Marianne Eigenheer

I discovered this week that the great artist and my friend Marianne Eigenheer has passed away. Marianne has been a constant support in the work of Bury Art Museum since 2006. We met that year in Reykjavik at an Alan Johnson exhibition at Safn. We actually met at the exhibition, but it turned out when we started talking that her first encounter with me had been earlier. She was walking up the main street and passed my hotel. My first time in Iceland, I was wondering how warmly one needed to dress. The hotel room window only opened ajar, so I pushed my arm out to test the temperature and Marianne, below, was fascinated by this hand inexplicably waving in the air from an upstairs window.

In Bury we have shown (and have in the permanent collection) her beautifully poetic line drawings, and her video-drawing “Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman” originally in the Irony of Flatness in 2008 and again as part of the Foreigners exhibition last year.

Marianne was endlessly well connected in the art world and I met a lot of interesting artists through her. Her generosity of spirit was a defining characteristic. She was a great support of young artists. Each year her house in Basel filled with artists and curators staying over to see the Art Fair. I did it twice. She attended every Text Festival in Bury, offering support and connecting it to other actions and developments around the world.

I remember going to Wiesbaden in 2009 specially for the opening of her drawing show at the Galerie Hafemann; at the time I think she felt that the artworld was rediscovering her, the phenomena of older women artists being re-evaluated and celebrated. 

Her last activity at Bury was as the senior artist-mentor at the Bury Summer School in 2014. She worked with the participants to create an imaginary Bury Biennial 

As part of this, the last thing we did together was a panel discussion in Bury Sculpture Centre.

I see her work every day - 2 large drawings adorn our bedroom and 2 etchings from the 1970's hang in the bathroom.

Although we stayed in contact, this was the last time I saw her. Her work was more and more in demand, there more shows and more attention from younger artists whom she loved to support and help. She was diagnosed with cancer but continued to work. Even as late as November last year she was excited about a big drawing success in a show at Kunstmuseum Basel. I last spoke to her in January when she talked about being so tired but hopeful of getting back to work soon. 

Paul Neagu at the Romanian Cultural Institute

Nine Catalytic Stations - Paul Neagu

I wasn't familiar with Paul Neagu's work until this week, when I accompanied Marianne Eigenheer to the Flowers Gallery where part of the Neagu archive resides. A teacher of Anish Kapoor, Neagu died about 5 years ago and is regarded as Romania's most important 20th Century Sculptor. Marianne is curating a small show of his work on behalf of the Neagu Estate (Yolanda pictured with Marianne and friend & curator, David Thorp) in September at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London. Yolanda gave me a disc of images, here's one to whet your appetite before the show:

London - Others Seen

London

Off to London today for Ron Silliman's Birkbeck reading and spending time with Marianne Eigenheer & Patrick Fabian Pannetta discussing future projects. Because of the pressure of organisation of the Text, my blog relied on photographs but I hope to write more thoughtfully on the train and post by tomorrow.

Irony of Flatness

The Standardised Moment


How to spell it antiquarian divestitures of fact and faction
the bubble that pops as it expands realization like the intake
of breath on a cold day the truth of neither ether Nora
what falls as rain arrives as water we see within the chalice
the frequency of a complex system repetition inspires preservation
instinct toward flight away from return the right of the left of
the rest arabesques of colour and the chairs in rows and tiers
the physiognomy of a clown at birth humour without teeth
teeth with teats their judgement and the interference haunted
by morning what goest away returneth again take a message
to Garcia y Vega notes written on palms text degenerated
by fronds Kafka knew the way to beetlehood though being
a cockroach seeing faster as ink blots seeing slower as it,
just interminable specific it each pencil of coincident
value a marker of meaning a maker of meant “Just one
thin meant?” a diminution of obsequies to an increase of word
a tendency to overestimate the importance of our own experience
on the hither side of any on the thither side of zither How long
does a moment require? flattened-out epiphanous justifications
decoherence, dreams and decay lotions and potions but

I gave Geof Huth a copy of "Irony of Flatness" (published last year) yesterday and within an hour I had back his response in his poem-a-day exercise. About the same time, Marianne Eigenheer confirmed the forthcoming arrival of a sequence of her drawings which we are acquiring for the Bury Art collection. So here you get them together, as I did.

(again, Geof's blog of yesterday's Test events is definite).

Wiesbaden

What an attractive city! I highly recommend Wiesbaden, and Gottfried Hafemann's gallery. Marianne Eigenheer's show opened last - the picture in my previous entry is a good image of the upper room with the lower room featured 3 tiny screens featuring beautiful little mobile photo footage from Berlin Zoo and this completely unexpected early painting. Today I managed to see another 8 canvases (not in the show) from the 80's, that really much be shown soon.

Tomorrow - back to Manchester and the growing anticipation of the Text Festival - opening night Thursday, but lots to do before then. I would advise anyone thinking of going to the ticket events to book in advance, because they are going fast.

Galerie Hafemann, Wiesbaden

With the Text Festival website notching up more than 60,000 hits (since Christmas), I am off to Galerie Hafemann, Wiesbaden (Germany) http://www.galerie-hafemann.de/templates/main.php?SID=20 for the opening of the new show from Marianne Eigenheer. I'll also be to check out what's going on in Frankfurt.

Back from London

Just back from a couple of intense days in London and the very pleasant company of artist/curator Marianne Eigenheer, Museums consultant Benedetta Tiana (shown eating Japanese), poets Carol Watts (second photo) and Caroline Bergvall (website in my links), Professor Will Rowe, and Petur Arason from Iceland - with whom I saw the Altermodern show at Tate Britain, which I will review this weekend. Sorted out various projects including my forthcoming book, a couple of international museums developments, and the structure of the Poetics symposium in the Text Festival.

Cairo : Sound Constructions

Group exhibition from 7 till 30 September 2008
Location: Factory, 1st Floor
7 September, 8:00 pm: Opening
8 September, 8:00 pm : Viennoise – a performance by Mahmoud Refat
Voices, melodies, and sounds fill the space of every city. Noises waft through the air, their origins often unknown. In the ebb and flow of sound, we find our way through the world, or get lost in it—dissolving into a sea of cell-phone ring tones, and re-emerging with the call of a name. Voice and identity are inextricably linked, connecting us to each other while defining us individually.
The sounds of a city can feel like an embrace, but at other times they threaten and disturb. In the privacy of the home, city noise is shut out—but complete silence is rarely achieved. Thus, the artists featured in this exhibition do not attempt to quiet Cairo but instead add their own sounds to it: Their works layer and echo, interpret and describe, both acoustically and visually. Sounds will not only be heard, they will also become visible.
Featured artists: Barbara Armbruster (Germany), Marianne Eigenheer (Switzerland), Zoe Irvine (UK), Hadel Nazmy (Egypt), Mahmoud Refat (Egypt), Beat Streuli (Switzerland).

القاهرة: تراكيب صوتية
معرض جماعى من 7 حتى 30 سبتمبرالمدير الفنى: باربرا أرمبروسترالمكان: المصنع والدور الأول
7 سبتمبر، 08:00 م : الافتتاح8 سبتمبر: 8:00 م : فيينواز - عرض لمحمود رفعت
تملأ أصوات البشD8 والأشياء والنغمات فضاء كل مدينة. وتنطلق ضوضاء عبر الهواء غالباً ما لا يعرف مصدرها. وبين علو وانحسار الصوت نجد طريقنا عبر العالم، أو نتوه فيه – غارقين في بحر من نغمات الموبايل، لنعود مع سماعنا نداءً لاسم. يرتبط الصوت والهوية بشكل لا يمكن فصله، متجلياً في ربطنا ببعض عندما نعرّف أنفسنا كأفراد.

يمكن لأصوات المدينة أن تبدو كما ل و كانت تعانقك، ولكنها في أوقات أخري تهدد وتزعج. في خصوصية البيت، تُحبس ضوضاء المدينة بالخارج – ولكن يندر تحقيق الهدوء الكامل. لهذا، فإن فناني هذا المعرض لا يحاولون تهدئة ضوضاء القاهرة، إنما يضيفون أصواتهم الخاصة لها: أعمالهم تتقابل وترجع الصدي، وتفسر وتصف، سمعياً وبصرياً. لن تُسمع الأصوات فقط، ولكنها ستصبح مرئية.

فنانو الم9رض: باربرا أرمبروستر (المانيا)، ماريان إينير (سويسرا)، زوي إرفاين (المملكة المتحدة)، هديل نظمي (مصر)، محمود رفعت (مصر)، بيت سترولي (سويسرا)
Gallery hours in Ramadan
Saturday till Wednesday: 11:00 am – 2:00 pm & 7:30 pm – 10:30 pm.
Thursday off, Friday 7:30 – 10:30 pm.
مواعيد الجاليرى فى رمضان
السبت حتى الأربع: 11:00 ص – 2:00 م و7:30 م – 10:30 م
الخميس مغلق، الجمعة 7:30 م – 10:30 م

Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman

On a more positive note, the works in the Irony of Flatness (Bury Art Gallery until November) are definitely deserving of more attention. The first is Marianne Eigenheer’s video-drawing “Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman”. This is a particularly resonant and exciting piece. It recalls Marianne’s experience of walking around the streets of Cairo, having a look round while she was there preparing for a forthcoming show. This meandering came to be represented in the artist’s distinctive arabesque coloured drawing, the depth of her line mirroring her unique sense of space. This drawing in itself became a thirty metre long work which has been exhibited in Germany/Austria (I forget where). During her walk she became fascinated by the way Egyptian men place their chairs in the street, a male gesture of dominance of public space; Marianne began photographing them. “Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman” is the brilliant counterpoint of these two aspects of the walk – the meandering fluidity circling the sometimes ominous fixed points of maleness – video stills shifting between one set of images to the next spread across to two screens. The depth of Marianne’s spatial dimensionality in this work actually touches you to the core.


By the way, I’ve written the catalogue for Irony of Flatness which is now available for £2 from Bury Art Gallery.