19/6/2003
Bait
Cover Up, London
Charlie Murphy. Landscape and natural history series. The continuation of a six-month forum of contemporary art engaged with natural history and landscape. Each exhibition takes place over three to six days and includes artists and curators from Europe and America. These events are not a comprehensive survey of their theme but rather a sequence of pipette samples from a broad territory of activity.
Landscape and natural history series
Charlie Murphy
Cover Up project space presents the continuation of a six-month forum of
contemporary art engaged with natural history and landscape. Each exhibition
takes place over three to six days and includes artists and curators from Europe
and America. These events are not a comprehensive survey of their theme but
rather a sequence of pipette samples from a broad territory of activity.
"..this Tickling Art, be the Sauce and Relish to the most Luxurious
Entertainments..."
B A I T is a selection of recent video work which frames a whole secret world
of unspoken sexuality and pleasure in the rituals and customs of rural and
domestic life.
Murphy's interest in language reveals an intimate history and observation of
rural life, charting everyday bucolic activities in a series of studies of the
handling, stroking, rubbing, milking and harnessing of animal assets.
'Soften' investigates the old poaching technique of 'tickling trout', a hypnotic
predation by seduction in which the dynamics and fantasies of our power over
nature are coaxed from under the river bank.
'Turn' plunges deep into a writhing mass of swirling, climbing eels, a
mesmerising Medusa of unspoken yearning and profusion.
'Joy' turns the anglers gaze into a humorous meditation on anthropomorphism
into an orgy of apparently spontaneous jumping for joy.
As part of a larger body of work 'The Art of Tickling Trout and Other Sensual
Pleasures', these three intense vignettes offer a pertinent and suggestive
comment upon the romanticisation of the bucolic, filling our vision with
powerful and memorable images that map out the relationship of sex with the
handling and controlling of animals.
'The Art of Tickling Trout and Other Sensual Pleasures', was produced during a
Navvygate residency at Artsway.
BAIT is presented in association with Danielle Arnaud contemporary art
Private View: Friday 20th June 2003 6:30 - 9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: 21st and 22nd June 1:00 - 5:30 pm
The next exhibition at Cover Up Into the Grey Private View Friday 27th June
Cover Up
25 Calvin Street London E1 6NW