Act 1: Zombie Poverty

 

29th Oct – 20th Nov 2013

 

Elizabeth McAlpine, Michael Robinson, Oscar Cass-Darweish, Meghan Allbright, Mathew Parkin, Mark Ellis, Stuart Layton, Laurence Price, Ofelia Carmen and Sally Bailey.

 

Curated by Dan Auluk

 

Act 1: Zombie Poverty is a two part exhibition that begins with a group show opening that dissolves into an experimental, de/evolving artist residency programme influenced by the idea of disruptive film narrative presented in a non-linear structure. The show is interested in dismantling authorial demarcation by inviting artists to leave a trace of their residency behind and in making a decision as to where this trace lives they populate ARTicle Gallery in an unpredictable outcome rupturing curatorial intervention. The invited artists are asked to produce a group show for the launch which is then prematurely de-installed, metaphorically returning ARTicle Gallery to a desolate landscape, for the space to then be reactivated by a series of two or three day residencies. Act 1: Zombie Poverty brings together a group of visual artists/performers whose practice is responsive, in flux, temporal and transient in nature.

 

Meghan Allbright is interested in the starting point, the idea and method of creating. The ‘openness’ of a white page, white space and its connotations of expectancy and the desire to overcome this is something that intrigues and drives her practice. Mathew Parkin works with graphic design, sculpture and video. Parkin looks at how mass production, the Internet and his chosen role as an artist, produce and complicate his identity and desires. Mark Ellis creates interactive performance encounters which are used to explore social and political relationships specifically often with a focus upon power, choice, intimacy and the notion of freedom in relation to personal exploration and expression. Stuart Layton arts practice is theoretically rooted within simulation and the hyper real and explores the passing down of history, folklore & childhood recollections and analysis of to what extent history is actually fabricated to suit the political agenda of the day. Layton’s practice oscillates between video and painting. One acting as a counterbalance to the other, whilst – simultaneously feeding off each other. Laurence Price works with ideas, motifs and ephemera, with many different modes of presentation using performative research as a way of engaging with the audience, space and processes. Animating objects to convey certain ideas as props or gestural punctuation, so the resulting environment will often be a theatrical or staged situation. Price is currently interested in notions of physical labour and ideas of human consumption, mass production and mass consumption that inform ideas of the future in relation to science fiction, religion & space travel. Oscar Cass-Darweish develops both site-specific and virtual platforms that allow for artworks to be experienced in a disparate manner, across multiple viewpoints and timeframes. Cass-Darweish will produce an audio/visual exhibit, which will evolve for the whole duration of the show, part informed by a visit to Palestine.

 

Act 1: Zombie Poverty is excited to invite Ofelia Carmen, a writer who is interested in the affect and relationship of text and gallery exhibitions and Sally Bailey, a painter and a writer interested in repetition, both of image and of process which explores notions of self, of conformity, of the need to ‘fit in’ concerned with the relational integrity between materiality and temporality. The two invited ‘writers in residence’ will produce written works that aim to destabilize the exhibition as a whole.

 

In addition to the aforementioned invited residency artists, internationally established artists Elizabeth McApline and Michael Robinson will present individual works that will remain a constant throughout the exhibition. McAlpine, who uses temporality as a central motif in her experimental video, sculptural and performance works, will present a 2d screen-print that alludes to a potential performance and simultaneously acts as a silent soundtrack, for the exhibition, affecting and being informed by the activity that takes place. McAlpine will also show a short video that will attempt to puncture the space sporadically in a chaotic fashion. Robinson, a film and video artist whose work explores the joys and dangers of mediated experience, riding the fine lines between humor and terror, nostalgia and contempt, ecstasy and hysteria will present three deftly edited films that fuse popular film and television culture, sound and music to create a hyper-real and mesmerizing disruption and dislocation from the original source.

 

Words and Music (2010) & LIGHT READING 1500 cinematic explosions (2005) Courtesy of Elizabeth McApline & Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK.

Line Describing Your Mom (2011) , These Hammers Don’t Hurt Us (2010) & If There Be Thorns (2009), Courtesy of Michael Robinson, New York, US.