Phtotographs of my work from the ‘b-art-er’ exhbition November 2010
Press release for ‘b-art-er’
Curator5 present b-art-er
a group exhibition in an empty shop unit
British high streets have changed forever, it is estimated around 13% of UK shops are currently empty.
They are spaces in limbo, waiting for reoccupation and activity. For the last weekend of November an empty shop unit in the Pavilions, Birmingham will be taken over by contemporary artists.
The abandoned shop represents the recent recession and reveals the fragility of the current economic system as well as the crisis of the consumerist society. b-art-er will comment on the issues and ask if there are any alternatives, is there an economic utopia we can aspire to?
Curator5 are hosting a unique art exhibition with 6 artists who are using the empty shop as a space to question this fragility through ephemeral works. Visitors are invited to exchange ideas…no purchase necessary.
Artists: Michael Bold, Chris Clinton, Lisa Roffey, Adam Radley, Alexandra Lockett and Tim Stock
‘Nothing For Sale Except Nothing Itself’
Saturday the 27th November 2010 is ‘Buy Nothing Day’ and as part of ‘b-ART-er’ a Contemporary Art exhibition, Michael Bold has been commissioned to create a work responding to the site, an empty shop.
Financial crisis, economic downturn, cuts, student fees, recession, welfare benefits, and so on are words that bombard us daily.
We are led to believe that there is ‘nothing’ left, but is this forced austerity just media and political propaganda? Is there really ‘nothing’ left? Or are we all being brainwashed?
Bold’s work invites visitors to trade from an empty shop, to take a signed perspex box full of nothing, in exchange for a photograph of them leaving the shop with it. This evidence will be used as a record of the transaction. As the boxes diminish they are replaced by a wall of individual images, portraits of the eclectic range of individuals who seek to buy nothing.
Bold has also created a film of the construction and de-construction of just one box. Is he referring to the masses of empty shops that litter our high streets? The lack of manufacture within the UK?, Or perhaps the empty promises we hear from MP’s before they are elected?
“Come on! We’re all in this together”
The empty shop opens on 25th November and runs until 28th November, 1st floor of the Pavilions Shopping Centre, 38 High Street, Birmingham, B4 7SL
www.michaelbold.com
