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4/5/2012

Darren Almond

Darbyshire Gallery, London

SVA, the Site Festival host organisation, is pleased to announce that the opening exhibition will be Sometimes Still by Darren Almond.

Sometimes Still is an imposing six-screen high-definition video Almond filmed on Mt Hiei near Kyoto, Japan, over several years. This will be its first showing in the UK. In the film Almond and his camera accompany a Tendai novitiate monk during a nightly marathon, part of the novitiate’s broader engagement with the Buddhist process of Kaihōgyō; a seven year feat of physical and mental endurance by which these monks attempt to reach a state of enlightenment. The ritual is considered a “limit-experience”, intended to promote a concentrated, intense experience of body and time, testing the human limits of endurance.

The 25 minute film follows the monk leaving the temple at night, crossing and passing underneath roads and finally returning to the temple at dawn. The camera gradually loses the protagonist from view. This journey through the undergrowth is filmed in such a way as to suggest that it is the viewer who is running. The resonant sound of the monk’s heartbeat intensifies the viewer’s engagement with the unfolding visual narrative. Although at times four additional screens also show the same scene as the central screen, more often they appear to show what might be seen by the monk as he travels. Frequent appearances of negative images create a strange, wanly lit and immeasurable spatial depth. The film ends with “Marathon Monk” having endured and completed his nocturnal trials, blessing the city of Kyoto, deep in the valley swathed in the dawn mist.

This year’s Site Festival will feature curated works, screenings, performances and talks by Andrew Kotting, Negative Space, Ben Rivers, Mezz, Lux, Aleksandra Mir, Brickhouse, The Performance Exchange Minima, Stand and Stare, tactileBOSCH, CAZ project space, ]performance s p a c e [ , Bristol Diving School, Keith Allen, Eyebrow, Kathy Hinde, Simon Munnery, John Hegley and Get the Blessing.

SVA, festival host will be opening up its doors for the whole month of May as the main site for the festival.

For full listings of all Site 2012 Festival exhibitions, performance, music, open studiosand events see contact below.

ENDS
Contact
Jo Leahy and Neil Walker
SVA, 4 John Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2HA
01453 751440
press@sva.org.uk

Darren Almond
Darren Almond’s diverse work, incorporating film, installation, sculpture and photography, deals with evocative meditations on time and duration as well as the themes of personal and historical memory. Almond is interested in the notions of geographical limits and the means of getting there – in particular, culturally specific points of arrival and departure. Since 1998, Almond has been making a series of landscape photographs known as the Fullmoons. Taken during a full moon with an exposure time of 15 minutes or more, these images of remote geographical locations appear ghostly, bathed in an unexpectedly brilliant light where night seems to have been turned into day. Many of Almond’s works are filmed in wide ranging – and often inaccessible - geographical locations such as the Arctic Circle, Siberia, the holy mountains in China or the source of the Nile. Other works explore themes closer to home: Traction is an ambitious three-screen projection that draws a portrait of the artist’s father, laying bare external and internal scars, whilst revealing the artist’s preoccupation with time. A similar intimacy is evoked in If I Had You, a multiscreened film installation about the artist’s grandmother – a tender portrait of youthful reminiscence and the dignity of old age.

Darren Almond solo exhibitions have included Frac Haute-Normandie, Rouen and FRAC Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand (2011), Parasol Unit (2008), SITE Santa Fe (2007). He has also participated in numerous important group exhibitions including Helmhaus, Zurich, 6th Biennale da Curitiba and Miami Art Museum (2011), MAC/VAL, Vitry-sûr-Seine, (2010), the Tate Triennial, Tate Britain and Frac Lorraine, Metz (2009), Moscow Biennale (2007), The Turner Prize, Tate Britain (2005), The Busan Biennale (2004), Venice Biennale (2003), Berlin Biennale (2001), ‘Sensation’ (1997- 1999). Darren Almond is represented by White Cube, www.whitecube.com.

Darbyshire
Darbyshire have been sponsoring annually curated group exhibitions hosted by SVA since 2007. Proprietor Mark Darbyshire has worked closely with the London art world over the last twenty years, and so his passion for young dynamic artists’ ideas has become a means of fostering the presentation of challenging artwork in his home town of Stroud. Darbyshire was founded in 1992 has quickly established itself as a leading framer and art fabricator. From the outset, the company ethos has been to deliver specific solutions to particular requirements through a close understanding of client needs. This belief in creative collaboration has been at the heart of much of Darbyshire's work, and has attracted a range of high-profile clients; artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, to commercial galleries such as Gagosian and White Cube, public galleries such as the Tate and numerous private collectors including Charles Saatchi.

Site festival
The Site Festival is a contemporary arts festival, which aims to showcase artist-led projects with a full and exciting programme of visual arts, performance, music, screenings, open studios, artist talks and workshops. The Site Festival creates a platform for over 400 artists and artist collectives to show new work, initiate new projects and work collaboratively in over 70 sites across the Stroud Valleys. SVA, the organiser, opens up its doors for the whole month of May as the main site for the festival.

Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA)
SVA was founded in 1997 with the aim of promoting and supporting the artists working in the area. Starting from humble beginnings, when volunteers helped to convert a disused town warehouse into artists studios, SVA moved back into its building in John Street Stroud in 2007 after completing the 2nd phase of the £1.5 million building refurbishment project. This unique contemporary arts resource provides good quality space, facilities and support to a wide number of artists and the community. The building has been designed by Tony Fretton Architects, whose back catalogue includes the Camden Art Centre, London; the Lisson Gallery and the British Embassy in Warsaw.

Brunel Goods Shed
SVA has recently taken on a 5 year lease on the Brunel Goods Shed in Stroud. This unique railway goods shed, built in 1845 by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway is thought to be the oldest remaining wayside shed of its type. It is a Tudor Gothic revival style, open shed with offset miniature flying buttresses. The programme will focus on performative art events which aim to be both challenging and accessible, encompassing performance art, experimental music, public interventions, dance, video, film, spoken word or installation.

Sometimes Still by Darren Almond is supported by Darbyshire and White Cube.

Opening Saturday 5 May 6-9pm

Darbyshire Gallery
19-23 White Lion Street, London
Sat 10am–3pm, Sun–Wed 11am–7pm, Thu 11am–9pm

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