This stem of blogging can also be read here – ArtEvict – hidden space and revealing performance
I was contacted on here from someone in an office on Buchanan Street – or somewhere close to thereabouts. In fact the whereabouts of this office are as equally as hidden to me as my whereabouts are possibly hidden to them. I was also contacted not too long ago by an old friend (a friend who likes to hitch hike and remain in a non-place, or live in a room made entirely of MDF). This friend he asked me to recall a performance piece we did together back in 2008 at the Carriageworks in Leeds – we called it “Bring your own Pencil” – we tied people up with electrical tabe and did a live interactive life drawing session with elements of forcibility.
ArtEvict. My friend Kimbal Bumstead has asked me to re-stage a performance we did together in 2008 – this time in a wearhouse in East London. In fact these ArtEvict guys, they seem to take on the semblance of organising a rave – the location always follows the notion of perfomance, it remains hidden until a mail out is sent – and there is never a singular location – every month it changes. The rave may be something to do with ‘cultural’ tenancies in wherehouses and other spaces – such tenancies that at times meet disagreement: ArtEvict follows along the same lines – it moves from one space to the next relying on the ephemeral approach that performance art installs in an artists work. (More information of ArtEvict – www.artevict.com/abou-us.php)
There has been multiple projects between Kimbal and myself, notably a curated site-specific exhibition in an old church and bell tower near Leeds Central Station. This was as the clocks changed for Daylight Saving (the exhibition took this name as a timely device for conceptual applicability). We facilitated each other as the works were installed and thus we were inbuilt in to one another’s work as much as the space itself. My hidden space came from the relationship between public display (the exhibiting of a work) and the work-done behind the scenes. I was commuting from Glasgow every month or two in the 7 months prior to the opening – each time I re-visited the site and re-allocated my installation. The ideas grew as I began to realise how the (hidden)space could be used as a studio. With a set of keys and a torch I explored the bell tower and set up shop in the top most compartment just below the time keeping device. I was hidden from view but from there I could look down upon the world (or the city centre of Leeds anyhow). (More information on DAYLIGHTSAVING – rich-taylor.co.uk/archive/daylight-saving)
This Blog will follow the cohesive approach to facilitation and performance in the build up to a collaborative work between Kimbal Quist Bumstead and myself (Richard Taylor) for the May 2010 installment of ArtEvict.
