http://tradegallery.org Trade Gallery - www.tradegallery.org en http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ Stuart Sherman: Spectacles (1975-89) March 2nd - 11th May 2012 Robin Deacon performance Saturday 16th March 2012 7pm - book here “ Stuart is a performance artist, you're a performance artist right? Right, filmmaker How do you get received when you go out to the Midwest to do this stuff? Like, people think it is weird, or what do they think? I think they think it's enjoyably weird...I think it is weird of course, but they seem to enjoy it, I had a very good response…some people don't think it is weird at all, they think it has great significance and they spend a lot of time analysing every action I perform…or every frame of every film Do they come up to you with cockeyed theories of what you have done? and present you with them? Well you'd have to try very hard to come up with a really cockeyed theory because it is pretty cockeyed stuff to begin with isn't it? so…its pretty weird…well, what I do allows for a lot of different interpretations, so actually, seriously, people say some strange things but they have a certain validity, there is a lot of room for them ” Stuart Sherman’s work spanned video, performance and theatre. He is best known for his series of performative ‘Spectacles’, of which nine are shown in this exhibition. Often produced just for camera, these inventive performances took their cues from Sherman’s other outputs such as writing poems and plays. The work combines these other activities into the work in surprising ways; through the poetic substitution of words for objects and the sculptural, aesthetic and narrative possibilities of the live arrangements of things. Sometimes the objects appear to be used simply because they make a sense visually : the box fits through the hole, in others the organisation of the objects creates mini scenarios : toy car crashes into a chair, the chair falls over. These little narratives move on rhythmically through the length of each work, with the objects, people and Sherman himself in constant movement, adjustment and re-arrangement. Stuart Sherman’s work is rarely exhibited on this scale and this exhibition is the first of its kind in the UK, offering an overview of the Spectacle series. Stuart Sherman was born in Providence, ‪Rhode Island‬, USA, in 1946 and died in 2001. His work has been exhibited at the Performing Garage, The Museum of Modern Art, Mudd Club, The Kitchen, Franklin Furnace, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Theater for the New City, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; List Center at M.I.T., Cambridge, MA; Kunstmuseum Berne, Kunstmuseum Zurich, and Pompidou Center, Paris. This exhibition is also the first in a two-year programme at Trade’s brand new exhibition space, covering the ground floor of 1 Thoresby Street, an iconic Victorian building on the edge of the city. Building on a rich history of performance and film in the city, Trade’s programme pays particular attention to performative, social, collaborative and collective artworks. In addition, the programme provides opportunities to engage and reconsider the importance of historical artists’ film and video in relation to the current social, political and artistic climate. Interview Text: A truncated version of Kestutis Nakas' interview with Stuart Sherman on'Your Program of Programs' 1980's cable TV show. Watch here Thursday to Saturday 11am - 6pm Monday to Wednesday by prior appointment Robin Deacon Approximating the art of Stuart Sherman Saturday 16th March 2012 7pm free Book tickets here : http://deaconsherman.eventbrite.co.uk Approximating the Art of Stuart Sherman is part of an extensive project in which Robin Deacon explores the art of the late American performance artist Stuart Sherman through documentary film, interviews and performance re-enactments. Using gathered video footage, testimonials and written descriptions of Sherman's solo performance works, Robin Deacon explores Stuart Sherman's creative methodologies through transcription and physical re-enactment of the artist's performances. Deacon is interested in how the work and legacy of an artist like Sherman may live on not just in the work itself, but also in the work of artists who have been influenced by him. The performances re-enacted are selections from The Eleventh Spectacle: The Erotic, from 1979. Robin Deacon (born 1973 Eastbourne, England) is an artist, writer and filmmaker based in the USA. Working since the early 1990's, much of his work encompasses live performance with a series of performed lectures that have explored journalistic and documentary approaches to arts practice. His performances and videos have been presented in the UK and internationally in venues such as The ICA, London (1996), The Young Vic, London (2000), CCCB, Barcelona (2006), Tanzquartier Wein, Vienna (2007) and the Centre d'art Scenique Contemporain Lausanne, Switzerland (2009). He has also been artist in residence at Sophiensaele in Berlin (2005), Camden Arts Centre London (2006) and The Watermill Center, New York, USA (2009). His research in political biography led to a series of performances on the lives of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell (2004 – 08) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005). These works had a significant multimedia element and were often rewritten in response to prevailing news events regarding their subject. http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ 18.02 - 05.03.2011 Launch Party - Opening 18.02.2011 7pm The Perception Instruction Richard Paul, David Sherry The Perception Instruction positions two artworks together: Richard Paul's The Stereo Realist 2011 and David Sherry's Open 2008. Placing these two artworks together, at a very basic level, encourages us to look for patterns and similarities between the artworks, which may appear incidentally or intentionally. From the outset the works have little in common, aside from the fact that they are both video works. The Perception Instruction is (or will be) created out of accidental and intentional connections exclusive to the pairing of these particular artworks. Between the two artworks we might see an erratic dialogue, a complementary dialogue or any shade of grey in between. Awareness, patterns, similarities and connections between the artworks can be heightened and modified as the work is transmuted into a gallery's press release. For example, this press release was written weeks before the work is installed in the gallery, so the exhibition outlined here is an approximation of future events. In other words, the press release about the exhibition is based on a hypothetical, imagined exhibition, which this press release will later come to describe. Furthermore, the press release cannot respond - as it is already written - to any events, or observations that arise at the time of the exhibition, and so it is limited in scope to talk about the experience of the work beyond that of a preconceived and imagined conditions of the (future) exhibition. As the perception of the work within this setup has a focus on physical experience of the artworks in the gallery, the press release will not describe the artworks any further only to give some additional information and some assumptions which may be useful when in the gallery. Additional information The quotes in Richard Paul's The Stereo Realist are based on Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory and Dave Hickey's views on the difference between 16th C and 17th C painting. Some assumptions The dual images within Richard Paul's The Stereo Realist may mirror the relationship between the two artworks in the Trade gallery space, in that, at moments the works may look like they do relate to each other, but probably only because of their proximity - that they are in the same room. Editors notes Richard Paul, lives and works in London - Recent Exhibitions include: Richard Paul, Theodore Art, New York - Make, Believe, Blank Gallery, Brighton, UK - Cabin Fever,, On Gallery , Oslo , Norway - In Substantiality, Theodore:Art New York, USA - Indoor Life, Walden Affairs , Den Haag , Netherlands - I Was A Teenage Hand Model Too, Seventeen, London David Sherry, lives and works in Glasgow - Recent Exhibitions include: Mothers tankstation, Dublin, Royal Standard, Liverpool Biennial, UK, One fine morning in May, GAK, Bremen, I am not here, De Appel boys school, Amsterdam, Singing Yoghurt, Log Gallery. Bergamo, Italy Trade is an artist-run gallery based in Nottingham. Trade Gallery has been developed to provide additional routes of engagement and criticism with contemporary art, through exhibitions, events, articles and online interviews. www.tradegallery.org Recent exhibitions at Trade gallery include Artur Zmijewski - Them, Tomas Chaffe - Sometimes Artists work here and Abigail Rynolds - Mount Fear, Joseph Beuys, 'I like America and America Likes Me'. Bruce Asbestos is an artist and curator and the director of Trade gallery. Bruce was previously a director of Moot Gallery, and Stand Assembly Studios, Nottingham www.bruceasbestos.info. Opening times Friday 9am - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 5pm To view the exhibition outside of these times please contact the gallery - post@tradegallery.org Trade Gallery One Thoresby Street, (off Pennyfoot Street) Nottingham NG1 1AJ www.tradegallery.org +44(0)7970188769 http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ 04.09 - 19.09.2010 Opening 04.09.2010 6pm - 8pm Both artworks featured in Ben Woodeson's exhibition at Trade are aesthetic repercussions of designing machines that flout health and safety rules, which govern space, movement and intention. The motion activated vaccum pump of Violation #10 removes the atmosphere from the sealed gallery, literally, but subtly, modifying the physics of the space. This artwork is complemented by Violation #15 a visually seductive contorting, black noose-like form that whips and rubs the gallery walls and floor. Like sawing through a branch on which you are sat, the works invite us to consider the inevitability of their own Tom and Jerry style demise. Whether the gallery would eventually implode or be stroked to death, taking the works with them, is actually of little consequence - what the artworks offer is a very human trait - to be the masters of their own downfall. Recent exhibitions include: The Tomorrow People, Elevator Gallery, London - Die Panke, Berlin - The Electric Return of Revenge, LoBe, Berlin - Scary stupid spinning thing, The Tank Room, London - Chemical Spill, Space (Foyer), London - Me love you long time (AKA Five in Five), Basement 43, London - Twisted (Selected Works), Electrohype, Skanes Konstforenings, Malmo, Sweden. See www.woodeson.co.uk for further information. http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ This is Not a Circular - Podcast #12 Tomas Chaffe discusses offices, 'Props' and the 'Artissima Chair', in his studio in Nottingham. Recorded on 13th April 2009 in Nottingham, UK Duration 29"22 Phillip Henderson - Time Machine Lecture #7 - Now available to watch online. www.tradegallery.org http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ Phillip Henderson will demonstrate the machine at 20:45 BST (GMT+1) on Thursday 15th April 2010 at Trade, One Thoresby Street, Nottingham. The Time Machine Lecture #7 will refer to the primordial chief's invisible book The Primordial Phrase - a cochlean exposition of cacophonics. Previously unheard readings from the warhorse appendix will occur, followed by a demonstration of the machine. Doors at 8:30pm for 8:45pm. Free admission. Trade 1 Thoresby Street Nottingham NG1 1AJ http://www.tradegallery.org/ http://www.tradegallery.org/ Trade presents a solo exhibition by Polish artist Artur Źmijewski, featuring his film 'Them', 2007 as shown at Documenta 12. 'Them' documents a series of exchanges from representatives of conflicting social groups; Young Jewish Liberals, a Catholic women's group, a mixture of leftists, and the nationalist - All Polish Youth. Each group had been invited to create a banner that represents their idea of Poland. The amicable atmosphere turns volatile when the groups are asked to amend each other's banners. Recent solo exhibitions include; MOMA, New York, Polish Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, Modern Art, Oxford and Cornerhouse, Manchester. Preview Saturday 20th February, 6pm-9pm February 20th - March 13th 2010 Open Thursday to Saturday, 11am - 6pm and by appointment. - Trade, 1 Thoresby Street Nottingham NG1 1AJ - http://www.tradegallery.org/richardpaulmono.mp3 http://www.tradegallery.org/richardpaulmono.mp3 Richard Paul explains his stance on function, consumption and complacent photography. Recorded on 3rd October 2009 in London, UK Duration 46"28, available at http://www.tradegallery.org