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Showing posts from April, 2010

About to Bloom

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What would an exhibition about the environment look like if it was curated by someone isn’t interested in nature or climate change? Bloom opens on Friday evening at Bury Art Gallery. (image: Carbonised flowers by Greville Worthington) Full blog later in the week - now off to London for the "Deschooling Conference" http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/visual-arts-talks-and-events/tickets/deschooling-society-52395

this work im doin I don’t kno what it is

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Philip Davenport's most recent project debuts at Henry Moore Institute library 27 April-7 June. These are poems written into spreadsheets, presenting moral dilemmas as accountancy - war crimes, celebrity, or the simple act of shopping become a tangle of questions. The spreadsheets are accompanied by 3D objects. So, dozens of broken eggshells become symbols for smashed skulls; a poem inscribed within the fragments. From these broken pieces of information, Davenport rebuilds delicate, intuited meanings… Images and downloads at http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/library/on-display On 5 May Philip Davenport will be a 'reader in residence' in the library - looking at work from the Institute's Special Collections and pleased to answer any enquiries regarding his work. Henry Moore Institute The Headrow Leeds LS1 3AH, UK Open Monday to Sunday from 10am to 5.30pm, and Wednesday from 10am to 9pm

Another Text Festival Opportunity

In addition to the call for submissions/proposals for the 2011 Text Festival in my last blog, here is another Text opportunity arising from a new partnership with the Live Arts Development Agency. The Agency run a programme called DIY, which is an opportunity for artists working in Live Art to conceive and run unusual training and professional development projects for other artists. With the Text Festival, DIY proposals are being invited which address language in Live Art practice. The proposed project needs to take place in in August and September 2010 and hopefully some of the work will be developed to appear in the Festival next April. For more detail go to: http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/prof_dev/diy/diy7_2010_Call.html

Text Festival Call for Submissions

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The third international Text Festival in Bury, Manchester, UK, will open on 29 April 2011. Project proposals and submissions are invited - in any artform (sound, media, poetry, visual art, etc) using language in innovative ways. As I have mentioned over the last few months the shape of the next festival has been forming, with some great things in place already. There are more venues and new approaches. In addition to the open call, you can submit ideas in response to 4 projected exhibition themes: 1. Duchamp 2. Sentences 3. Wonder Rooms - a large scale survey of international Visual Poetry 4. Artists’ Books Electronic submission (preferred) to t.trehy@bury.gov.uk or by mail to Text Festival Bury Art Gallery Moss St Bury BL9 ODR

Chinese Arts Centre preview

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Stanley Wong photos Wang Jun - rock, paper, scissors and a collaborative poem with Phil Davenport

Scott Thurston

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I met with Scott Thurston today to discuss the possibility of setting up a Phd related to aspects of the Text Festival and Language Moment. As poets do, we exchanged our most recent books. Scott has a nice habit when signing a book of quoting from it or pointing to an interesting section within. On returning home, I found that I have three of his books: Internal Rhyme , Momentum and Hold with these hints/pointers - I will share here: After turning on our moment of error we'll collect it. I'm not going to argue with you over how much is conventional how much. Absolute fear of the scale that establishes real measures. If you want to speak to me effectively never speak to me directly. The overthought at night urge to retire, pride swallowed, parade through the ventilation, the secrets turn out to be nothing. The crowd tests offering what he invites but withholds, enabling tension? Leave it out. that something has a form and is a form beckons me one over a bell tolling in the di

A Big Night in Manchester

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Thursday night (15 April) in Manchester feels like a real art festival (unlike the Manchester International Festival) but one that appears to be a happy accident. Castlefield Art Gallery, the Chinese Arts Centre, Cornerhouse and Rogue Project Space are all previewing their latest exhibitions, all within walking distance of each other. Castlefield Gallery David Osbaldeston: Out of Time (The Light of Day / The Action of the Play) I’m looking forward to seeing this show by my newly discovered neighbour, David Osbaldeston. Through manipulated images of news photography and a print series of interpretive book cover designs from Luigi Pirandello’s celebrated play Six Characters in Search of an Author, the exhibition will explore relationships between the gallery and theatre staging, displacement, reality, illusion and social discord. The journalistic images are taken from photographic records made between the 1970’s and 1990’s of protests or accidents that report a breakdown of social and e

Big Blue Skies Big Bad Art

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When I was being shown round the 2012 Olympic site last year, the conversation about art projects to coincide referenced mysteriously “the Mayor’s commission”, which was separate from all the other cultural projects. This week the mystery was revealed. Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower . This is yet another dismal example of the big is good school of art. This practice has its roots in public art in regeneration. It is an established reality that art can animate environmental and economic regeneration. But as everyone knows, anyone can do art, so pretty quickly the regeneration industry thought it could achieve the same effect without using artists – and so two things happen, you get terrible art or you get big art – which is also usually pretty bad. Once Newcastle-Gateshead installed Antony Gormley’s leaden “Angel of the North” achieved its iconic marketing function, the flood-gates opened and all round the country high profile regeneration demands big art. Channel 4 even had

Excuses

I've not really had time to write here recently. In addition to moving to a much nicer office in Bury and the day to day management stuff, I've been working on: Bloom - the next exhibition, which opens in May. The idea for this came some years ago: given so many artists and curators are engaged with climate change and global warming, what would a show look like curated by a curator who has no interest in environmental issues? 5 Places - Still working on putting together the partners for this international project; Irene in Melbourne is waiting to hear whether Shanghi are going to join. The Library of Infinity - I'm working on a proposal with Foligno museum, Italy (the town where Dante's Inferno was originally published http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foligno ) and the Library of Alexandria, Cairo, to develop international collaboration on artists' books. The Text Festival - opening on 29 April 2011, the next festival has some new venues and, I hope, some really in