Precarious
This solo exhibition by Angela Smith was awarded as a prize by Cass Art at the National Open Art Exhibition. It includes a series of new gloss and enamel paintings that feature ‘exaggerated sculptural protrusions with taut distended outer skin containing unseen liquid. Although strong, encasing their innards in a solid impermeable outer shell, the abstract structures can fail in their making allowing access and full vision of what is contained inside’. Also on show is the artist’s continuing ‘creature series’, in which ‘energised subjects are set against flat, solid impenetrable grounds.’
18 October – 4 November, The Space, Cass Art Islington Flagship, 66-67 Colebrooke Row, London, N1 8AB. www.a-n.co.uk/events/precarious
Swing-ball Shakespeare
Anton Hecht is known for working across mediums and often in collaboration with the community and the public. For his latest project he is inviting the public to play a game of ‘swing-ball Shakespeare’, on a lamp post outside the Castle Keep in Newcastle. Taking 5 minutes to play, the artwork sees the transformation of a lamp-post into an impromptu swing-ball game.
Participants are invited to take turns reading from a Shakespeare monologue pinned to the lamp-post, and to hit the ball on each stressed syllable within iambic pentameter verse (a sentence containing unstressed and stressed syllables). Part of the artist’s research into ‘game-fulness’ in participatory artwork, the game-performance will be filmed and added to footage from previous appearances of the work.
10 – 11:30am, 22 October, The Black Gate, Castle Garth, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1RQ. www.a-n.co.uk/events/swingball-shakespeare
Bodies of Water
A presentation of film, sound installation, demonstration and specially prepared talks by artists Helen Ottaway and Melanie Thompson, focussing on processes of creating site-specific artwork in response to Sri Lanka and Denmark. Ottaway combines musical composition and installation in her work, whilst with a background in dance and physical theatre, Thompson’s practice includes performance, installation and public art.
25 October, 7.30pm, Silk Mill Gallery, Merchants Barton, Saxonvale, Frome, Somerset, BA11 1PT. www.a-n.co.uk/events/helen-ottaway-and-melanie-thompson-present-bodies-of-water
Distance
A solo show by Preston-based artist Rebecca Chesney, including new commissions and previous video, print, embroidery and installation works. Following an invitation for Chesney to spend time at Springhornhof earlier this year, the exhibition showcases the artist’s interest in the history of the Neuenkirchen region in Germany, and particularly the influence of King George III’s agricultural reforms and the loss of common land. Referencing the colour, shape and lines from satellite imagery of the region, Chesney presents interpretations of this highly managed landscape.
Until 16 December, Springhornhof, Tiefe Straße 4 29643, Neuenkirchen Lüneburger Heide, Germany. www.a-n.co.uk/events/distance
Fore Main Mizzen
The Centre for Audio Visual Experimentation (CAVE) at University of Leeds presents Fore Main Mizzen, by Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, which includes a series of drawings and sculptural speakers featuring a sound piece. The work is the direct result of the artist’s visits to Southend-on-Sea and Sheerness, vantage points from which, at low tide, are visible the masts of the SS Richard Montgomery – a ship that sank in the Thames estuary during WWII still packed with high explosives. Fore Main Mizzen explores the estuarine landscape of the Kent coast, and the slow entropy of tidal corrosion on the ship’s hull. A process of recording, re-recording and re-experiencing each site results in a sound piece that loops and layers, reflecting the motion of the waves and the pull of the tide against the ship.
Until 24 October, CAVE, History of Art & Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT. www.a-n.co.uk/events/fore-main-mizzen
All of the above are taken from a-n’s Events listings section, featuring events posted by a-n’s members
Images:
1. Angela Smith, Precarious, exhibition poster, 2018
2. Helen Ottaway using hydrophones to record the waves, Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka. Photo: Lorna Rees
3. Rebecca Chesney, Distance, installation view, 2018
4. Hannah Dargavel-Leafe, Fore Main Mizzen, 2018
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