ANDERSONMACGEE Two
After a hard week of ivy, paint stripper, touring around the Staffordshire Moorlands and good food along with loads of hard work from Paul Macgee, Briony Anderson and the AirSpace Team we finally completed the new works by the artsists AndersonMacgee! Here's what it's all about:
AirSpace Gallery, Stoke on Trent’s new contemporary Art Gallery celebrates it’s first anniversary with a project, the like of which has never been seen in the City before. The curtator/owners David Bethell and Andrew Branscombe set out to challenge our perceptions of what art can be, with a bold and forward looking programme of exhibitions, happenings and installations. As the gallery physically shifts location from just out side the city to 4 Broad Street, a building in the very heart of the Cultural Quarter, thus making itself more visible to the general public, the metaphor of the new positioning resonates more profoundly when seen in context with the next “exhibition” delivered by Briony Anderson and Paul Macgee (AndersonMacgee). This partnership is currently garnering significant national attention and this is their second collaborative work before beginning work for Aberdeen Art Gallery in the Autumn.
ANDERSONMACGEE Two will comprise three new works created specifically for AirSpace – a site-specific permanent intervention, a performance and a publication. The work will be permanent interventions utilising both the gallery space and its surrounding context, the work seeks to raise questions on the nature of existence, specifically through the viewer’s understanding and questioning of the existence and permanence of the work.
The first proposed work will be a site-specific intervention on an embankment opposing the original AirSpace Gallery on Stoke-on-Trent’s main ring-road. This “commemorative” arrangement of flora will be installed prior to the exhibition opening and will consist of evergreen Ivy (Hederas Helix) arranged to form the text ‘LIFE LONG’ or “LONG LIFE” (see image above).
The second piece takes the form of a performance by the artists whereby the audience is invited to view the vestiges of the event which will alter perceptions of the space. This performance will take place in advance of the exhibition opening and will be documented. There will be no public participation in this performance.
For the final part of the work AndersonMacgee will produce a book documenting the works made for the exhibition. AndersonMacgee with Dave Beech, Bernice Donszelman, Gavin Morrison and photography by Janet Wilson, with contributions from Jack Mottram and Monika Vykoukal.
Permanence is the key here. Instead of an artifact or object being produced which can be owned, AndersonMacgee’s work is not something one can acquire. This is an engagement of the surroundings to raise questions about the big questions. All of their work has a definite domestic agenda; we’ve all dug the garden and we’ve all scraped paint off a wall. Are we renovating or excavating? Are we planning the future or revealing the past?
If you like your art to challenge, inspire or confound this is the show for you. This is Stoke on Trent coming of age, and through its artists, boldly taking its place in the new century.
