FUTURISM IS OURS!
We currently have an exhibition of work by children who attended the St. Teresa Summer School, based on the Russian Futurism exhibition at the Hatton Gallery.
Felicity Langthorne, Claire Rowlands and myself ran the Summer School along with Ann Harrison and Helen Robertson from 23-26 August 2007.
At first I wasn’t sure what to expect from about 20 potentially unruly kids running amok armed with squirty pva and modrock so I was pleasantly surprised when the only minor contest that they had was in trying to come up with the title for the exhibition!
It seems a rose-tinted cliche to say this but it really was a joy to work with these kids who were all so keen and vibrant… and well behaved, but then if this is a cliche, I’m all for them!
I tried my best to keep up with the kids in what they made, making things alongside them as well as helping them but they were so fast! I was really impressed with the quality as well. I caught myself thinking, ‘I wish I’d done that one’, ‘and that one’!
Their works include wooden spoon puppets based on the costume designs of the futurist opera ‘victory over the sun’ and black and white charcoal and foam collages based on Russian Futurist Lithographic prints seen at the Hatton Gallery – these are all on display at the Gallery now.
I take my hat off to Ann Harrison for leading the Summer School – she was consistenly brilliant. And to John Harrison, the headmaster of St. Teresa’s School for running such a great place.
And to all the kids who attended the Summer School who made it all so enjoyable.
Edwin
www.gluegroup.org.uk
SOUND ART FESTIVAL @ the Echo Bar, Chilingham Rd, Heaton, Newcastle. Starts at 6.30pm.
Tonight Glue group are hosting a night of innovative musicians and sparky sound art, firing music making into new dimensions!!
The night will platform a variety of local artbased acts, extending further Gallery Glue's determination to support their neighbouring artist organisations.
Also… a one man 8 bit drum machine extraordinaire, DURACELL, all the way from Paris, has been booked to entertain the masses with his jazzy circuit bending and bashing beats.
£5 enrty. Get there early!
gg x laura
We are now five days into our residency programme, which is already turning out to be incredibly exciting and varied.
Ben Jeans Houghton was in residence with his project, ‘Memory Map’, between Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th. We recieved loads of great feeback from visitors and a very decent turnout for his private view on the Saturday evening. Over the course of three days Ben drew a map of Newcastle from memory on large sheets of paper spread over the gallery floor. For the evening of the 7th the map was pinned to a wall and viewers were encouraged to type out personal memories evoked by places on the map on a typewriter and literally attach their memories to these places with pieces of red wool and pins. Some of the red wool linked high up to the opposite wall, where a series of almost identical self portrait photos of Ben thinking about his own memories were placed. It was good to see such an effective use of the space, and a great start to the Residency programme.
Currently three artists – Joanna Garlick, Sarah McMahon and Kate Liston – are collaborating on a project involving wallpaper, henna tattoos and many many cups of tea. Once again the space is turning into something quite unexpected and we’ll be looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with by the end of their stay tomorrow evening.
Next up on the 11th will be Abigail Cooper. Abigail will use an abundance of mass-produced objects to create an installation that consumes the gallery space. The audience is invited to view the artist at work, repetitively and meditatively assembling everyday objects.
Please see the website www.gluegroup.org.uk for other upcoming residency information. For more images we have a photobucket account which you can view at http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/bb66/gluegroup/
Each residency will be carefully documented, and we’re planning to present this documentation at a night of art and music at the Cumberland Arms booked for the 29th – shortly after our HORSE_GLUE sound art festival at Echo Bar on the 24th. Its going to be a delightfully chaotic month!
GG Mark
Our second exhibition SHOP has come to an end. We've had some great feedback from visitors and artists who seemed to love the eclectic nature of the exhibition.
It was useful to see how the space worked as a non-white-cube environment. It's important in these early stages to experiment with different ways of using the space and I think that's something we'll get a lot of experience of in next month's programme.
Call it brave, call it mad, call it a stroke of utter genius, call it whatever, but after a pizza and wine fuelled meeting one night in Glasgow, Glue Group had the idea to relinquish control for a whole month and let other artists decide how they'd like to use our space.
So, from an open call, we have selected 11 mini-residencies, each between 1 and 5 days long, involving over 16 artists from around the region and beyond!
Who knows what the results will be? Uncontrolled chaos or unfathomable creativity??
Here's the link to find out more about this exciting programme which will feature exhibitions, performances, discussions, workshops and other unmentionable shenanigans!
http://www.gluegroup.org.uk/current%20exhibitions
Wish us luck, GG (Hannah)
On Monday we had our initial getting-to-know-you meeting with Paulette Terry Brien – a gallery director and organiser based in Manchester and our mentor.
We will be having further meetings with Paulette to help us develop our practice in the ways that she will help us identify. As a part of these meetings we will decide what other people we might get advice from useful for facilitating our progress. We have A-n and their NAN funding to thank for making these meetings possible. Huge thanks A-n!
The setting for our meeting was our gallery. Later we moved onto the Belle and herbs and had soup. It was really great both to speak to and hear an outside person's take on our collective and gallery. Before starting them I must admit I was a bit worried our mentor meetings would be a bit too formal and impersonal but on meeting Paulette these concerns went right away. To cut a long explanation short, we really got on with her. It was obvious from the outset she was taking a real interest in what we are doing – and we were taking an interest in her activities as well. And on a personal level, her being a genuinely friendly person made it all the easier.
There was some talk of the possibilities of becoming a limited company – the pros, such as the usefulness of this as regards applying for arts council funding, and cons like the extra load of paperwork – amongst other things that will no doubt have certain effects on the running of the collective and gallery: talk of constitutions and business plans that might at first sound restricting but should in actual fact make things easier and clearer, control and tame the beast, lest it pull us the wrong way…or not at all!
The next meeting with Paulette will be in Manchester which will give us a chance to see her own gallery, the International 3, and other similar galleries relevant to our own. We look forward to seeing her there…and staying at my folks' place.
Edwin x
