ALLISON KATZ WEEK 1/16

Representing the artist’s diverse practice and her refusal to see painting as an independent or privileged mode of production, Allison Katz presents a trilogy of works comprising painting, sculpture and print.

Acting in the spirit of continuity that is at the heart of the fig-futures project, Katz’s exhibition picks up where her presentation for fig-2 left off. The painting Tailpiece, originally shown as part of fig-2 at the ICA Studio, London in 2015, is re-presented here; acting as a link between years and locations. While literally depicting a car, the painting also metaphorically suggests a journey, one that is both physical (the distance between the two locations) and contextual (the painting inevitably reads differently in this new setting).

As a further example of the idea of continuity, Dad Sand 1 Plate 1, links to another of Katz’s paintings which was also shown in fig-2. Seen initially in this earlier work, the central image of the seated figure is now referenced and recreated as a ceramic plate, emphasising the mobility of a motif not only to travel across time and locations, but also across mediums.

Completing the trilogy is a new poster work. The starting point for this print, the image of a woman bathing in a mountain hot spring, was picked up by the artist on her recent travels in Japan. Re-used and re-contextualised in this new work, the ‘black pool’ in which the woman bathes acts a visual and linguistic pun drawing our attention to the name of the town in which the Grundy is located.

ALLISON KATZ ACQUISITION

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Allison Katz's exhibition at Grundy Art Gallery artworks by the artist were selected by the venue and gifted into the collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artworks are below.

ALLISON KATZ CV

Allison Katz (b.1980, Montreal, Canada), has exhibited widely across the UK and internationally. Her solo exhibition Diary w/o Dates, opened at Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada this past winter, and will travel to The List Centre at MIT in Boston, US, later this May. Recent solo exhibitions also include POSTERS, Billedrommet, Tønsberg, Norway and We boil at different degrees, The Approach, London. Her recent group exhibitions include That Continuous Thing, Tate St. Ives and Sputterances, Metro Pictures, New York. She is represented by The Approach, London, Gio Marconi, Milan and Antenna Space, Shanghai.

View Allison Katz's fig-2 exhibition here

AMY STEPHENS WEEK 2/16

Exploring a minimalist approach to sculpture, Amy Stephens reclaims objects and imagery from the native landscape. Predominantly intuitive, her assemblages range from wood, plaster, metal and Perspex that are suggestive of urban living. Materials are carefully sourced, chosen and collected to create a precise balance and specific narrative. Each work then evolves through a series of stages, with successive layers gaining density until the final form emerges.

The artist’s process relies on the appropriation of existing materials from previous artworks forcing the work to often resist the finite. This spirit of continuity is at the heart of the fig-futures project, which sees artists re-imagining existing works or formulating new ones for the contexts that the Grundy and Blackpool provide.

Artist Interview | Amy Stephens

AMY STEPHENS ACQUISITION

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Amy Stephens’ exhibition at Grundy Art Gallery artworks by the artist were selected by the venue and gifted into the collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artworks are below.

AMY STEPHENS CV

Amy Stephens (b.1981, London) has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Her upcoming solo exhibitions include, UPFOR Gallery, Portland, Oregon and William Benington Gallery, London. Recent exhibitions include, Synergia, The Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico and Retain Reframe, Art Seen, Nicosia. Her work is held in a number of Public and Private Collections including; David Ross Foundation, The Rothschild Collection, Soho House Collection, Villa Lena Foundation and the Zabludowicz Collection. She is represented by Maria Stathi Art Seen, Nicosia, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin and William Benington Gallery, London.

View Amy Stephen's fig-2 exhibition here

Ruth Beale week 3/16

Ruth Beale’s work considers the evocative relationships between culture, governance, social discourse and representation. Her practice includes performance, drawing, installations, film and socially-engaged processes. For the Grundy’s Rotunda Gallery, Beale has created a site-specific installation comprising a frieze of large-scale works on paper and a collection of hand-stitched fabric banners.

Visually quoting a range of print and online media from the 1900s to the present day, Beale’s new works on paper celebrate the British satirical tradition to critique current news events. An homage to the skill and wit of cartoonists, her multi-layered and dynamic visual effect echoes the overwhelming and disorientating experience generated by our 24hour news-feed culture. Cartoons reflecting on fake news, data harvesting, pollution, global warming, war in Syria, the refugee crisis, Brexit negotiations, issues of privilege, the privatisation of public services, are layered with anatomical and bodily drawings - hearts, guts, shoulders and tiny birthing women - advancing across the paper.

Alongside these works, Beale has also created a collection of new ‘blank’ banners which take their inspiration from individual signs photographed at protests and rallies; from Justice for Grenfell to Trade Union marches. Devoid of any text, the works resist easy identification; instead they allow the viewer to imagine or project onto them the cause that they think the banners represent.

On the last day of the exhibition, a drop-in badge making workshop will take place at Blackpool Central Library. Here participants will have the opportunity to generate their own statements and slogans by responding to a series of questions set by the artist such as, 'What do you want to say?’ and ‘What do you support?’. For more information visit the Grundy website.

RUTH BEALE ACQUISITION

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Ruth Beale’s exhibition at Grundy Art Gallery an artworks by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into the collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork is below.

Ruth Beale, Library of Future Societies (Blackpool), 2018
publicly activated installation
Work comprises:
1. List of instructions to curator on how to realise the project.
2. List of 169 titles of books from Blackpool Libraries catalogue for curator to choose from in order to populate the ‘book bench’
3. Exhibition copy of book bench
4. Design and right to reproduce the book bench as and when required. Bench dimensions: h41 x l160 x w58cm. Bench material: Hardwood plywood

Ruth Beale CV

Ruth Beale (b. Cambridge), has exhibited widely across the UK and internationally. Her recent solo projects include School for Commoners at the Museum of London, Who Owns It? Can I hold it?, and Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. Her collaborative projects include The Alternative School of Economics with Amy Feneck and Performance as Publishing with Nicole Bachmann. The Alternative School of Economics is currently exhibiting as part of The Britishness Project at Firstsite, Colchester, and will be presenting a Phytology Billboard with Nomad Projects, London, in September.

View Ruth Beale's fig-2 exhibition here

REBECCA BIRCH, WEEK 4/16

The last of four fig-futures exhibitions at the Grundy Art Gallery, Rebecca Birch presents The 'Yellowing, part 1', a site-specific installation that invites the viewer to the telling of a story about material, environmental and social surfaces – paper, textile, and rock; Norwegian forest floors, the fields of the Fylde; a kitchen table, a shared song and a knitting circle. The work investigates the politics of the surface: how we order, protect and privilege some surfaces over others, so as to obscure the instability that frequently lies beneath.

For this project, Birch’s own video work is brought into dialogue with a range of natural and archival objects including a selection of original drawings by Patti Mayor from the Grundy’s Collection, and a Harris Tweed sail made specifically for the Rotunda Gallery ceiling. A large table-top conceals the central void between the Grundy’s foyer and first floor gallery. On this table, guided by the audio narration, and supported by the host present in the space, the audience are invited to take part in the unfolding of the installation.

'The Yellowing, part 1' illustrates Birch’s on-going practice of gathering histories and narratives in every new location she engages with. For fig-futures the artist has produced a multi-layered, interactive installation that gives a platform, both physically and metaphorically, to a range of voices whose stories cross time and place.

Artist Interview | Rebecca Birch

Rebecca Birch Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Rebecca Birch’s exhibition at Grundy Art Gallery an artworks by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into the collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork is below.

REBECCA BIRCH CV

Rebecca Birch (b.1978) has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Her solo exhibitions include; Lichen hunting on the west coast, fig-2 at ICA London, and the days run away, commissioned by Camden Arts Centre and Whitescreen at The Agency Gallery. Her group exhibitions include Matt’s Gallery at Black Rock, TestRun at Modern Art Oxford, Multiplexing at LUX & PeckhamPlex, London. She is the recipient of a number of residencies and awards including, CCA Creative Lab Residency, Glasgow and LUX Associate Artists Programme.

View Rebecca Birch's fig-2 exhibition here

EVA ROTHSCHILD & JOE MORAN, WEEK 5/16

To mark the opening of fig-futures at Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge, Eva Rothschild and Joe Moran present A Setup, first commissioned by Block Universe and fig-2 in 2015.

A number of structures by Rothschild will occupy the space, as if mapping a new interior architecture, and provide a setting for two dancers to perform Moran’s Singular (2011). Singular is a durational choreographic performance which explores the idea that a single consciousness could be embodied in more than one form. Dancers are provided with a precise set of instructions that challenge their ability to function subjectively as individuals.

Through their ongoing collaboration Rothschild and Moran explore relationships and tensions between sculpture, abstraction, movement and the human form. The sharp black lines and vivid colours of Inner Temple (2015), that are typical of Rothschild’s work, cut through the architecture of the gallery in dialogue with the organic forms and movement found in Moran’s Singular.

Films by both artists will be screened in Gallery 2. Rothschild’s Boys and Sculpture (2015) depicts a group of schoolboys who are invited to interact with an exhibition of her sculptures. The instinctive cycles of destruction, transformation and joy that follow challenge our notion of what the body’s physical experience of sculpture can be. Moran’s In Land (2008) takes bodies outside into the landscape, where two female performers become locked in a disorderly, sprawling embrace.

Eva Rothschild & Joe Moran Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Eva Rothschild & Joe Moran’s exhibition at Kettle’s Yard artworks by the artists were selected by the collecting partner venue Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork is below.

EVA ROTHSCHILD CV

Eva Rothschild (b.1971, Dublin, Ireland). Lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions and public commissions include: Alternative to Power, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, 2016 and A Gated Community, Sonneveld House, Rotterdam, 2016. Forthcoming solo presentations include Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne, Australia, 2018 and representing Ireland at the 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy, 2019. She was elected to the Royal Academy in 2015.

JOE MORAN CV

Joe Moran (b.1977, Devon, UK). Lives and works in London. Moran is a choreographer, dancer and Artistic Director of Dance Art Foundation. Recent commissions and performances include Sadler’s Wells (2017), Whitechapel Gallery (2017), Delfina Foundation (2016), David Roberts Art Foundation (Frieze 2014) and The Place Prize (2013). Exhibitions include at Gallery Lejeune (2015). Moran has been a guest artist at a number of institutions including The Place and the Royal Opera House and he is currently in residence at Wysing Arts Centre and Launch Pab LaB, France.

Click here for information on Eva Rothschild & Joe Moran's fig-2 exhibition

OREET ASHERY, WEEK 6/16

Oreet Ashery’s sonic performance Passing Through Metal will be staged for the first time in the UK, involving participants from Cambridge creating sound through a mass knitting event in the Sackler Gallery, accompanied by live death metal band Anoxide at the opening event on Monday, 17 September.

These sounds will be played back for the rest of the week, with physical remnants of the performance left behind in the space. The two art forms brought together in Passing Through Metal may seem different, but this unique sonic experience typifies Ashery’s highly original approach to making, and speaks to a range of concerns that flow through her work including potential communities, gender materiality and technologies of death and dying. What does it mean to be part of the world? What is our role? What does it mean to die or be dead? These questions touch each of us as individuals and institutions, crossing geographical, political and social borders.

Three episodes of Ashery’s award winning video series Revisiting Genesis will also be screened within the exhibition. The series explores ideas of political loss as well as controversial emerging digital technologies that are associated with extending a person’s life online and offline, beyond death. The work presents real life interviews with people who have life limiting conditions, including friends of the artist.

Booking is recommended for Monday evening's Preview. A Death Café will take place on the morning of Wednesday 19 September. Revisiting Genesis will be screened in full during a special event on the evening of Wednesday 19 September, when the artist will be in conversation with curators Guy Haywood (Kettle’s Yard) and Yves Blais (fig-futures).

Oreet Ashery Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Oreet Ashery’s exhibition at Kettle’s Yard an artwork by the artist was selected by the collecting partner venue Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork is below.

OREET ASHERY CV

Oreet Ashery is an artist living and working in London. Recent solo and group projects include: Hayward Gallery 2018, Rennes Biennial 2018, Thessaloniki Biennale 2017, Stanley Picker Gallery 2016, Tyneside Cinema 2016, Donaufestival Festival, Krems 2018, LPS Malmo 2017, Whitechapel Gallery 2017, Tate Modern Turbine Hall performance and zine, 2014 and Party for Freedom, an Artangel commission 2013. Ashery won the Film London Jarman Award 2017 for her film ‘Revisiting Genesis’. She is an Associate Professor of Art at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

Click here for information on Oreet Ashery's fig-2 exhibition

BROOMBERG & CHANARIN, WEEK 7/16

A recent body of work by artists Broomberg & Chanarin is shown for the first time in the UK in week three of fig-futures. Bandage the knife not the wound (2018) is an ongoing series of overlaid photographic prints produced by the artists in what they describe as a ‘visual exchange’ – images that have been significant to them during the course of their collaborative career are revisited and printed by one and left for the other to overprint with another image.

The artists have created over 40 of these beautiful, ethereal works that give a unique insight into their thought processes and provoke questions around the changing nature of photography and image production in the 21st century.

BROOMBERG & CHANARIN CV

Adam Broomberg (b. 1970, Johannesburg, South Africa) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971, London, UK) live and work between London and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include: Centre Georges Pompidou (2018), the Hasselblad Center (2017), Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2015). International group shows include: Yokohama Trienniale (2017), Documenta, Kassel (2017), The British Art Show 8 (2015-2017), Conflict, Time, Photography at Tate Modern, London and Museum Folkwang, Essen (2015). Their work is held in major public and private collections including Tate, MoMA, Yale, Stedelijk, the V&A, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Cleveland Museum of Art, and Baltimore Museum of Art. Major awards include the ICP Infinity Award (2014) for Holy Bible, and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2013). They are Professors of Photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg, and MA Photography & Society, The Royal Academy of Art (KABK).

Click here for information on Broomberg & Chanarin's fig-2 exhibition

PATRICK COYLE & FRANCESCO PEDRAGLIO, WEEK 8/16

New performances and installations by Patrick Coyle and Francesco Pedraglio take place in week 8, the final fig-futures show at Kettle's Yard. Coyle and Pedraglio have developed ambitious complementary projects through long-distance conversations from their current homes in New York and Mexico City respectively.

The artists’ new works are activated through live spoken word performances during the evening of the opening event on 2 October. Coyle creates an installation in the Sackler Gallery depicting residential spaces, including household objects and large-scale textile prints of domestic interiors. In Gallery 2, Pedraglio continues his ongoing series of Spoken Sculpture, with a new installation that draws together objects and materials that he has made alongside works from Kettle’s Yard’s collection, activated through spoken word.

The two artists' practices will come together in a performance within in the context of the Kettle's Yard house on evening of 3 October, followed by a Conversation with Kettle's Yard Curator Dr Amy Tobin, Coyle and Pedraglio.

Patrick Coyle and Francesco Pedraglio Acquisitions

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Patrick Coyle & Francesco Pedraglio’s exhibition at Kettle’s Yard artworks by the artists were selected by the collecting partner venue Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artworks are below.

PATRICK COYLE CV

Patrick Coyle (b. 1983, Hull, UK) lives and works in New York City, USA. Recent solo exhibitions and performances include: Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Recent Activity, Birmingham; Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham; Haltemprice Leisure Centre, Hull; 53 Beck Road, London; Austrian Cultural Forum, London; LAM GALLERY, Los Angeles; The Mile End Art Pavilion (Wellcome Collection), London; Central Booking, New York; White Rainbow, London; Danielle Arnaud, London; Global Committee, New York; The Third Policeman, New York; El Tercer Lugar, Buenos Aires; DKUK Salon, London; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Westminster Reference Library, London; Catalyst Arts, Belfast; Van Alen Institute, New York; Tate Modern, London; Oxford Central Library; ANDOR Gallery, London; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; Pump House Gallery, London and Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark.

FRANCESCA PEDRAGLIO CV

Francesco Pedraglio (b. 1981, Como, Italy) lives and works in Mexico City.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Museo Leonora Carrington, San Luis Potosí (2018); Norma Mangione Gallery, Turin (2017); P///AKT, Amsterdam (2017).
Recent group exhibitions include at Kunstverein Munich (2017), CRAC Alsace (2017), Jose Garcia,mx, Mexico City (2016), Sheffield Fringe, Sheffield (2016), Parallel Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico (2015), The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand (2015), Kunsthalle Wien (2015). He has performed, amongst others, at CART Copenhagen (DE), Instituto Svizzero di Milano (IT), Museo de Zapopan (Guadalajara, MX), Modern Art Oxford (UK), Palais de Tokyo (FR), Hayward Gallery (UK), Kunsthalle Basel (CH).
A collection of poems ‘99 Battle and 1 War (an extract)’ was published by Piano Nobile (CH) in 2016. Together with artist Tania Pérez Córdova, Pedraglio runs the publishing project ‘Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing’.

Click here for information on Patrick Coyle & Francesco Pedraglio's fig-2 exhibition

ANNA BARHAM, WEEK 9/16

For fig-futures’ first show in Leicester at De Montfort University’s The Gallery, Anna Barham will present ‘Yet as yet’, a text she has developed from Vilem Flusser’s 'Vampyrotethis Infernalis' (Vampire Squid) through live readings and computer transcriptions in repeated cycles of performance, documentation and recombination. Through this work, she continues her investigation into language, using both the body and technology as tools to reinterpret words, syntax and meaning by pushing them to their limits.

Following a live reading during the opening on 5 November the material will exist in the form of a score, a projection and an audio work presented within a series of specially designed structures. Together these elements insert the viewer into the body of the text, to become participants in another layer of its production and the images it performs.

Artist Interview | Anna Barham

Anna Barham Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Anna Barham’s exhibition at The Gallery, De Montfort University, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

Anna Barham (b. 1974, UK), lives and works in London. Recent projects include: ‘Sick Ardour’, Ex Libris Gallery, Newcastle University, Newcastle (2018); ‘Liquid Crystal Display’, Site Gallery, Sheffield (2018); ‘Is it language they're after? (no one replied)’, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria (2016); ‘A sentence can be ours and ours’, Playground Festival, Museum M, Leuven, Belgium (2015); ‘Skw’, Arcade, London (2015); ‘Liquid Liquid’, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden (2015).

Click here for information on Anna Barham's fig-2 exhibition

BEN JUDD, WEEK 10/16

For his fig-futures commission at The Gallery, De Montfort University, Ben Judd presents a performance, objects and a video.
Drawing on Leicester’s rich history, including the 20th century immigration of dispossessed groups, 'Nothing Human is Strange to Me' suggests a lost community once occupied the area now inhabited by De Montfort University. Key themes of the community are explored through the performance, which reveals the characters that form the group’s hierarchy and its factions. The exhibition is an invitation to experience the community’s internal logic – it has a belief system, and a history that is evidenced through the displays.

For 'Nothing Human is Strange to Me', Judd is collaborating with a choreographer, costume designer, composer and writer. Themes of cooperation and participation are central to the work, and are contextualised by the gallery’s campus location; universities encourage students to be both ‘free thinkers’ and part of the ‘student body’. This paradox of belonging and not belonging, of being together and separate, are explored in a performance that tests this position through a series of orchestrated, synchronised movements.

Dance and structured movement are suggestive of the choreographed, synchronised elements of religious ritual – the work occupies this blurred boundary between a dramatic performance and a liturgical drama. Incorporating handmade costumes, 'Nothing Human is Strange to Me' considers how ritualised group actions can shift an individual’s and a group’s status, suggesting a fluxing state of perpetual becoming.

The exhibition includes costumes, images from the university’s archives, objects based on artefacts excavated locally, and a video of the performance.

Artist Interview | Yves Blais & Ben Judd

BEN JUDD ACQUISITION

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Ben Judd’s exhibition at The Gallery, De Montfort University, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

Ben Judd (b. 1970, London, UK). Lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include: ICA, London; Whitstable Biennial, UK; Tokyo Opera City Gallery, Tokyo; The Barbican Art Gallery, London; Royal Academy, London; International Center of Photography, New York; Impakt Festival, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Germany; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; Kunstbunker, Nuremberg, Germany; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Rotterdam International Film Festival; The David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Zendai MoMA, Shanghai; Chisenhale Gallery, London.

Click here for information on Ben Judd's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

ANNIKA STRÖM, WEEK 11/16

For the third iteration of fig-futures at The Gallery, De Montfort University Annika Ström presents her show 'Six Errands', where she will playfully explore the idea of the performance retrospective. She created her first performance work in Berlin in 1995, where she exhibited her mother in a gallery space for three days. Her mother who is not an artist did drawings of her daughter and then sold them. Since then, Ström has made several performances, including ‘Ten Embarrassed Men’ commissioned by Frieze Art Fair in 2010, ‘Seven women standing in the way’ at Focal Point Gallery (2015) and ‘The Inept Five’ at Corner House (2012). For fig-futures Ström will bring together five previously made performance works and create one new work specifically for Leicester. All performances will be choreographed to run concurrently throughout the launch night and a final coming together of the performers at the end of the event will constitute the sixth piece.
 
The performances have all existed autonomously within gallery or museum settings, and have been direct interventions within the social and political environments that they inhabit. The ten embarrassed men were (rightly) embarrassed by an absence of women represented within the arts ecology at Frieze Art Fair where it was first performed. For Ström the interweaving of different performances allows new readings of the works in relation to each other. 
 
The interweaving performances will be filmed and then presented in The Gallery throughout the rest of the exhibition, along with Ström’s instructions for the performance works. fig-futures unique structure has allowed to draw together her body of work and for the first time put them quite literally in dialogue.

Artist Interview | Yves Blais & Annika Ström

Annika Ström Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Annika Ström’s exhibition at The Gallery, De Montfort University, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

Annika Ström (b.1964, Helsingborg, Sweden). Lives and works in London. Her work spans performance, film, composition, text and painting. Recent exhibitions and performances include: ‘24 Hours’, AK Dolven studio, Oslo (2018), ‘Ingenting Nothing’, Til Vægs, Copenhagen (2018); ‘Berlin 1995’, Farbvision, Berlin, (2017); ‘I am thinking of red green blue and yellow’ Croatia (2017); ‘Du har ju åkt förbi (you just missed it)' Konsthall Jönköping, Sweden (2015). Ström has written an autobiographical novel in Swedish ‘I read the book’ (2018), the trailer can be seen here

Click here for information on Annika Ström's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

KATHRYN ELKIN, WEEK 12/16

For the fourth and final fig-futures exhibition at The Gallery, De Montfort University in Leicester, Kathryn Elkin’s new project 'On first impression' will – during the opening event – host a live video shoot of a series of staged tutorials with students of De Montfort Fine Art department. The students and Elkin will take on multiple roles slipping between tutees, lecturer, actors, subjects and crew. Through its subject matter the work is firmly grounded in the context of the University.

The subsequent footage will then be cut into excerpts for presentation in the gallery through the run of the exhibition. The mutual vanities, fantasies and projections within the one to one tutorial will be teased out into a work that hopes to describe the madness and meaning within these exchanges.

As part of Elkin’s display the student collaborators will be showing their work that is the apparent subject of the mock tutorials.

Kathryn Elkin Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Kathryn Elkin’s exhibition at The Gallery an artwork by the artists was selected by the collecting partner venue Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and gifted into its collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

Kathryn Elkin (b. 1983 Belfast, UK). Lives and works in Glasgow. She has shown work throughout the UK, including ICA, Tate Modern, Collective Gallery, Transmission, S1 and CCA Derry. She has screened works at London Film Festival and Union Docs, New York and will show an overview of work at Courtisane Festival in Ghent, April 2017. She was a participant in the BBC project Artists in the Archive in 2014, and completed a solo exhibition at CCA Glasgow titled ‘Television’ in 2016. She is the recipient of the 2017 Warwick Stafford Fellowship at Northumbria University and teaches part-time at Liverpool John Moore’s University.

Click here for information on Kathryn Elkin's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

SUZANNE TREISTER WEEK 13/16

For the first fig-futures project with The Box, Plymouth, hosted at KARST, Suzanne Treister presents 'Survivor (F)', a thematic exhibition that considers futuristic ideas of human and artificial intelligence that manifest into alchemical form. It is a sci-fi fantasy where particular words, phrases and motifs recur throughout the exhibition, jumping between works and across an array of media including watercolours and drawings, prints, paintings and videos. The imagery is psychedelic, folding the graphics and ideas of 1960s counterculture into an interplanetary futuristic universe millions of years after the death of the internet. Treister uses the language and iconography of mysticism and emerging technologies to imagine a future that looks and sounds both familiar and unimaginable.

At the public opening the artist will be in conversation from 6.30pm, with Geoff Cox, Associate Professor and Reader in Fine Art at University of Plymouth.

Suzanne Treister Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Suzanne Treister’s exhibition at The Box, Plymouth, hosted at KARST, artworks the artist were selected by the venue and gifted into The Box’s collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artworks are below.

SUZANNE TREISTER CV

Suzanne Treister (b. 1958 London, UK) studied at St Martin's School of Art, London (1978-1981) and Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (1981-1982). She is now based in London having lived in Australia, New York and Berlin. Initially recognized in the 1980s as a painter, she became a pioneer in the digital/new media/web based field from the beginning of the 1990s, making work about emerging technologies, developing fictional worlds and international collaborative organisations. Utilising various media, including video, the internet, interactive technologies, photography, drawing and watercolour, Treister has evolved a large body of work which engages with eccentric narratives and unconventional bodies of research to reveal structures that bind power, identity and knowledge. Often spanning several years, her projects comprise fantastic reinterpretations of given taxonomies and histories that examine the existence of covert, unseen forces at work in the world, whether corporate, military or paranormal. An ongoing focus of her work is the relationship between new technologies, society, alternative belief systems and the potential futures of humanity.

Click here for information on Suzanne Treister's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

EVA GRUBINGER, WEEK 14/16

For her fig-futures show, Eva Grubinger presents ‘Entitlement’, an exhibition of two sculptures originally created in 2015 for fig-2 at the ICA Studio in London. Like much of Grubinger’s work, 'Untitled (Fender)' and 'Untitled (Scorpions)' make reference to maritime culture. The gallery is dominated by a 7 metre inflatable rubber fender used to protect large vessels such as container ships, submarines and super yachts from collision damage. These fenders are buffers that absorb the shocks when international trade makes physical contact with the sovereign nation state.

In contrast to this enormous object, 'Untitled (Scorpions)' is a small bottle suspended from the ceiling by chains. While alluding to the Victorian ship in a bottle tradition, nostalgia is replaced by macabre fascination: numerous scorpions pickled in alcohol glow under a UV light, sending a message with a sting in the tail. With Brexit imminent but unresolved, ‘Entitlement' points towards Britain’s fractured self-image as ruler of the waves, and Plymouth’s strategic role in that imperialist history. Britain’s colonial past folds into the prevailing rhetoric that we are an international ‘trading nation’, in spite of the reality that families, cities, and the whole nation are paralysed by irreconcilable tensions about our identity and values.

EVA Grubinger Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Eva Grubinger’s exhibition at The Box, Plymouth, hosted at KARST, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into The Box’s collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset:

Eva Grubinger, Untitled, 2011, Metal, paint, 50 x 90 cm

A further artwork by Eva Grubinger was acquired by The Box, Plymouth as a result of the exhibition at fig-futures, this was exhibited as part of The Box's inaugural opening show in April 2020:

Eva Grubinger, ‘Untitled (fender)’ 2015, Rubber, steel 190cm x 700cm

EVA GRUBINGER CV

Eva Grubinger lives and works in Berlin. She has had solo shows at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2001); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2003); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2004); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main (2007); Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2009); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2015); and Belvedere 21, Vienna (2019); among others. She has participated in group shows at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2002); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2008); Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL (2009); Marrakech Biennale (2012); Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo (2013); Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2015); and Busan Biennale (2018); among others.

Click here for information on Eva Grubinger's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

CHARLOTTE MOTH, WEEK 15/16

Charlotte Moth presents a two-part exhibition at KARST and Plymouth’s Pannier Market for her fig-futures exhibition. Moth’s work often focuses on modernist architecture and for fig-futures she has created a new installation about Plymouth’s post-war reconstruction architecture, focusing on the iconic market building, as well as the Church of the Ascension, Crownhill and Colin Campbell Court. The artist's own photographs and research into archives in Plymouth will be combined with images of two other structures, reflecting the utopian modernist dreams of how spiritual, commercial, and residential architecture each had a role in transforming society. At KARST, Moth presents a film about the town hall in Marl, Germany, built in the 1960s with uncanny similarities to Plymouth’s own Civic Centre and Council House, both in the use of materials and the desire to construct a new kind of civic architecture for a new post-war society.

Charlotte Moth Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Charlotte Moth’s exhibition at The Box, Plymouth, hosted at KARST, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into The Box’s collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

4 slide carousel projector installation, each containing 80 images created by the artist as follows:

Carousel 1
For Claude Parent and Paul Virilio 2016
L'église Sainte Bernadette de Nevers, France, 1966

Carousel 2
For Victor Pasmore 2016
Apollo Pavilion, Peterlee, 1969

Carousel 3
The Pannier Market 2019
The Pannier Market, Plymouth,1959, Walls and Pearn Architects.

Carousel 4
The Church of the Ascension
The Church of the Ascension, Crownhill Plymouth, Robert Potter Architect 1968

CHARLOTTE MOTH CV

Charlotte Moth was born in the UK and has lived and worked in Paris since 2008. She was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2017. Major solo exhibitions include MIT – List Visual Arts Center, Boston, Seeing While Moving (2017), the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Travelogue, and Parc Saint-Léger, Pougues-les-eaux, Pensée Kaleïdoscopique (2016); Tate Britain Archive Gallery, Choreography of the Image (2015). The Centre d’art contemporain de Genève, Ce qui est fragile est toujours nouveau (2012). A monograph book Travelogue produced by the Kunstmuseum Lietchenstein was published in 2016 in English and German with a French leaflet. Forthcoming exhibitions include Colección XVII: Charlotte Moth, CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Comunidad de Madrid, curated by Caroline Hancock, 24 of February - 16 June 2019.

Click here for information on Charlotte Moth's fig-2 exhibition in 2015

LAURA ELDRET, WEEK 16/16

For the final fig-futures exhibition at KARST and of the fig-futures programme, ‘Conventions’ is an exploration of the sensory points of communal spaces, their uses and the behaviours that they engender. Laura Eldret’s new work suggests that spaces such as community halls or conference centres are both tactile and social, involving a deep awareness of others: in such spaces, chairs are for many bottoms to sit on, cups are for many hands to hold, and carpets for numerous feet to walk across. ‘Conventions’ reflects on commonalities between social groups, suggesting shapes, abstract forms and patterns of activities to hold these unities.

Consisting of a floor-based installation of carpeting, a draped bench, chairs, a tea trolley and prototype cast concrete cups, the work invites visitors to tune into the haptic qualities of the spaces in which social interactions take place. In an era in which the values and ecologies of communal spaces are in flux, ‘Conventions’ sets out to create an ad-hoc and temporary place of gathering. The space is intended to be conducive to communal collective activity, with the elixir of tea freely available.

In lieu of the space being fully used in this way, it is also populated with a number of earlier works by Eldret. These pieces are all the product of Eldret’s prior engagements with specific social groups, while re-presented here they become new imaginary users of the space. ‘Pro’ (2017) is a banner work made to celebrate the hairdressing trade (and the hairdressers in her family: her mother, aunts and cousins). ‘07427397776’ (2017–18) is a banner from a series of works installed in sites across Croydon, which Eldret describes as akin to portraits ‘of the people, not for the people’. ‘Receipt of Exchange (TVs and Bells’) (2015) is from a body of work made in Mexico that reflects on the history of textiles in forging trans-regional connections and engages with the use of design motifs as a tool for cultural branding, mimesis and affect. This rug depicts a series of bells and TV screens, reflecting on a gathering that Eldret encountered on the Day of the Dead.

'Conventions' continues Eldret’s manipulation of the forms and materials that shape our ways of gathering together, and the diversity of haptic sensory perceptions within communal spaces. She is interested in the complexities of how and why groups of people gather and the individual’s role within that, as well as the agency of art in acts of sociability. In particular, 'Conventions' builds upon Eldret’s increasing interest in the physicality and materiality of social interactions. What are common traits of communal spaces? How do we as individuals locate ourselves within a communal setting? What are the haptic and multi-sensory desires that we collectively share (touch, feel, smell, sound, voice, as well as sight)?

Groups interested in using the space please email info@karst.org.uk.

An artist talk will take place with fig-futures curator Yves Blais at the private view from 6.30pm.

'Images of the People', on Saturday 30 March, 2 - 3pm: writer and lecturer Dr. Colin Perry discusses ideas of publics and their places in relation to art, moving images, and visual culture.

Laura Eldret Acquisition

fig-futures is a new collecting scheme. Following Laura Eldret’s exhibition at The Box, Plymouth, hosted at KARST, an artwork by the artist was selected by the venue and gifted into The Box’s collection. This acquisition was made possible with support from Arts Council England, Art Fund and Outset. Details of the gifted artwork are below.

LAURA ELDRET CV

Laura Eldret (b.1982, UK) is an artist working across textile and installation. Awards include a shortlisted artist for the Vordemberger Prize (2016), and a Gasworks URRA residency in Buenos Aires (2016). Eldret programmed a major seminar What is the Digital Draw? about net art, computer art and the digital at Drawing Room, London (2016). Select exhibitions include CCA Derry, NI (2016); Tannery Projects, London (2016); Fig-2 50/50, ICA, London (2015); Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2015); Drawing Room, London (2015); Artlicks Weekend (2014); Tannery Arts, London (2014); South London Gallery (2013); Ikon, Birmingham, UK (2013); The Gallery, Arts University Bournemouth, UK (2012); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle upon Tyne (2012); Glasgow International (2012); and Camden Arts Centre, London (2011).

Click here for information on Laura Eldret's fig-2 week 1/50 exhibition
and here for Laura Eldret's fig-2 week 50/50 exhibition in 2015.