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Showing posts from August, 2010

Sarah Sanders

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During the Not at This Address exhibition I curated last July (blogged at the time) I noticed that most of the younger artists involved had very little sense of how to deal with a larger gallery space. This is not surprising really: young artists first show at degree shows which offer them a display space the size of a cupboard; if they are anyways successful in their early career they might show at an artfair, and these spaces are just slightly larger cupboards; after that it's a succession of small galleries or group shows, the latter offering little experience in spatial judgement either. Artists develop their practice and therefore the size of the spaces they show in over years. Young artists rarely get the opportunity to respond to the challenge of a big gallery. I got to wondering what would the young artists whom I rate do with a large gallery. What would they learn? And what would I learn too? So when Bury Art Gallery had a gap in the programme (due to a major chunk of i

Space reviewed

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Robert Grenier's response to Space the Soldier who died for Perspective http://sibila.com.br/index.php/sibila-english/1232-robert-grenier The book is available from Veer Books http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/publications/veer-books

uncontainable excitement

It looks like once a year I will receive an email from the Poetry Society inviting me to recommend ‘exciting new work’ that I might have come across, commissioned, etc., in the last 12 months to be considered for Carol Ann Duffy’s Ted Hughes Award for New Work , which she set up when she took over from Andrew Motion as Poet Laureate. Somewhat bemused by the source of this request last year, I emailed them back to ask who the judges were going to be (as at the time of launch they hadn’t been announced). I received an email back telling me who they were – I forget now, look it up somewhere if you need to know – but it was obvious that the judges would be incapable of recognising new work if it held a gun to their heads, which is what I replied to the Poetry Society - to offer up real innovators would be to diminish them and validate a sham. The final communication from them took the form of the equivalent of a shrug. And surprise, surprise, who should win the inaugural award than Duffy-l

node:space #1

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The first installation in node:space . Have I created a visual poem? Or an architectural poem? Viewing by appointment. I'll be inviting other artists into node:space in future moments.

Duffy at the Tate

When I first heard that Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy had curated an exhibition called The Sculpture of Language at Tate Liverpool http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/CollectionDisplays?venueid=4&roomid=6299 my reaction was an equivalence of anger at the implications of this hegemonic banality and resignation that it was only to be expected. For a while I intended to traipse over to Liverpool specially, so I could do write an informed critique. Noticeably there appear to have been no reviews of the show. Google just throws up the usual lazy journalism of reprinting the Gallery press release. A quick look at said-publicity, the list of works included, and the execrable sonnet Duffy wrote to accompany her selection made me begrudge the obvious waste of time and effort to actually go and see it but also realise that the information available is more than enough to know what’s wrong with it. Coincidentally I have been reading Tom Raworth’s latest “ Windmills in Flames ” which includes th

Busy

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Blogging has take a back seat recently as I focus on putting the Text Festival together and preparing the Nono project. Despite the impending dark age initated by the new Government, I am hopeful that the Text Festival will still be a mighty gesture. I am losing count of how many artists are involved now. The main announcement of the programme will be in October but maybe I can whet your appetite by letting slip that Christian Bök will do his first UK readings at the Festival and Ron Silliman will be back - reading and with a surprising manifestation of Northern Soul, the poem he began during his last visit. (These recently rediscovered illustrations are from my distance past (1980's) when I trained as a potter)

This Week

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Two gigs this week: The Other Room Linus Slug, Chris McCabe, Ben Gwilliam 4th August 2010, 7pm The Old Abbey Inn, Pencroft Way, Manchester, M15 6AY Ben Gwilliam is a sound artist and improvising musician based in Manchester, England. He works in the cross fields of experimental music, sound art, film and performance. Since the early 2000's he has been working with open reel tape, magnetics and amplified processes in solo and collaborative arrangements. His work is a curiosity about sound-making/recording and listening, the 'sounds between' things as Installations, performances and appropriations. He has worked, performed and exhibited in Europe and the USA. He will be performing with Philip Davenport. Chris McCabe’s poetry has featured in a number of magazines including Magma and Poetry Review. His first collection The Hutton Inquiry was published in 2005. He has discussed and read his poetry on BBC World Service, featured a poem on the Oxfam CD Lifelines and performs his w