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Hello all, the Archive Gallery is opening on the 15th of September and Bob has been really busy painting the walls of the space. See below for the films of weeks 2 & 3 of his residency. What’s next is that the cases will be installed in the next few weeks and we can begin to put the archive material alongside Bob’s fantastic wall pieces. I hope that you can make it along on the 15th, 6-8pm, free and all welcome.
Week 2 – Bob’s History of Art
Week 3 – Epstein’s Travels
How to shuffle perspective game book correction rule do it meeting
Each week, we have been using i-ching readings to pick two random books from The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey, and creating a new performance score from them. This is inspired by the cut-up technique of William Burroughs, and also relates to our interest in the connection between performance scores and ritual protocols.
We have been writing these on a blackboard by the book collection, and inviting people to interpret the scores for themselves. Click here to see the different instructions created over the weeks, and try them out yourself.
During the book fair on the 27th November 2010, we spent the whole day with visitors, trying different methods of generating new performance instructions. To randomise the texts we used dice, pulled words out of a bag, and threw coins.
Then, as everyone was packing up, we presented some performances based on the scores made on the day
Click the following images to see videos:
Send us your Dedications
Send us your dedications!
Throughout The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey we’ll be asking you to help us activate some of the artworks contained in the books on display.
Have you got a special song that you would like to dedicate to a loved one? Tell us the title, artist, name of the person you are dedicating it to and why, and we’ll do our best to play them during our Artists’ Books Fair on Saturday 27th November.
Hope you can join us and help to create a great playlist!
This activity is based on Paul Rooney’s book Dedication which can be found in the exhibition.
Show us something that is certainly not art!
Throughout The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey we’ll be asking you to help us activate some of the artworks contained in the books on display.
Cesare Pietroiusti and Ralf Andtbacka’s book invites us to ‘ask a sample of 100 people to show you something that is certainly not art’.
Send us your images of the things you think are certainly not art to jonescheryl@walsall.gov.uk and we’ll add them to our flickr stream.
Here’s one to start you off…
The Garman Ryan Collection and the Epstein Archive
A big few weeks for the Epstein Archive as we have been installing framed items from the archive in amongst the Garman Ryan Collcetion. We’ve done this to give the collection a bit more context and to embed the archive further into the gallery as a whole. In total, we have 10 items from the archive displayed alongside relevant works of art from the collection. What sparked this off was a fantastic little note in the archive from Sally Ryan to Kathleen Garman. Sally had just bought a Bonnard oil painting, La Seine a Vernon (The Seine at Vernon), and gave it to Kathleen as a gift, along with the hand delivered note that we still hold today. It was with this in mind that Jo Digger and myself sought out 9 more items from the archive that could complement the Garman Ryan Collection and we are really happy with the results.
So, from today – you’ll notice some cupboards on the walls on floors 1 and 2 of the gallery. The archive items are behind cupboard doors to give visitors a bit of the same feeling of discovery that I’ve had over the past 12 months. From a conservation point of view, the cupboards are great for protecting the material from light damage when they aren’t being viewed.
We also have a new introductory leaflet to the Garman Ryan Collection that reflects the inclusion of the Epstein Archive and shows the locations of all of the cupboards.
So, come along and let us know what you think…
New books in the Art Library
Well our first Artists’ Books Fair went well and as a result we’ve collected a lot of books and zines for the collection. Here’s a couple of highlights, but do pop into the Library to see the rest!
Unrealised Projects Volume 4: a partial introduction to a process in progress is a collection of unrealised projects submitted by various artists. Volume 4 has been guest curated by Josh Love, and centres on ‘an exchange of moral rights, production roles, obligation and the notion of realising unrealised works’.
Work to do! Self-Organisation in Precarious Working-Conditions is a fantastic document of a project series by the same name, held in Shedhalle, Zurich 2007-8.
We’ve also subscribed to a couple of independent journals:
Arty & Garageland, are both bi-annual magazines edited by Cathy Lomax, an artist and director of Transition Gallery.
Paper for Emerging Architectural Reasearch (P.E.A.R.) is an exciting newspaper exploring new architectural practice across Europe.
Twittering Art Library and Archives
We’re trying out a new way for you to make enquiries about the Collections -we’ve set up a twitter account so you can tweet us with quick questions on anything such as Epstein and the Garman family, past exhibiting artists, the architecture,
I will attempt to answer in 140 characters or post up the answers here on our blog and send a link. You can also ask questions on here, or if there’s something you want to ask without the whole internet world knowing then email me jonescheryl@walsall.gov.uk.
Get tweeting!
ARCHIVE
Last chance to see ARCHIVE, a portable collection of artists’ books curated by Chris Taylor and John McDowall. It’s on display in the Art Library until 5 December.
Alongside is a display of collages by art and design students at Dudley College, made in response to the books on display in the ARCHIVE cabinet.
Artwork of the Month: Hélène Binet
The latest Artwork of the Month is Hélène Binet’s Untitled black & white photograph of the interior of The New Art Gallery. The photograph was taken in 1998 during the construction of the Gallery, showing the concrete which still shows around much of the building before any other elements were added. Pop into the Art Library to find out more…
Nose Casting Workshop – The Library of Secrets
Hello Library of Secrets fans, and we know there are quite a lot of you out there!
Here some photos from last Saturday’s nose casting workshop, the third and last of the events delivered by artist, Serena Korda, as part of the Library of Secrets residency at the gallery.
Epstein was an active campaigner against The British Museum’s restoration of their antique marble statues’ missing body parts using plaster. Our visitors had their nose cast and helped the gallery create a new archive of fragments which will be on display from tomorrow onwards.
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