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The danger after the success of The Life of the Mind exhibition was always that the Epstein Archive would quietly slip back into obscurity in the basement of the gallery. Not so. We are now at the start of the next exciting installment of the gallery’s relationship with Bob and Roberta Smith. We were always aware of the need for a legacy for the New Ways of Curating project and the Archive Gallery on Floor 1 of the gallery is the best place to cement the outcomes of the project into the fabric of the building.
So, what next? Bob and Roberta Smith’s Epstein Archive Gallery is now closed for the summer and will open again in mid-September, completely transformed. The new archive gallery will be the antithesis of the White Cube, extremely colourful and rammed to the gills with material from the archive, art, film and interactives. The room itself will be transformed into an artwork as Bob will be painting directly onto the walls. The gallery’s technicians are making new display cases for the space and Bob has chosen a colour scheme inspired by the 1951 Festival of Britain. The FoB was a huge exhibition, much like a World’s Fair, designed to celebrate everything good about Britain and also raise the nation’s morale as wartime restrictions, such as rationing, continued into a new decade. An anniversary exhibition of FoB is currently on at the Southbank Centre – I’d really recommend it if you’re in London.
This week saw the gutting of the old room, removing all of Bob’s works – though a large chunk of it will be included in the new room. All of the paint has had to be specially mixed as 1950s colours are obviously not the public’s first choice for their living rooms – their loss. The room will be painted next week ready for Bob to paint directly onto the walls.
While the gallery is closed, you can still look into it, so have a look next time you’re there – you never know, there may be an artist at work! I will be updating the blog at each stage of the process, so check back to see how we’re getting on.
a.a.s. instruct you to…
a.a.s. have been busily creating new instructions for visitors to follow based on the books in our exhibition The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey. .
You can see them each week on the balck board in the exhibition and on Saturday 27th November you’ll have the opportunity to act some of them out with the artists. Drop into the artists studio or contact them on aas@aasgroup.net if you’d like to join in.
Here’s a few they’ve come up with already…
The Great Book Club Debate
Last Thursday Serena Korda came back to The New Art Gallery to lead a Book Club Debate on Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H.Lawrence. She was joined by journalist and broadcaster Helen Brown, along with several members of the public and gallery staff.
It was a great discussion, which got pretty heated, particulaly when topics such as feminism were examined.
Gallery Assistant Julie Jones gave us some valuable insights into Lawrence’s personal life. Discussion quicky turned to censorship and controversy, particularly regarding views on sex in the early 20th Century, which effected several artists of that time. Lawrence came up against a similar attitude from the public/authorities about Lady C as Epstein did about various works, for example The Tomb of Oscar Wilde and the British Medical Building sculptures. These works were lambasted at the time due to their frank nudity which depicts fertility, but at the time was seen as hugely distasteful.
Our debate went on to consider the impact of class and snobbery on these opinions and whether people were actually outraged because of the relationships between classes. This was a time of huge social change and Lawrence describes quite clearly his take on the change in societal structures.
We spoke for 2 hours solid, so I can’t go into too much detail here, but thanks to all who came and contributed. If you want to continue on here then please do!
As a quick aside, I also found that Lawrence had self-published Lady Chaterley’s Lover because he realised it would not be possible to do so through the normal routes. I didn’t know this before reading it, but it now seems fitting that we keep a copy here considering the collection of indendent/artists’ publishing that we hold (even if we don’t have the original) .
If anyone is interested in setting up a regular book club with a visual art slant, please do get in touch, or drop into the Art Library.
Serena will be hosting her final event on 21st November – a nose casting workshop for families. The Library of Secrets is here until 29th November.
Book Sniffing Event – The Library of Secrets
Lat night, Thursday 22 October, we hosted the first of the three events which are part of The Library of Secrets residency at The New Art Gallery Walsall. For those of you who missed it, it was a lovely evening with an interesting talk by the artist Serena Korda and book sniffer and journalist Murrough O’Brien followed by a book sniffing session!
The next free event is the Great Book Club Debate on Thurs 5 Nov at 6pm and is inspired by the controversial career of Jacob Epstein. The book club will discuss banned books and ideas of literary censorship. Chaired by Serena and journalist and broadcaster Helen Brown, the book to read is Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H Lawrence.
New artists’ books…
Our collection of artists’ books in the library is slowly developing -i’ve added a few new editions this week:
Me, Myself and I by Kelly Large is a book of transcriptions documenting three open studio afternoons that the artist organised as part of her residency here at the gallery in January 2008. Kelly invited various people she had previously worked with to give a presentation about their understanding of her practice. The book explores the notion of the artist-in-residence and Kelly’s practice within this context, the artistic process and audience participation. Kelly has produced three copies of this book for the Gallery; one for the Library to be used as a resource, one to be acquisitioned as an artwork in the collections, and one as a document for the Gallery archives.
I’ve picked up a few other artists’ publications this week:
I bumped into Robin & Harry of An Endless Supply who were handing out their latest issue at the Ikon preview. They’ve upgraded their paper and have a new printing press, so it has a slightly more luxurious feel to it!
At the Eastside Projects Abstract Cabinet Show opening last night Freee were handing out copies of their 2nd Manifesto The Free manifesto for Guerilla Advertising (After the Revolution) -an inspiring read on my way to work this morning!
Also featuring in this exhibition is the collaboration between Laureana Toledo and John Taylor (yes that’s right, John Taylor of Duran Duran!) to produce a film and a newspaper exploring both Birmingham and Mexico City.
Eastside Projects and An Endless Supply will be taking part in Publish and be Damned this weekend. I went to this last year -well worth a trip to London if independent publishing is your thing.
The Go Between
Hi, i’m Cheryl, Library and Collections Supervisor at the Gallery.
Just thought i’d let you know about a conference I attended in Cardiff last week all about Artists as ‘Go Between’, in other words artists acting as a mediator between collections and audiences. This is obviously particularly relevant to us with the Epstein Archive project Neil and Bob collaborating on.
Many presentations were given about projects where artists had worked with museum collections to create new artworks, exhibitions and events. There were many different types of project, for example artists placing their own work alongside objects from museum collections, inviting the public to partcipate in making direct responses and new archives, or completly changing the methods of display within the museum.
Highlights included Manchester museum’s Alchemy project, in particular the Manchester Hermit Ansuman Biswas; and The Uncanny Room at Pitzhanger Manor-House.
There were also papers given which brought up potential issues with this type of project, and several question raised, such as:
why has it become the burden of artists to enliven collections?
Is the artist really better at communicating to the public than existing museum staff?
Is the artist’s work comprimised or hindered by the limitations inevitable in working with an institution?
Are our collections in danger of being mistreated by untrained handlers?
Is this all just about the number of people coming through the door of the museum?
These questions are all food for thought, but each person who presented a working example, whether they were artists or institution professionals, reported a positive experience for all parties concerned. However, the conference could have done with some representation of the audiences and public participants to ensure a balanced view.
I still came away from the conference believing that these projects are a fantastic way of introducing people to collections that they may not otherwise ever come across. Artists can bring a fresh set of eyes to the often overlooked parts of a collection, and through a good dialogue with the collection experts within the museum, they can bring their own practice to the table to create innovative methods of interpretation.
I have a copy of The Go Between (Vol 1) available the library which contains some of the papers presented at the conference.
It would be interesting to know what your thoughts are…
Interrogation Starts Tomorrow!
So Agents Francis, Greenwood, Brown and Stoker will take up residence in the Interrogation Room (formally known as the artist’s studio) in The New Art Gallery Walsall tomorrow. A twitter account and a tv channel have been set up in order to document proceedings. So go to http://twitter.com/artinwalsall for the twitter feed
or go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/interrogation-walsall to watch live online during the mission days (which will be 9th/16th/23rd/30th September – 10am-5pm and the Symposium Day Friday, 2nd October 1-5pm).
Or view here:
Speed Tours: Catch one whilst you can!
Hurry: only 2 speed tours left to go!
Highlights from the previous tours include: the distinct aromas of each floor; the invisible line in the foyer area which divides the workload for the cleaners; the view from the reception desk and the Van Gogh of course! The final tours will include trips to the basement to see the archive room and the techncians’ lair! All in 15 mins!
Those of you will a little more time can join ania for tea and cake afterwards!
See you at 12pm prompt! (Taking place Tue 25th & Wed 26th Aug)
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