Project Space 11

17th September – 4th December, various venues, Plymouth UK

VIA presents a nomadic model of working as a curatorial framework. The project questions how artist-led practice can thrive in ‘in-between’ spaces, and subsist/grow alongside existing structures created by institution or environment. VIA explores the validity of symbiotic relationships between artists and organisations (be they institutional or artist-led), and if there is still a need for artist-led practice to have physical ‘homes’.

At present, Project Space 11’s future is uncertain, and VIA aims to investigate the possibilities of working in flexible and mutually beneficial ways; utilising creatively what materials, structures and spaces are already at hand. It is a time of flux for both Project Space 11, the artist-led ecology in Plymouth and the arts in a wider sense. VIA responds to this atmosphere; exploring alternative platforms, situations and venues for showing and discussing artist practice.

VIA: Film Screenings
Saturday 17th September, 6pm, The Athenaeum Theatre, Derry’s Cross, Plymouth.
A one-night only film screening exploring connections between a newly commissioned moving image work by Oliver Sutherland and an existing feature film.

Sutherland has created a new work inspired by a number of original feature films from the science fiction genre; producing a digital 3D landscape in which an new feature film could potentially be realised. The landscapes presented are dormant, bereft of actions and human acts, waiting for potential narratives to emerge through the direction of the camera. The new piece will be shown back-to-back with a feature film; an iconic sci-fi blockbuster – the title of which will be revealed on the evening of the screening.

The screening will take place in the 1961 theatre of the Athenaeum (a building built to house the Athenaeum Society, a library and lecture society which celebrates the arts and sciences, with a 200 year legacy). The striking and unique 340 seat theatre, with original period decor (including the only circular revolving stage in the South West), is an under-used and under-celebrated space in the city.

To book tickets for this screening please contact [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>

VIA: Limited Edition Poster and Publication
Project Space 11 have commissioned artist Jessica Warboys to contribute a new 2D work that responds to the context of the VIA project. Volcano Vertigo is presented as an A2 fold-out poster. This free, one colour lithograph publication is printed in a limited run, available from key locations across the city centre. Using the platform of a folding poster/publication, the work will act as visual punctuation across the city, in shops and domestic spaces. By presenting the work in this format, the viewer is able to acquire and keep an artwork, with the potential for it to be displayed throughout the city and further afield.

VIA: symposium and dialogue
December 2nd and 3rd, Plymouth College of Art
Project Space 11 have invited one artist-led space from each BAS7 city to collaborate on a dialogue, resulting in a panel discussion as part of the PVAC British Art Show 7 symposium, entitled, What will the art world look like in 2061, at the time of the next major comet? on December 2nd and 3rd at Plymouth College of Art. Working with TRADE Gallery (Nottingham), James Taylor Gallery (London), Transmission Gallery (Glasgow), and invited artist representatives from South West based artist-led organisations, the group will explore how large art festivals/biennials affect the city/region’s artist-led ecology and the future of artist-led spaces.

Project Space 11 is supported by: Arts Council England, Plymouth City Council, Plymouth College of Art, and the City Centre Company.

Peepshow

Project Space 11, Plymouth City Market

Wednesday 6^th October 2010 – Saturday 23^rd October 2010

Investigating the manipulation of the act of viewing, Peepshow will deny the public access to Project Space 11 with the intention of arousing curiosity of what lies within it. Presenting a ‘peephole’ well above eye-level, viewers will have to climb a small set of steps outside the space’s shutter to view the work.

This act of looking will position the viewer raised on a platform, highly visible to the other market users. However, with only one person being able to view the work at a time, this highly public scenario will also be a potentially private and intimate one.

Behind the shutter is screened #02_ a DVD project, a series of films by artists and writers from the Subjectivity and Feminisms research group at Chelsea College of Art and Design. The Subjectivity & Feminisms research group consists of artists and writers whose practices explore questions and issues of identity as they are mediated between artist/writer, artwork and viewer.

The DVD project exemplifies their work as artists/writers and addresses the group’s thematic: to explore in art practice how and whether concepts of subjectivity and identity are transitive, fluid and processual. Each short film segues into the next, generating connections and differences between work which addresses how identities are performed through moving images.

Participating artists include Gill Addison, Hayley Newman/Katherine Araniello, Lucy Gunning, Jo Bruton, Brian Dawn Chalkley, Edwina Ashton, Abigail Reynolds, Sarah Smith, Melanie Jackson, sissu tarka, Mo Throp, and Maria Walsh.

The viewing construct of Peepshow connotes ideas pertinent to work that deals with identity and gender. The unusual and restricted means of viewing makes reference to voyeurism (Hitchcockian motifs, ʻrubberneckingʼ, and Soho peepshows all come to mind), and also addresses the gender politics that are signified by the peephole (for example Bergerʼs notion of ʻthe gazeʼ).

By negotiating with the shutter the viewer enters a relationship with these ideas, however unexpected or unwilling this dialogue may be, reinforcing the dichotomy created by the situation presented.

For more details of the Subjectivity and Feminisms research group please visit www.subjectivityandfeminisms.org.uk

For more details of Project Space 11 please visit www.e-leven.co.uk

Dean Knight:
Modern Sculture

http://e-leven.co.uk/past/dean-knight-modern-sculp…

Project Space 11 is pleased to present the first solo show of artist Dean
Knight: Modern Sculpture.

Much of Knightʼs work centres on notions of construction, exaggeration and
authenticity. This is often manifested through the presentation of an open-
ended scene, in which signs or symbols offer clues to an unresolved
narrative.

Modern Sculpture shows newly commissioned work for the context of Project
Space 11, in which assumed and recurring formats within contemporary and
modern art are examined. At first glance, these works function on an aesthetic
level: being recognizable as modern, with their pleasingly subdued palette
and slick architectural elements.

The basic shapes and motifs present in these works represent an
exaggerated level of simplification, and a nod to a rather old-fashioned form of
minimalism. This is somewhat disrupted by the presence of gestural finger
marks in works such as Sculptural Ball with Ashtray, for example, which along
with the inclusion of cigarette-butts, suggest a trace of the artist or creator.
This already somewhat clichéd notion is pushed into theatre and parody with
the cartoon, considered, and sterile rendering of these usually imperfect
remnants.

As with Knightʼs previous works, there is a suggestion of a primitive maker
and a subtly violent undertone- the crude handling of the fleshy clay ball, and
unimaginative selection and placement of the work Propped Plank. The overt
obviousness of the arrangements, along with the stage-like plinths featured in
the installation and sketches, effectively place quotation marks around the
work and highlight their pretence. The conflicting layers of meaning in the
scenes bring a level of ambiguity, and the potential for multiple narratives to
be attached.

For the duration of Modern Sculpture, Project Space 11 will be open Wednesdays – Saturdays from 10am – 4pm.

Agitprop!
http://e-leven.co.uk/past/agitprop/
11 – 28 August 2010

Agitprop’ – noun,
Political (originally communist) propaganda, esp. in art or literature:
[as adj.] agitprop painters.
ORIGIN: 1930s, Russian, blend of agitatsiya ‘agitation’ and propaganda ‘propaganda.’

In these most political of times, Agitprop! strives to examine the future of contemporary art in society and invites artists to make work in response to this question. Referencing the saturation of the manufactured propaganda image, constantly produced and ubiquitous, Project Space 11 will present a rolling exhibition of black and white posters (both in the Project Space, and throughout the city) created by regional, national and international artists.

Project Space 11 will act as a temporary campaign office for the duration of the show: manufacturing propaganda multiples that visitors can distribute as they see fit.

While the aesthetic responses may refer to the design canon of Soviet and Maoist propaganda images, the connotations of the work refer to a broad range of pertinent issues. Some may be a reaction to institutional agendas, or artists’ responses to hierarchies within the visual arts ecology, others explore what art-propaganda is, or could be.

Agitprop! intends to examine censorship: something that is inherent in the selection and curation process of exhibitions and awards, in a wider sense, and essentially in the curatorial process of this project.

Artists include:

Rebecca Griffiths, Alex Higlett, Simon Bedwell, An Endless Supply, Ellie Harrison, Daryl Waller, Cordelia Cembrowicz, Ella Golt, Laurence Payot, David Sherry, Steven Paige, Jonathan Baron, Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG, Abigail Reynolds, Mark Pearson, Georgina Hounsome, James&Jones, S Mark Gubb, Low Profile, CMS Research Project, Guy Oliver, Shafiq Dad, Oliver Sutherland, Bruce Asbestos, Sam Venables and Barry Sykes.