Birmingham – Bordeaux exchange

Dear interested readers,

Joss Burke is currently in the UK organising a summer school at BCU for Japanese University students. She has sent me some information on two Bordeaux artists that I thought it would be good to share with you.

Isodore Krapo is currently exhibiting at a gallery in Nerac, while Veronique Lamare is running video /performance workshops at Bordeaux’s main contemporary art gallery CAPC. She is at the gallery from 25th June to 1st July and the workshops come under the heading Ateliers du regard/traces. Here is information on Isadore show: I have tried to modify from a pdf page -so formatting is a little strange. It’s also in French so hope that provides some insight in how people talk about art in another language other than English.

Que faisiez-vous le 20 juillet 1969 à 03:56 ?

Que faites-vous

le 26 juin 2009 à partir de 19h?

Isidore Krapo,

notre trésor régional, gascon jusqu’

au bout des pinceaux et des rabots,

choisit Nérac:

carrefour du Grand Sud-Ouest béni

des dieux par la Baïse

(affluent de la Garonne),

des princes

(cour de Marguerite de Valois où le bon Henri IV vécu sa première histoire d’

amour

avec une certaine “Fleurette”),

des poètes et écrivains

(Marot, Georges Sand, Shakespeare?…),

des artisans, ingénieurs-entrepreneurs

(Eugène Haussmann, editions Pierre Mainard, pour ne citer qu’ eux)

et par des gens comme vous et moi qui ont eux aussi pas qu’ une corde à leurs

arcs;

pour fêter les 40 ans de “on a marché sur la Lune”.

Venez donc à

Nérac

Galerie des Tanneries

Vernissage le 26/06/09

Hi, In these blogs I hope to give you an insight into the artists involved with this project, as well as update you on progress towards our exhibition in September.

I thought I would tell you a little about Bordeaux artist Francis Viguera. Francis makes work from collecting recycled materials such as tin cans, beer cans, vegatable boxes, packaging and creates sculptures and wall based constructions. He uses the text from packaging and advertisements in a playful and aesethic manner. Francis though French, has Spanish origins and he has explored his roots through imagery such as the bull. He is also greatly interested ancient civilizations -such has Babylonian and Cretan cultures. He exhibited at the Museum. D’Aquitaine recently and a summary of his exhibition can be found below. The Full article in French can be found at www.la critique.org/article-le-veau-d-or-ou-l-esthetique. Attached is an image of Francis’s work.

Le veau d’orLe musée d’Aquitaine s’inscrit en 2008 dans le parcours du Bus de l’Art Contemporain en invitant des artistes à dialoguer avec les collections du musée. Francis Viguera, artiste plasticien, présente à cette occasion un choix de sculptures auprès de pièces emblématiques du musée, dans une construction dialogique. Le visiteur grâce à ce lien tissé entre le passé et le présent, a une relecture des collections, et une rencontre inédite avec l’œuvre de Francis Viguera.

Francis also runs le hangar en bois in Bordeaux which is an alternative gallery space and is involved with Art Chartrons.

Hi, I thought I would update folk on how the planning for the Re-place exhibition is coming along. The summer is upon us and September is looming nearer. We are liasing with Birmingham City Council's Arts Team to link in with their publicity campaign to the promote ArtsFest weekend in Brum. Hopefully that will help promote our exhibition regionally, and we have offered to promote Artsfest activities and events at our venue at the Works Gallery. We are developing a website for our exhibition with the help of Maria (a Curating Graduate from BCU) who has agreed to help us with designing a website and promotional/publicity activity.

In France Joss and Veronique are trying to get funding for the Bordeaux artists to help with their costs. There is no Arts Council system is France for Visual Artists. They will be meeting with Bordeaux Council Officials to see if they can give any assistance. So this a big challenge for the French artists to get public funding for their practice.

Another consideration in working with artsists based in another country, is the linguistic and cultural differences. Our main contact in Bordeaux is Joss Burke who was born and brought up in Liverpool, who acts as a translator and co-ordinator for us. Without Joss this project couldn't happen, as the French Artists speak only a little English and we have very little French. So communication is proving to be an interesting dimension to our project.

Anyway, I am posting images from my colleagues Pamina Stewart, Paula Woof and Peter Grego. Pamina's link is :www.paminastewart.co.uk. The next post will concentrate on Bordeaux based artists Joss Burke, Richard Biardeau and Francis Viguera. Until next post. Best wishes. Tom

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Here are the Birmingham artists statements for our Re-place exhibition at the Works gallery in September. Attached is one of my proposed images from trip to Blackpool.

UK artists’ statements

Peter Grego – re-place exhibition

For the exhibition re-place, Peter Grego will be developing an ongoing project Heartlands. The intention is to expand beyond the two coalmining areas featured originally in Heartlands, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, to include all coalmining areas involved in the 1984 national strike.

Heartlands is a photographic installation produced originally for the exhibition Lost, which was shown at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile; in 2007. The work focuses on the dynamics of disruption and dislocation as a force in the shaping of new identities. The installation, in the form of a split-screen projection, explored the aftermath of a key moment in post-war British history; the 1984 miners strike, prompting questions about the loss of manufacturing communities and the shaping of post-industrial Britishness.

Pamina Stewart

In this work I have created a collection of humanoids from seashells. Since the early 1990's artists have used found objects as raw materials to engage with contemporary society through its bi-products

The creatures made from shells that most people are familiar with are either mass produced in Asia, or comical crafted objects made by children in the UK after seaside excursions. I grew up by the sea and spent much time gluing and painting collected beach treasure. They therefore have a duality of referencing home craft and the mass produced products of an increasingly globalised world.

The sculptures remind viewers of the classified zoological collections of the Victorian era and collected curiosities. While some viewers find the figures comical, an equal number find them sinister. With these figures I intend to give the viewer the space to imagine personalities.

Tom Ranahan

Birmingham is the most landlocked city in England and as such, it seems appropriate to exhibit photographs from Britain’s coastal extremities. A fish and chip in Borth, a rusting steel cylinder in the Orkney Isles, a talking telescope in Blackpool are examples of images that caught the artists attention during visits to these locations. Intuitively reacting to the environment, the weather conditions and the feeling of being an outsider, the artist produces work that is quirky and shrewdly observed.

Paula Woof

Paula Woof works mainly as a painter, but has also explored many other art forms. She has exhibited widely, both as a solo artist and in group shows such as the National Portrait Gallery portrait competition. After winning first prize in the Derby Open exhibition in 2007, her solo show "Remembered and Forgotten", which took place earlier this year, was enthusiastically received.

Among many other projects, she was artist in residence at Birmingham Markets, recording the lively hustle and bustle of the old Bullring before its redevelopment.

She is at present working on portraits and a series of still life paintings which celebrate subjects often overlooked and ignored.