Michael Sailstorfer
The Icelandic Love Corporation
Duncan Ross
Philip Duckworth
Ben Sadler
Bad Beuys Entertainment
Seamus Harahan
Vanessa Billy
Performance as part as 'Window Cleaning Days': Over gathers seven artists and collectives from around Europe. Without a specific premise, the exhibition presents new and recent works shown in London for the first time. Some of the artists have responded to the title of the show drawn from a song by emerging London-based sound artist Dan Wilson.
- Performance by The Icelandic Love Corporation
- Thursday 9th December 2004 - 8pm sharp
at The Empire
33a Wadeson Street London E2 9DR
free admission
The Icelandic Love Corporation will perform, as part as Window cleaning days
are over, presented at the Empire until 12th December 2004.
Followed by a finissage drink in the gallery.
Window Cleaning Days are Over gathers seven artists and collectives from around
Europe. Without a specific premise, the exhibition presents new and recent works
shown in London for the first time. Some of the artists have responded to the
title of the show drawn from a song by emerging London-based sound artist Dan
Wilson.
Bad Beuys Entertainment is an artist collective founded in 1999 in
Cergy-Pontoise (greater Paris). BAD BOYS ENTERTAINMENT is the name of a major
American hip-hop label. In BBE, Boys has been replaced by Beuys. The name BBE
indicates the group's point of departure and its frame of reference: if its
attitude isn't revolutionary, it is certainly a critical one, targeting the
spheres of mass cultural production. For this exhibition, they are presenting
two new works. The photograph Sauvageons is a self-portrait, staged at a
suburban bus stop. Four models, have been cast to represent the group members
wearing track suits at a bus stop. The second piece is described by the
collective as "deluxe junk". The Chinese stuff refers to (industrial)
''tableaux'' one can find in Chinese restaurants or fast-foods. These are light
boxes containing a mechanism built to render a kinetic effect, providing the
object with a kind of magic. Idyllic scenery, these photomontages - touched up
photographs - usually represent exotic landscapes: luxurious nature with azure
skies and fertile downs, sometimes with a waterfall.
Recent shows include: FIAC 04; CAC, Meymac (2004, group show); Glassbox, Paris
(2004, group show); Galerie Corentin Hamel, Paris (2003, solo show);
Confluences, Paris (2002, group show).
Vanessa Billy uses industrial materials from PVC and rubber to steel and glass
to conceive sculptures oddly resembling everyday objects. Yet, Billy's works are
vain in that they fail to perform a specific task. Midway, 2004 while evoking
the rubber curtain through which the luggage appears at the baggage reclaim,
claims a new significance in the gallery environment. Made of brightly coloured
PVC and mirror, Other's people fire sits in the middle of the gallery. It
suggests an inner confusion which access is denied by fragments of mirror
reflecting the viewer and its surroundings.
Vanessa Billy was born in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland. She lives and works in
London. Recent shows include: The Standpoint Gallery, London (2004, group show),
Mad03 Festival (2003, group show); MadridLos29enchufes / Madrid (2003, group
show).
Seamus Harahan's video works picture day to day matters and environments. In Il
Mercenario, Harahan is documenting a Belfast street scene of a Drunk, who might
have trained as a Boxer. Juxtaposing the visual with Western music, the "Boxer"
turns into a dancing Cider Cowboy of the urban sprawl. By choosing the elevator
for projection the viewer is forced into a 1:1 encounter with Il Mercenario.
Seamus Harahan was born in 1968 in London. He lives and works in Belfast. Recent
shows include: Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin (2004, solo show); Zé dos
bois Gallery, Lisbon (2003, group show); Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2004,
group show); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2002, group show). He will be
showing at Gimpel Fils from 25th November 2004 to 7th January 2005, and has been
selected amongst 13 other artists to participate in the first Northern Irish
representation at the 51st Venice Biennial (2005).
Icelandic Love Corporation is an artist collective founded in 1996 in Reykjavik.
In their performances, photographs and video works, ILC are reinventing
themselves as characters something in between human beings and elves. Based in
different parts of Europe, yet influenced by their common heritage, ILC use the
gap between critical inquiry and neutralized representation to develop
mesmerizing situations and objects.
Recent shows include: Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium (2004, group show; Art
Statements, Basel Art Fair, Switzerland (2004); Tanya Bonaktar Gallery, New York
(2004, group show); Tent, Rotterdam (2004, group show); Volume, Brooklyn, New
York (2004, group show); Zacheta Gallery, Warzaw (2004, group show); Galerie
Zink&Gegner, Munich (2003, solo show)
Juneau/projects/
Ban this: the remix is a multimedia installation comprised of prints, a video
and an audio element. Initially conceived for the Road Show, 2003 (Grizedale),
Ban this consisted of asking people to write their own lyrics and sing their
song along tracks composed by juneau/projects/. Ban this: the remix present the
remixed version of these songs as well as magnified lyrics sheets by children.
The video features Cosmo, an American child performing his song.
Juneau/projects/ is Philip Duckworth, born 1976 in Iselohn, Germany and Ben
Sadler, born 1977 in Birmingham.
Recent shows include: The Showroom, London (2004, solo show), fa projects,
London (2004, solo show), Romantic Detachment at PS1, New York (2004, group
show).
Rarely appearing in a gallery context, Duncan Ross primarily works in collaboration
with other artists, small publishers and arts organisation. For this exhibition,
Ross has created three new drawings inspired by Television, his dreams and false
memories. His ideas are influenced stylistically by cartoonists like DC
Thompson's Leo Boxendale and Dudley D. Watkins.
Duncan Ross was born in 1974 in Kinross, Fife, Scotland. He lives and works in
Belfast.
Recent shows include: Zé dos bois Gallery, Lisbon (2003, group show); Catalyst
Arts Belfast (2002, group show); Generator Projects, Dundee (2001, group show).
Ross is illustrator of the monthly Vacuum newspaper, Belfast.
For Window Cleaning Days are Over, Michael Sailstorfer is presenting two new works. Anna
(2004) is a sound installation featuring the encounter between a hairdryer and a
microphone. Inspired by Kurt Schwitter's poem Anna reinterpreted by German
Hip-Hop band Freundeskreis in the late 1990's, Sailstorfer's performative piece
amplifies a familiar domestic noise, lending it an exaggerated importance.
The second piece brought in this show is Window, a steel frame that used to
contain a shop sign. Placed outdoors, it works like a window, framing the
surroundings.
Michael Sailstorfer was born in 1979 in Vilsbiburg, Germany.
Recent shows include: Zero gallery, Milan, Italy (2004, group show); Attitudes,
Genf, Switzerland (2004, solo show); Sydney Biennale, Australia (2004);
Manifesta 5, San Sebastian, Spain (2004); Galerie Markus Richter, Berlin (2003,
solo show); Ludwig Forum für internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany (2003, group
show). Sailstorfer is currently showing in Bloomberg New Contemporaries,
Barbican.
Show open: 20th November - 12th December 2004
The Empire
33a Wadeson Street London E2 9DR
Gallery opening times: Thursday to Sunday 12-6pm