EMER O’BRIEN – RETURN TO NORMAL

Posted on 2012-06-25

The exhibition consists of Barbara, an interactive sculptural piece, which visualises the relationship between sound waves and sound pressure, a series of live performance events and the accompanying documentation: film and sound recordings.

Based on the construction of a votive table, Barbara sends the vital spark, as flame and message into the ether; transmitting the ritual of votive offerings as sound. As a concept, Barbara offers a contemplative spectacle of fire and sound by enabling direct expression through simultaneous messaging between musician, instrument and audience. Like Hermes who was the mediator between the gods, and in whom hermeneutics’ etymological roots lay, Barbara is also a mediator; she is a listener and a messenger; she receives and she projects, otherwise put, she translates.

Where past work detailed the recent passing of time through documentation, the primary work in this case is the performance and the projection of time through the form of an event. By asking people to gather in the form of a ritual for the performance, the work questions the role of the audience in the production of meaning. By entering into the spirit of the piece, viewers contribute to the harmony and order of the piece, and through this semblance, make contact with the ultimate source of life: energy.

Opposite – Barbara, 2011

Exhibition runs through to August 18th, 2012

Christian Ferreira at the Wapping Project
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station
Wapping Wall
London
E1W 3SG

www.christianferreira.com

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MADGE GILL RETROSPECTIVE

Posted on 2012-06-25

Gill’s work has never been shown before in this way. She is presented not only as a defining member of the “Outsider art” movement (which denoted Gill’s status as a non-professional) but also as an important 20th Century artist whose work holds a modern audience captivated and intrigued.This exhibition uncovers many patterns in her work which indicate her fragile mental state following a traumatic childhood (growing up an orphan, being sent to Canada as a child worker before returning to East London and marrying her cousin). Gill started to produce drawings and embroidery on paper and calico, but her adulthood was beset by the grief which it is believed inspired her work. After the death of her son from a bout Spanish ‘flu which lost her the sight in one eye, a stillborn daughter and finally the death of her husband, Gill was prolific in her production of sketches and drawings right up until the late 1950s. She died in East Ham in 1961.

Exhibition runs through to August 23rd, 2012

Bow Arts Trust
183 Bow Road
London
E3 2SJ.

www.bowarts.org

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ERWIN WURM – ONE MINUTE SCULPTURES

Posted on 2012-06-25

Since the late 1990s Wurm has been developing One Minute Sculptures, an ongoing series in which we see the artist or his models pose in spontaneous ways with everyday items, inserting pencils in ears, propping chairs on eyes, and bringing a host of inanimate objects to life.
Presented with both a good dose of humour and an underlying cynicism, One Minute Sculptures question the definition of sculpture, and wider issues about our consumer-focused society.
“The fundamental steps consisted in abandoning the idea of durability and infinity. Sculpture could also last for just a few minutes, a few seconds. The works were transported to the level of the immediate present.” Erwin Wurm

Exhibition runs through to September 2nd, 2012

Open Eye Gallery
19 Mann Island
Liverpool Waterfront
Liverpool
L3 1BP

www.openeye.org.uk

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