Stanley Picker Gallery

A programme of presentations, mapping workshops, exhibition and publications, organised by the art/architecture collective public works, Stanley Picker Fellows in Design at the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University. With contributions by: Agents of Change, Alex Warnock Smith, Anna Mansfield, atelier d’architecture autogéré, Can Altay, City Mine(d), Dorian Moore, drmm architects, Elizabeth Price, Jonathan Kraut, Julie Scott, Markus Miessen, Mehrdad Seyf, Peter Arlt, Polly Brannan, Robert Mull and others.

public works are a London-based art and architecture collective with a strong interest in the co-existence of informal and formal social networks within architectural structures. Their practice includes a wide range of participatory public realm projects.

Can You Show Me the Space points to a conceptual and practical need within design disciplines, to capture, visualise and acknowledge social and informal phenomena as part of architectural production. The representation of space within design/architecture is primarily focused on the description of the built form. Everyday life demonstrates that programmes and social networks are not confined to single built structures. Instead they spread across sites, time and relationships, and create new networks of spaces that we all use but almost never acknowledge or recognise as spatial constructs. Can You Show Me the Space offers different public platforms to explore five theme-based blocks: Setting a Setting; Representation of Relational Spaces; Mapping the Centre of Useless Splendour; Architecture as Extended Social Space and Relational Mapping Tools. Each block will result in a fanzine of visual material accompanied by a commissioned essay, available throughout the exhibition and launched at the end of the exhibition as a compiled publication.

PROGRAMME: All events take place at the Stanley Picker Gallery unless otherwise stated. No booking required.

Setting a Setting with Can Altay
A collaborative set up of the physical and conceptual parts of the exhibition, before it opens to the public. The collaboration and accompanying text and visual material will be published in Fanzine 1.

Wed 28 Nov 10am – 2pm Performing Doodles
First day of a two-part work-session mapping, drawing and sewing together informal children’s narratives of the city of Qazvin, Iran. With Anna Page (Architectural Designer), Jonathan Karkut (Geologist, London Metropolitan University), Julie Scott (Anthropologist, London Metropolitan University) and Mehrdad Seyf (Director, 30 Bird Productions).

5.30pm The Mapping of Relational Spaces Talk by public works
public works introduce their research and practice-related projects such as Granville Cube in South Kilburn and Building Stories in Quazvin, Iran. With Andreas Lang, Kathrin Böhm and Torange Khonsari.
6.30-8.30pm Exhibition Opening and launch of Fanzines 1 and 2.

Tue 4 Dec 2.30pm – 6pm Performing Doodles ctd
Second day of a two-part work session, mapping and designing the spaces of performance related to children’s informal narratives of the city of Qazvin, Iran. (See above for participants)

Wed 5 Dec & Thu 6 Dec 1pm – 6pm Mapping the Centre for Useless Splendour
Two days of drop in workshops and survey of existing and speculative research spaces at Kingston University. Together with staff and students and in collaboration with Elizabeth Price (Artist and Reader in Fine Art, Kingston University). Fanzine 3 will compile the result from the survey together with texts and essays on the subject.

Wed 12 Dec 6pm Architecture as Extended Social Space
Presentations of existing architectural projects, which describe and illustrate the wider social network and space associated with the built project. With architectural practices Agents of Change (London), atelier d’architecture autogéré (Paris) and drmm architects (London).
Fanzine 4 will capture the forms of representation suggested by the different practices, with an additional essay by Professor Robert Mull, Architect and Head of Architecture and Spatial Design at the London Metropolitan University
www.theaoc.co.uk http://madeo.club.fr/aaa.htm www.drmm.co.uk www.londonmet.ac.uk

Wed 23 Jan 12pm – 5pm Mapping online – tools and concepts
A one day workshop on Urban cartography and web based software as a mapping and communication tool. The subject will be discussed in relation to existing case studies. public works will introduce their proposal for the Folkstone Triennial 2008. With City Mine(d) and Dorian Moore.

Wed 23 Jan 6pm Presentations and Round-Table Discussion on “relational mapping instruments” with City Mine(d), Christian Nold and others to be confirmed, for Fanzine 5.

Sat 26 Jan 2pm – 4pm Making Space Round-Table Discussion
Using public works’ Granville Cube project as a point of departure, the round-table will introduce and discuss ways of representing autonomous areas and objects within public spaces. With Anna Mansfield, Alex Warnock-Smith, Polly Brannan and others to be confirmed.

Tue 29 Jan 12pm – 6pm Showing the Participatory Process
A one day work session with Peter Arlt mapping ‘Platzfinden’, the participatory process and project that lead to a new public space in Linz, Austria in 2006.

Wed 6 Feb 6pm Dispersed Cultural Spaces and Research
Presentations and round-table discussion exploring ideas of dispersed spaces for research in relation to the proposed Centre for Useless Splendour at Kingston University. With Elizabeth Price (Artist and Reader in Fine Art at Kingston University), Markus Miessen (Architect, European Kunsthalle) and others to be confirmed.

Spring 2008 Launch and Presentation of Can you show me the space Publication, compiling the five fanzines produced during the programme at the Stanley Picker Gallery. Date and venue to be announced.

The first comprehensive retrospective of Carl Plackman’s work since his death in 2004, Beyond Appearances contains sculptures, installations and drawings created by Plackman from 1969 to 2004. His work explores the lives of everyday things through large, often architectural constructions that encompass photography, drawing and assembled objects.

Carl Plackman was one of the most challenging sculptors of his day and a generous and influential teacher, developing his work whilst lecturing at Goldsmiths College, London and other institutions across the UK. Many of the students he taught have since become major names in British contemporary art including Tony Cragg, Damien Hirst, Liam Gillick and Alison Wilding. These artists, along with colleagues, critics and friends provide a fascinating and illuminating introduction to Plackman as a man, mentor and artist in a book published to accompany the exhibition. Together, these different accounts provide a range of perspectives on the art and artist across a forty-year period.

Beyond Appearances: Sculpture and Drawings by Carl Plackman (1943-2004) was devised by Huddersfield Art Gallery with the support of Arts Council England and The Henry Moore Foundation. The book Carl Plackman: Sculpture, Drawing, Writing (168pp fully illustrated) is available from the Gallery at the special exhibition price of £15.

Beyond Appearances Events:

Public Lecture Wednesday 10 October 5.30-6.30pm
Beyond Appearances: Curating Carl Plackman
Sarah Brown and Robert Hall co-curators of the exhibition
Staff Space, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Knights Park Campus

Wednesday 10 October 6.30pm-8.30pm
Beyond Appearances Launch Event All welcome

Conference Friday 9 November 2007
Sculpture & Beyond: Encounters through the Art School
Organised by the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture Kingston University

Video 20 minutes. Click here to view an excerpt of the piece (please view this in full screen with sound on).

At the House of Mr X by Elizabeth Price takes as its subject the home of an anonymous art collector, designed and built in the late 1960s. Only briefly inhabited, the House and its contents remain immaculately preserved.

The film opens as a visit to the house. A slow, visual tour begins, proceeding from the entrance through open-plan areas, into every room. The elegant geometry of the spaces, the varied materials of the architecture, and the luxurious modernist furnishings are attentively documented. In particular, the camera dwells upon gleaming, reflective surfaces: the lustre of coloured glass; bright plastics and the liquid-shine of chrome.

The tour is directed by a silent narrator, present as an on-screen script, punctuated with percussion and close-harmony vocal arrangements. This narrator is the Guide for the tour, and the only protagonist in the film. Its script is collaged from documents relating to the House, art collection, and business ventures of the former resident, who generated his wealth through cosmetics brands Outdoor Girl and Mary Quant. The resulting combination of administrative, curatorial and commercial languages, produces an equivocal identity: as you move through the pristine interiors the tone shifts from deadpan taxonomical description to the solicitation and innuendo of advertising copy.

Your visit provides the only incident interrupting the listless inertia of the House.  Under the direction of the Guide, you are ushered through the interiors, invited to enjoy its luxury, exhorted to fully inhabit the exquisite memorial.

Elizabeth Price is an artist who works to generate and adapt historical collections and archives. This includes the production of new bodies of material, developed by Price over many years, as well as the detournement of existing ones. In a recent series of projects Price has been working with publicly inaccessible or mothballed art collections, bringing them to half-light, in reconfigured shape, through video.

At the House of Mr X has been  screened at the British Film Institute, Southbank London (2008), Frieze Art Fair (2010) and many other venues since its premiere at the Stanley Picker Gallery.

Elizabeth Price was the Turner Prize Winner 2012, and is now Professor of Film & Photography at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University.

An exhibition and publishing project that brought together philosophers, artists, theorists and critics in order to discuss new approaches to art writing, that took as its starting point the working hypothesis that criticism is a fundamental bridge between the theory and philosophy of art and art practice itself.

Today,  criticism is widely perceived to be in a state of crisis and the art world seems to be characterised by a widening gulf between theory and practice.

Curated by Robert Garnett and Andrew Hunt and featuring Eric Alliez, Aline Bouvey/John Gillis, Steven Claydon, David Osbaldeston, Peter Osborne, Simon O’Sullivan and amongst others, Gest: Future Criticism set out to suggest ways in which this gap might be bridged and begin to make new theoretical ideas about art more accessible to non-specialist audiences.

By discussing and displaying criticism directly in the gallery context the exhibition created a series of encounters and events within which new critical voices  could emerge.

Events:

Wed 18 April 6-8.30pm – Launch

Fri 27 April 11am – Eric Alliez  & Peter Osborne

Fri 4 May 11am – Simon O’Sullivan  & Robert Garnett

“Gest: Laboratory of Synthesis #1” Edited by Robert Garnett & Andrew Hunt. Published 2008 by Bookworks, in collaboration with Kingston University and supported by Arts Council England.

Avaliable  from Bookworks  ISBN 978 1 870699 96 9

For the Dummy Project show Cullinan Richards have set up a conceptual framework for an exhibition that contains several exhibitions, many geographies and pseudo histories. Using the gallery as a base camp for production and in association with several colleagues they have set up a resistance in the face of ridicule and collapse.

For more than 25 years Vaughan Oliver has been creating seductive graphic works combining word and image for some of the world’s most influential contemporary musicians, developing distinctive visual vocabularies to accompany the careers for artists as diverse as Pixies and Cocteau Twins as well as more recent work for the likes of Scott Walker and TV on the Radio. His designs form part of the Victoria & Albert Museum collection and have been exhibited in Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Athens.

Slightly off the Ground presents a personal selection of his iconic music posters from early works with 4AD to the present day, the exhibition providing a rare overview of the themes and influences that underpin the practice of this inspirational graphic alchemist. The specially devised gallery installation, evocative of the street setting where the posters would have been first encountered, is designed together with his long term collaborator Chris Bigg, and will be sound-tracked by the music that inspired the resulting designs.

Oliver says of developing this exhibition:

“When I first started designing posters the streets were alive with cutting edge work designed for the independent music scene. Posters by Peter Saville, Neville Brody, Malcolm Garrett, Martyn Atkins and C More Tone vied for your attention and set a very colourful fabric for the city with their illicit expressions. As that period gave way to a cleaning purge by the City ¹s Council and a creeping conservatism in the music industry the vibrant skin was peeled away. A new generation of designers were denied a public canvas. The art of graffiti replaced this ink on paper. In the age of the download the visual aspect of presenting music would seem to be less important than it was. The exhibition reminds us of the special relationship between a carefully considered graphic design and its musical partner. In the same way that a successful package for the music can enhance the listener ¹s appreciation of the music then a good poster can be an exciting gateway to the listening experience. When the poster draws your attention, reflects the music and leaves an impression then it ¹s doing its job. Pulling on a personal archive of around 200 posters the exhibition is a celebration of this lost art, including street posters for clients in music, theatre and dance, smaller posters for record shops and galleries and commissions for limited editions.”

“Vaughan Oliver & v23 Poster Designs” published by v23, available from the gallery during the exhibition.

A limited-edition print poster is available to purchase from the gallery during the exhibition.

Artist Talk 5pm Wednesday 17 January (booking essential)