Cally Spooner
dal 24/9/2012 al 26/10/2012
Segnalato da
24/9/2012
Cally Spooner
International Project Space - School of Art Bournville Institute of Art and Desi, Birmingham
The exhibition, which includes a new feature-length film, marks the culmination of Collapsing in Parts, a long-term project by Spooner. It approached the notion of performance as a promise, wherein the challenge to produce, and the constant revisions involved, became part of the performance itself.
International Project Space presents a new solo exhibition by Cally Spooner, her first in a UK public institution. The exhibition, which includes a new feature-length film by Spooner, marks the culmination of Collapsing in Parts, a long-term project Spooner began at International Project Space in June 2011. Centering on the writing of novella, published episodically online and soon to be published in print, Collapsing in Parts unfolded as an investigation into creative progress, publicness and improvement read through the emergence of new performance economies found in organisational, sporting and political spheres. Collapsing in Parts approached the notion of performance as a promise, wherein the challenge to produce, and the constant revisions involved, became part of the performance itself.
The novella spans four semi-fictitious narratives spread over a century of recessions. It borrows its formal structure from Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958) and brings together characters with a variety of narcissistic neuroses based loosely on historical and contemporary public figures including Ronald Reagan, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tiger Woods. Across the span of the project this solitary writing activity has been accompanied by a series of live Footnote ‘events’, which have functioned as performative demonstrations of ideas explored in the novella; these events, which developed from various collaborations and conversations, included a performance, a graphic text poster, a group exhibition, a theatre production and a forthcoming conversation event at LUX on 27th September.
The culminating exhibition at International Project Space is described by Spooner as a place for her research and documentation to gather and settle – an indirect register of a year and a half’s worth of activity – and includes a new feature-length film, props and a photographic print.
Shot in a single straight take without post-production, Spooner’s new film draws as close as possible to being a live performance, embodying the conversational nature of the writing itself. During periods of attenuated silence, in which two actors appear to retreat into an interior space, the film assumes a sculptural presence with communication only occurring through form and gesture. These sequences are interrupted by sporadic and increasingly frenetic snatches of dialogue delivered by characters who inhabit opposing registers of language and delivery: one who attemptsto produce a considered testimony on the current state of speaking and relations, the other who dominates with a jargon filled diatribe, at once film pitch, business manifesto and political broadcast. That both forms of language are ultimately divorced from the outside world of work and communication is thrown into humorous relief by the literal intrusion of an external action prop that is intermittently carried across the space by stagehands.
The film and exhibition mark the end of a body of research without claiming to have arrived at a point of completion or success. A sense of resistance towards the ‘performance promise’ established at the start of the project permeates each production of Collapsing in Parts, from the novella and the Footnote events to the current exhibition and feature film, countering the deadening effect of high performance on the evolution of a truly meaningful form of language.
Spooner’s exhibition will be accompanied by two new off-site events, including Footnote 4 and a new version of Footnote 5. And Yet, There They Still Are! is a conversation between Spooner and Sidsel Meineche Hansen which will take place at LUX, London on 27th September. This will be followed by a new version of A Six Stage Manifesto On Action presented at Triangle, Marseilles on 3rd October 2012.
Spooner has also produced a new limited edition print to accompany the exhibition and it will be available to purchase at the gallery and from our website
The exhibition is supported by Arts Council England, The Elephant Trust and Birmingham City University.
Cally Spooner (b. 1983) is an artist based in London. Recent solo presentations include Seven Thirty Till Nine, Shanaynay, Paris (2012); At Five to Ten, Neue Alte Bruecke, Frankfurt (2010) and A Solo Event for Thinking, Basso, Berlin (2009). Recent and upcoming group shows include Memory Marathon, Serpentine Gallery, London; I Proclaim You Proclaim We Proclaim, Stroom, The Hague; Making Words Marking Words, Cooper Gallery, Dundee; An Exhibition to Hear Read, ICA Philadelphia (all 2012); Outrageous Fortune, Hayward Touring; Double Bill (with Tai Shani), LOOP Festival, Barcelona; The Department of Wrong Answers, Wysing Arts Centre (all 2011); Perform a Lecture!, The Office (curated by Ellen Blumenstein and Dieter Roelstraete), Arsenale, Berlin (2010).
Preview 25 September, 4-7pm
International Project Space
School of Art Bournville
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design - Maple Road, Birmingham B30 2AA (MAP)
Opening hours
Wednesday 12-5pm
Thursday-Saturday 12-5pm