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WARNING ART: Friday May 25 - Friday 15 June, 2012. Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland |
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Left: Artist André Stitt, right: Curator Brendan Jamison BLACK MOUNTAIN HIGH (2012) André Stitt, oil on linen, 180 x 300 cms.Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
Professor André Stitt (Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales) delivered a 10 minute introduction on the opening night. 'WARNING!' is an international group exhibition focusing on the highly alternative representations of the human figure and its associated activities.
The show encompasses drawing, sculpture, installation, painting, video, photography and digital animation. It featured 26 artists from Europe and North America - André Stitt, Peter Richards, Miranda Whall, Brendan Jamison, Tracey Emin, Julian Opie, Gail Ritchie, Sean Miller, Jim Drain, Galen Olmsted, LuLu LoLo, Patrick Colhoun, William Artt, Royce Harper, Miguel Martin, Lydia Holmes, Leontia Fegan, Ciaran Magill, Stuart Roberts and Low-Level Chatter Corps [Jay Bryant, Darick Chamberlin, Craig Coleman, Thom Hutchison, Connie Hwang, Wes Kline, and Shawn Wolfe]. Due to the explicit nudity and adult content of this exhibition, entry was strictly limited to over 18s only.
Andre Stitt's PROG ROCK SERIES in gallery 3 Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
METABOLIC DISASTER AREA (2010) André Stitt, oil on linen 120 x 180 cms Highlights include André Stitt’s Prog Rock series of abstract paintings generated from pumping sonic beats with obscene lyrics into his studio. He also shows a new artwork created in response to the city of Belfast, ‘Black Mountain High’, an epic 3 metre long painting that commands the entire back wall of gallery 3.
THE CURATOR, THE DEALER, HIS FRIEND & HIS ARTIST (2012) Peter Richards Pinhole exposed unique colour photograph,106 x 183 cms A vibrant-coloured pinhole photographic work by artist Peter Richards sees the recreation of the famous roasted lover scene from the 1989 movie 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover'. The 5 characters are played by art collector Brian Nixon with artists Brendan Jamison, Miguel Martin, Lydia Holmes and Alvin Hobson [playing the part of the naked murdered lover that has just been roasted and presented on a table of vegetables].
Gallery 1 Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
Ciaran Magill's nude figurative drawings explore homo-subliminal narratives. With the interplay of athletic male bodies, the activities are often ambiguous, as if the characters are caught off guard, inviting the viewer to question and decipher the complex human relationships at work within his paintings.
THE SPERM HARVESTERS (2012) Lydia Holmes, graphite on paper, 51 x 55 cms
SUGAR MAMAS (2012) Lydia Holmes, carbon steel on PVC crust foam, 60 x 90 cms Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art Continuing the penis theme, Lydia Holmes presents 'The Sperm Harvesters', a drawing of four giant erections sprouting upwards in a surreal landscape where miniature females are engaged in an operation of throwing ropes around the male sexual organs. In an other work, 'Sugar Mamas', steel pins perforate PVC foam in a fluid undulating pattern. Holmes’s work is informed by the current spate of female gangs reported in Zimbabwe accused of subjecting men to horrific sexual assaults in order to obtain sperm. Nicknamed ‘Sugar Mamas’, speculations for this activity range from its beneficial use in conditioner and facial cream to the main belief that sperm is associated with good luck and so is being used for ritualistic purposes. Responding to this, Holmes explores the idea of sperm as a future tradable commodity for women. What results is a series of work resembling futuristic fetishized landscapes with forms that bare the appearance of genetically modified penis crops being harvested by women for sperm. Just as the ‘Sugar Mama’s’ reasons are unknown, Holmes creates a narrative with a sense of uncertainty and takes a playful approach influenced by her mother’s childhood stories of growing up in the bush of South Africa.
The Tracey Emin wall in gallery 2 Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art Erections also pop up in a Tracey Emin etching, ‘See How They Grow’ where two penises are sprinkled by a watering can. Beside the two Emin works, Brendan Jamison’s playful sculpture of two plastic water containers sees the use of 1000s of giant coloured map pins transforming the inanimate containers into male and female reproductive organs, engaged in passionate love-making.
CONTAINERS (2012) Brendan Jamison. Plastic water containers and giant map pins 40.5 x 69 x 30 cms. Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
ANGEL SHIT (2012) Sean Miller in collaboration with Galen Olmsted. John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) Wood, porcelain, iron pyrite (fool's gold) and fabric 53 x 40 x 30 cms. Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
Florida-based artist Galen Olmsted finds new meaning in the material of porcelain by flipping its traditional conventions of purity to that of shit. It is the assertion that porcelain is mined from shit, from the crust of the earth and an unwillingness to separate the two. The catapult is used as a literal interpretation of a gallery's purpose to launch the career of an emerging artist; JEMA literally launches the artist's work through the air, destroying it in the process.
Miranda Whall's 4 drawings in a row in gallery 2, with ANGEL SHIT catapult installation in the forground Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
BUDGIE AND CANARY SERIES 1-6: No. 6 (2007) Miranda Whall pencil on paper, 84 x 59.5 cms
Reclaiming ownership of female representation, the theme of self-stimulation is explored in a playful tongue-in-cheek fashion by Welsh artist Miranda Whall through four self-portrait drawings from her ‘Budgie and Canary Series’. Birds are perched on the ends of instruments the artist inserts into her vagina. THE 11th DAY (2004) Miranda Whall, DVD , 4 minute loop Meanwhile in the next gallery, a video artwork titled ‘The 11th Day’ sees Whall on the counter of a building supply company, and while the assistants sell items to their clients, she routinely removes her trousers and pants to check and test her cervical fluid and the position of her cervix following FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) to monitor the three primary signs of fertility. By creating unlikely relationships and scenarios, Whall hopes to meddle and probe with current inhibitions, taboos and expectations. The continuous misplacement of her expressions are intentionally provocative, awkward and inappropriate. By using devices such as beauty and humour, she hopes to catch the viewer within a cyclic conundrum of emotions while they observe both the images and themselves.
WALK (2009) Julian Opie, LED animation, edition number 181 of 200, 13 x 26 x 4 cms
ALL IN THE DOING (2011) Royce [Leonie McDonagh in performance]
Digital photographic print, edition of 30, 50 x 40 cms In contrast to Whall’s feminist approach to the representation of women, Royce Harper’s photography presents a distinctively male appreciation of the inherent beauty, wonder and passion for the contours and curves of the female form. The rapid state of undress is captured to strong effect in ‘All in the Doing’. Harper strikes a fine balance between elements that are clearly defined and those that are subject to dramatic high-speed blurring.
THIRSTY SCHOOL GIRL (2011) LuLu LoLo Digital photograph, edition 1 of 3, 30 x 20 cms
While Leontia Fegan films a trickle of milk running down a woman’s breast, New York artist LuLu LoLo presents a provocative performance photograph entitled ‘Thirsty School Girl’.
RED GLADIOLI (2011) Stuart Roberts collage. 55 x 59 cms
COMING UP WILD (2011) Stuart Roberts collage, 30 x 21 cms Brutality and mutilation are suggested in the collages of Stuart Roberts, with ‘Coming up Wild’ featuring a one-eyed female in a blue bikini. The process of employing fragmented cuttings, intricately fused together and assembled, makes for strange, imprecise and powerfully suggestive works. His images contain figurative elements that oscillate between the real and the imaginary to connote a form of otherness. Tension is created between appeal and repulsion, playfulness and violence. The newly constructed images appear in a state of flux, often on the edge of collapse.
THE PRAM [from THE PLAYGROUND series] (2012) Miguel Martin Indian ink on watercolour paper, 19 x 19 cms The themes of horror, sex and religion become intermingled in the edgy ink drawings of Miguel Martin. In ‘Nun of Thee Above’ (2012), Martin cross-pollinates an uncertain world with characters and iconography drawn from a clash of esoteric belief systems. Saturated by a propensity to obscure logical associations, cult figures sexually assault Religious landmarks often personal to the artist himself. In ‘The Playground’ (2012) a series of smaller drawings, Martin utilizes the tonal qualities of Indian ink to create a deeper atmospheric sense of foreboding. Often culling his source material from horror movies and childhood memories, he injects the familiar with a darkly humorous twist, creating graphic images with a sense of the uncanny.
Heads from RECKONING (2012) Patrick Colhoun 19-part installation, black clay, latex and hosiery. Photography: © Tony Corey Warning Art
Torso from RECKONING (2012) Patrick Colhoun 19-part installation, black clay, latex and hosiery. Photography: © Tony Corey for Warning Art
Also blending elements of horror, religion and sexual referencing, sculptor Patrick Colhoun presents a 19-piece installation comprised of black clay, latex and hosiery. Titled ‘Reckoning’, 18 heads in various stages of disintegration, sit on a three-step formation of pedestals, akin to a courtroom setting. In the centre, on a lower level, a three-piece black clay torso, bound together with hosiery, appears to stand on trail. Calhoun is particularly interested in how the human mind can justify heinous and perverted acts and he explores how abnormal behaviour, be it violent or sexual, is judged upon by those deemed ‘normal’ in society. Latex is used as a material that will disintegrate and peel away over time, in the same way that the hosiery that binds the torso together will, over a period of time decay. What will remain is the glazed clay shell.
REQUIEM FOR THE AGE OF INNOCENCE [from SEX AND DEATH series] (2012) William Artt, Single channel DVD video (looped) Duration: 80 minutes ‘Requiem for the Age of Innocence’ is William Artt’s latest artwork from his 'Death and Sex' series, appropriating visuals and sounds to question our perception of reality. He reconstructs and abstracts original source material through digital manipulation techniques, offering a beautiful but haunting interpretation of the most intimate moments shared between two human beings. This particular work is a homage to homosexual artists who have died of aids, with Artt exploring how sex can both create life but also destroy it.
NEARING [Jouets Series] (2007) Gail Ritchie acrylic on board, 20 x 25 cms Memory and memorial are ongoing central themes in Gail Ritchie's work. In the 'Jouets' series she considers memory in relation to childhood and in the Conflicted Memory series she draws on present day testimony of Alzheimer’s sufferers who, as youths, had lived through the London Blitz. With both bodies of work, the artist reactivates the past and constructs memory from both personal experience and cultural influences. In this exhibition, examples from both series of works are shown in Belfast for the first time.
LEGS THROUGH THE WALL (2011) and BRICK THROUGH THE HEAD (2011) [Conflicted Memory Series] Gail Ritchie charcoal on paper, 25 x 17 cms each Florida-based artist Sean Miller presents collaborative projects from two different series, the John Erickson Museum of Art and Low-Level Chatter Corps. The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is a nine-year old museum and a conceptual art project. As a location variable museum, JEMA regularly works with a range of international artists to realise projects that require mobility and multi-destinational site-specificity. By moving with stealth and agility, JEMA offers a vital, yet affordable, museum space that supports the quick, decisive, and efficient delivery of art to the viewing public. The name, John Erickson, is an homage to Sean Miller’s great-grandfather who worked for 35 years in downtown Seattle, Washington and died in 1945. Erickson operated a watch-making store in the (now demolished) Arcade Building where the Robert Venturi-designed Seattle Art Museum (SAM) now stands. JEMA is comprised of a series of small replicas of the SAM gallery that now occupies the same space (in a new building) as that was his great-grandfather’s old store. The many interchangeable galleries at JEMA are commonly housed in a series of sturdy but stylish 40 x 30 x 23 cms aluminium carrying cases. The two exhibitions JEMA presents are: Jim Drain’s 'Keys to the Cosmos' exhibition and Galen Olmsted’s 'Angel Shit' exhibition. Low-Level Chatter Corps. is a collaborative group founded by Sean Miller featuring U.S. activists, artists, and designers. The group produces political art while exploring the consequences of mass communication and corporate and political power in the era of late capitalism. For this exhibition, members Jay Bryant, Darick Chamberlin, Craig Coleman, Thom Hutchison, Connie Hwang, Wes Kline, and Shawn Wolfe will share new text-based works designed especially for their new multiple sculptural series: “Low-Level Chatterbox Monumental Message Board” or “L.L.C.M.M.B."
LOW-LEVEL CHATTERBOX MONUMENTAL MESSAGE BOARD (2011-2012) Sean Miller in collaboration with Wes Kline [Low-Level Chatter Corps] Wood, card and plastic, 65 x 47 x 40 cms
ABOUT WARNING ART Established as a direct reaction to the conservatively-safe nature of the artworks selling in the Northern Ireland art market, Warning Art presents challenging and provocative art of high conceptual and aesthetic merit. We the exhibitions on the contemporary trends in London, Berlin and New York. The core aim of Warning Art is to present art that reflects and interrogates aspects of 21st century life, through all of its hopes and fears. It offers a platform to explore concepts that operate at the heart of society and in the darkest recesses of the mind. Simultaneously frightening and joyful, shallow and deep, beautiful and ugly, erotic and sexless, truthful and dishonest, spiritual and godless, the paradoxes and contradictions of contemporary life offer an extremely rich terrain for exploration. Warning Art seeks to actively tackle narrow-minded cultural and institutional conditioning and we deliberately introduce alternative perspectives to challenge the visitor's gallery experience.
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EXHIBITION SPONSORS:
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