27/6/2002
Mezzo Soprano?
Hoxton Hall, London
Mezzo Soprano? features artist Janette Parris performing as a solo singer for one night only. In Mezzo Soprano? Parris curates a selection of her favourite songs into a poignant assembly of pop moments, delivering a set of current and past love songs with a live band in the latest of her series of populist interventions.
A PERFORMANCE BY JANETTE PARRIS
Friday 28 June 2002, 8pm
Mezzo Soprano? features artist Janette Parris performing as a solo singer for
one night only. In Mezzo Soprano? Parris curates a selection of her favourite
songs into a poignant assembly of pop moments, delivering a set of current and
past love songs with a live band in the latest of her series of populist
interventions.
Parris adopts the forms of popular culture in her work, inflecting her chosen
genres with humour and pathos. Parris often situates these projects outside the
gallery circuit, and in doing so she explores the potential for her work to
operate in a social arena - a space far removed from the physical and
theoretical confines of the conventional gallery.
Parris works across many different forms - previously writing and directing her
own musicals, producing animations and writing a routine for a stand-up comic's
performance. In November 2001, Parris premiered her second musical, You're The
One. In this work, songs by Jeff Buckley and Earth Wind & Fire were threaded
into the story of a collapsing men's magazine.
Whilst reaching out to the world of the popular, Parris' work is rooted in some
of the key moments of twentieth century high culture. Parris' actions obliquely
refer to the traditions of performance art, and her use of existing cultural
material alludes to the presence of the readymade in much recent art.
Furthermore, her practice disrupts the boundaries of popular and high culture,
of good and bad taste.
__________
notes:
Janette Parris studied at Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmiths' College,
where she gained an MA in 1994. Solo exhibitions include City Racing, London
(1998) and Habitat, London (1996). Recent group exhibitions and projects include
BBC Art Zone web project; Century City, Tate Modern, London; City Racing, ICA,
London (all 2001). In 2000 Parris was commissioned by ArtLab to produce her
musical You're The One.
Janette Parris: Mezzo Soprano? is commissioned by inIVA and is part of Jubilee,
a season of exhibitions, events and debates that takes another view of
contemporary Britain, at its place in global culture and at new ways of
representing its constituents through the visual arts.
Booking info: 020 7739 5431
Tickets: £5 - advance booking essential
For Press Tickets to Janette Parris: Mezzo Soprano? please call inIVA on +44
(0)20 7729 9616.
inIVA creates exhibitions, publications, multimedia, education and research
projects. Each project is designed to bring the work of artists from culturally
diverse backgrounds to the attention of the widest possible public. inIVA and
the Jubilee Season are funded by Arts Council of England and London Arts.
Venue:
Hoxton Hall,
130 Hoxton Street,
London N1 6SH