Artisterium

The penultimate day we installed the vinyl leaving just labels for the day of the opening though things ran close to the wire. One of the more unusual aspects of the install was having students playing the grand piano in the ante room of the exhibition hall – check out the home-made video with this post.

The events were popular. We had a steady stream of visitors during the day prior to opening, people who wanted to view the work but wouldn’t be able to make the official opening including artist Elene Rakviashvili and curator Wato Tsereteli who has built a fantastic contemporary art centre in Tbilisi from a standing start with no resources. He suggested a change to the layout of gimme shelter to improve the way it occupied the space which we took up and implemented.

We had the early evening slot for our opening and about 200 people made it with Georgian TV, radio and press coverage. The Academy Rector Gia Bugadze, British Council Director Zaza Purtseladze and our own Martin Barlow made the speeches.

iPhone video of One Room Living, Antonia Dewhurst and Lois Williams.

The plinths wre finally ready on Monday the 31st and I could begin installing gimme shelter in earnest.

In contrast to Lois’s installation, mine was really straightforward with a grid pattern of parquet floor to aid placement of the plinths it was simply a matter of finding a pleasing distribution of huts and securing both plinths and huts with blutak. About 2 hours work in total and then back to helping Lois with her more ambitious and intricate installation.

While we beavered away with pins and hammers, Martin was working behind the scenes attempting to overcome institutional inertia and get labels, statements, vinyl and catalogues organised. Everything took longer than anticipated with inertia, language difficulties and differing philosophies all playing their part. However, things slowly improved over the week with initial suspicion by the Academy staff giving way to quite a warm working relationship by the end.

Presentation was an issue. The local standard for labelling was small pieces of paper attached to frames like post-it notes, foamboard was unheard of. We made do with mount board from the framer and pritt stick.

By Wednesday, the day before the opening, with only labels to complete, we allowed ourselves a day off to explore the city and its fleamarket, meanwhile Artisterium itself had opened on the Tuesday with a two video installation by American artists Anne Elizabeth Moore and Elizabeth White at The Silk Museum, and a group Polish show of older work followed by an opening party courtesy of the Polish Embassy. Events continued throughout the week at the rate of 2 or 3 each evening.

Continued…

The box of work had arrived safely; however, we had unfortunately each put a nominal value of £100 on our work for the commercial invoice and this meant we incurred a £100 surcharge at customs to add to the already hefty carriage costs. Meetings in windowless, oppressive rooms were the order of the day.

Still we had the work, the space was clear, and what a space it was.

Maya Darcha, from The British Council, was invaluable organising and translating and had found us two volunteers to unpack and help install, they would also be taking down and repacking the work in our absence.

As my plinths were still being manufactured, the emphasis over the first few days was on unpacking and installing Lois Williams 2 pieces From a Distance, and Enquire Within Upon Everything once we had overcome initial resistance from the Academy to allowing us to pin the work to the wall. Facilities at the Academy were meagre but we managed to track down spirit levels, hammers, pins and the rest of the paraphernalia that we would take for granted in an exhibition space in the UK.

With some careful explanation of what was required Luka, Keti and Emee set to installing the grid of 256 drawings that made up Enquire Within, and Lois, Martin and myself began work on From a Distance.

Continues…

I have returned from installing ‘One Room Living’ with fellow artist Lois Williams and curator Martin Barlow.

The show, in the main exhibition hall Tbilisi State Art Academy, is our contribution to the international art event Artisterium IV in Tbilisi Georgia.

Thins didn’t start smoothly; planning and organising at a distance and with language issues involved, was bound to lead to some teething issues. I had requested 16 plinths to be built for me and given a month’s notice, but found a week before flying, that they hadn’t been built. And, despite having mentioned a number of times in correspondence that we intended to arrive on the 24 th October to begin installing on the 25th, we found that there was an exhibition in our space until the 28th. Also, although the event was slated to run from the 1st – 10th Nov, openings were staggered throughout the event so our exhibition would run from 3rd. This meant we had arrived way early and would be leaving before some of the other artists opened. On the plus side, this left time to organise the manufacture of the plinths; in the absence of the organiser’s promised technician, we managed to find a framer close to the Academy who would not only build and paint them on time, but do it at half the original quoted price. Result.

We had been asked by The British Council, our co-sponsors (with Wales Arts International) if we would run a workshop for Academy students. This we did on Friday the 28th. We had requested 10 students but about 25 turned up and seemed to enjoy themselves. At one time the Academy was one of only 3 in the USSR, serving the whole of the Caucusus, teaching methods today are very much a hangover from those days with the emphasis on formality, so the workshop was an opportunity for students to do something more playful and loose.

The space had been cleared for us by the time of the workshop, so installation began in earnest on Saturday morning.

To be continued…

Yesterday I took down the Last Gallery show, a day on the road.

Today I:

Carefully packed the 3 huts from the show, they’ll accompany me as hand luggage (the main body of work, 16 huts, has arrived at the State Art Academy in Tbilisi, despite a hiccup at customs. Installation will begin on the 25th October).

Built an additional shelter for a group show at a local contemporary gallery.

Discussed details for the joint workshop with Lois Williams for the final year students at the State Art Academy. I’m new to this game but we all have to start somewhere. The working title is ‘memory, materials, metaphor’.

E-mailed CV and statement for a local site specific event at the end of November. The event gave me a sleepless night, this will be the first true body of work produced with no connection to work produced for the BA and time is tight with less than 3 weeks from the Tbilisi event and a busy time at my other job. How I perform without the benign environment of college for support will be interesting to discover and crucial for the future.

The next few days will be spent sorting currency and finalising the workshop details and presentation then I’ll be quiet for a few days.

A full report on Artisterium with pics to follow.