paper, designed by the artist purposely for the show, running along the top half of the two long walls, in orange and green. The wallpaper itself reminded me of something I could buy in Habitat, and I disliked it. Though the exhibition is a survey of his drawings it does contain an awful lot of them. As so many of them were so high I could not look at them with any intimacy. I could not see how they were made. Can you have drawing without intimacy, without access to its means of production? Though the sight of all the drawings was impressive, I found myself frustrated by the limited access to the work and the sheer spectacle of the exhibition.

Tara Donovan

Until 24 Feb Tara Donovan's work is on display at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, in an exhibition called 'Memory and Obsession'. Other artists included in the show are Tom Friedman, Robert Gober and Mark Manders. Donovan's work 'Colony' blew me away. It was fascinating, so simple and so affective. I loved the shear range of colours in the collection of pencils, referencing geological formations and processes. I really like the simple exploration of what simple everyday materials can do, just through repetition and multiplication.

Copy web address to see details of 'Memory and Obsession' at the Stephen Friedman Gallery http://www.stephenfriedman.com/

Tomoko Takahashi - Hales Gallery

When arriving at the private view for Tomoko Takahashi show, I was met by a long queue. I overheard that the work had to be viewed, curiously, by torchlight.

I had the opportunity of meeting Tomoko, last year at the Drawing Power event on Exhibition Road. Tomoko was extremely happy, enthusiastic and down to earth; it was a refreshing change to the pretentious cool of some artists.

When we finally came to the front of the queue the hand drawn wall map showing our route through the gallery was explained to us, and we were handed a wind-up torch. The best thing about seeing the collection of stuff arranged on the floor and the walls by torchlight was that we only saw a partial view, never the totality of the room. I found myself coming across collections and groupings of things. It reminded me of the viewfinder that I had to look through, at school art lessons, and only draw what was contained within the frame. We shared the torch between us, and we would intern look at from the perspective of each other; things I liked and things my friend liked. It reminded me of the adventurous dreams I had as a child coming across hoards of treasure in some dark catacomb. Though it initially looked like a collection of the leftovers from a jumble sale, without the clothes, motifs were repeated; arrangements of things clearly became a Tomoko arrangement, the deleted clocks, and the playing cards for example.

In the next room, this time fully lit, there was a catwalk along the centre and around on the floor were all her documentation, in boxes and photographs upside down covering the floor. On the walls were photographs of her work, but stapled and bent, curved, not flat and displayed in a conventional manner. With my own work I find the relationship between the work and the documentation, a curious problem.

We returned to the dark room and negotiated our way through to the next room on our journey through the Hales Gallery. In this room, where framed photographs of the floor, very beautiful multiple exposures, appropriately framed, simple. We then walked through the final room, the Hales Gallery office. Like Takahashi herself, her practice, and the gallery were completely open and uninhibited.

John Plowman

I recently discovered the work of John Plowman, a London based artist. I came across his book 'Field of Activity' at the Angel Row gallery in Nottingham. He is interested in the trace of the time involved in making work. The work is the result of the repetitive actions such as sharpening pencils.
Click on link for further information John Plowman on the Axis web site

SUSAN COLLIS 'DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP'

SEVENTEEN
17 Kingsland Road, London E2
Opening 1st March 6pm
1 Mar - 31 Mar
Susan Collis turns how we look at everyday objects from one of a careless glance in to one of awe and fascination.
Collis won the Jerwood Drawing Prize, Student Prize in 2002.

The Central Line - PM Gallery, Ealing London

At the PM gallery 'Drawing as Vital Practice' includes works by ten international artists.
At the Pitzhanger Manor House 'Petherbridge Alone With Soane' a collection of Deanna Petherbridge's pen and wash drawings responding to international architectural styles.
19 Jan - 3 Mar 2007
Open Tues - Fri 1pm - 5pm
Sat 11am-5pm

Margret H. Blondal - SIEVES

Margret H. Blondal is exhibiting at Mothers Tank Station, 41-43 Watling Street, Ushers Island, Dublin.
Opening 21 Feb 18:00 - 20:00
Exhibition 22 Feb - 24 Mar 2007.

Go to URL below for further images of her work.
http://www.motherstankstation.com/pages-magrb/margbllimages04lg.htm

True Love Rachel Cattle

C4RD Nanospace 61 - 63 Cudworth St. Bethnal Green, London
31 Jan - 16 Feb 2007
Wed - Fri 12.30 - 5.30

I went to Rachel Cattle’s show with a preconception of her work, gained from seeing reproductions. I was expecting little, cute, drawings that were interesting but accessible. Luckierly, this is not what I saw. In the C4RD pinned around the room (only at the top) were a series of approximately A3 sized heavy graphite drawings. The works are part of the ‘100 drawings’ series; the title being something she saw scratched into a tree. Looking at the drawings I saw my own childhood anxieties, often ones that were unexplainable. Brownies, not fitting in, but trying to unsuccessfully; an up turned tree trunk that watches you, but you have to go round it; a stuffed bear, that isn’t scary for being a bear anymore, but for being something else; a person covered in hair; but without a face. ‘True Love’ turns this small intimate gallery into a space that has the thoughts of a psychologist’s consultation room, with its dark troublesome memories hanging around. Taking an appearance, but still difficult to pin down in words. These drawings, akin to outsider art, seem to hold an answer, but an answer that isn’t in the person but only exists in a tantalising space between thought and the surface of the paper. It allowed me to remembered things I didn’t know I had forgotten.

Being Lady Lucy: Drawings and Sketch Books, 2004-6

Unit 2 which is run by London Metropolitan University
20 Jan - 10 Mar
59 - 63 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7PF

John Armleder: About Nothing. Works on Paper 1962 - 2007

South London Gallery,
02 Feb 2007 - 25 Mar 2007
curated by Beatrix Ruf
Drawings hung floor to ceiling.

Drawing Lab Project

DIT lecture by Brian Fay & Siun Hanrahan
23 Jan 2007
7pm A019 Atrium Building IADT Dun Laoghaire, co. Dublin

Brian Fay and Siun Hanrahan discuss the Drawing Lab and the international seminar Perspectives on Drawing

Delineate: an exhibition exploring line

This exhibition is on two sites
The Project Space, Patrick Studios, St Mary's Lane Leeds LS9 7EH
26 jan - 2 Feb [10am - 5pm]

Crossley Gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax HX3 5AX
20 Jan - 31 Mar [10am - 5pm]

Project Space ; curated by Lara Eggleton & Nichola Pemberton
11 Artists working in performance, interactice, installation and video interpreting 'line' but within the public sphere.
Artists are; Teresa Carneiro, Rachel Gomme, Maggie Hall, Natasha Light, Onya McCausland, Rosemarie McGoldrick, Janie Moore, Corinne Mynatt, Corinne Noble, Griny Reed and Matthew Shelton.

Crossley Gallery ; curated by Lara Eggleton & Nichola Pemberton
17 Artists respond to uses of wall space from traditional to experimental. This includes; exploring mark-making, found objects, sculpture and digitally formated drawings.
Artists are; David Baker, Richard Baker, Eirini Boukla, Kelly Cumberland, Sophie Flynn, Kate Genever, Andrew Lister, Robert McConnell, Juliet MacDonald, Laimonis Mierins, Lucy Merchant, Paul Miller, Lisa Murphy, Ryan Riddington, Andi Robinson, Matthew Shelton, and Greg Townend.