o b s e r v a t i o n s . . t h i n g s . . p e o p l e & i d e a s . .

The Architecture of Yemen @ RIBA

Celebrating the rich building traditions and architecture of Yemen, most famously the extraordinary multi-storey buildings that constitute the heart of many Yemeni cities, dating back hundreds of years but continually renewed and rebuilt by their inhabitants – an interesting example of living sustainable architecture that is both traditional and contemporary – and represented here by a series of spectacular models. The exhibition focuses on four major provinces; Dali’, Yafi’, Shabwah and Hadramut, and explores how this building culture – including the contribution made by master builders and inhabitants in the design process – and the fabric and environment of Yemeni towns itself, is increasingly under-threat from commercial construction and corporate urban development.
A new book ‘The Architecture of Yemen from Yafi’ to Hadramut by architect Salma Samar Damluji (Laurence King Publishing), will be launched at the Exhibition.

http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/Exhibitions/At66PortlandPlace/2007/TheArchitectureOfYemen.aspx?SelectedDate=19/11/2007

Anthony McCall @ Serpentine Gallery

until 3rd Feb 08

British artist Anthony McCall (born 1946) has a cross-disciplinary practice in which film, sculpture, installation, drawing and performance overlap. McCall was a key figure in the avant-garde London Film-makers Co-operative in the 1970s and his earliest films are documents of outdoor performances that were notable for their minimal use of the elements, most notably fire.

After moving to New York in 1973, McCall continued his fire performances and developed his ‘solid light’ film series, conceiving the now-legendary Line Describing a Cone, in 1973. These works are simple projections that strikingly emphasise the sculptural qualities of a beam of light. In darkened, haze-filled rooms, the projections create an illusion of three-dimensional shapes, ellipses, waves and flat planes that gradually expand, contract or sweep through space. In these works, the artist sought to deconstruct cinema by reducing film to its principle components of time and light and removing the screen entirely as the prescribed surface for projection. The works also shift the relationship of the audience to film, as viewers become participants, their bodies intersecting and modifying the transitory forms.

At the end of the 1970s, McCall withdrew from making art. Over 20 years later, he acquired a new dynamic and re-opened his ‘solid light’ series, this time using digital projectors rather than 16mm film. Through his involvement in expanding the notion of cinema, which enabled a more complex experience of projection, McCall has become a hero to a younger generation of artists working with film and installation.

A renewed interest in his work has resulted in many screenings of his individual projections at museums and galleries internationally, as well as inclusion in major group exhibitions, such as Into the Light: the Projected Image in American Art, 1964-77, Whitney Museum, New York, 2001-02; X-Screen: The Expanded Screen: Actions and Installations of the Sixties and Seventies, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, 2003-4; Expanded Cinema: Film as Spectacle, Event, Performance, Hartware Medien Kunstverein, Dortmund, 2004; Eyes, Lies and Illusions, Hayward Gallery, London, 2004; The Expanded Eye, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2006, and Projections: Beyond Cinematic Space, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2006-07.

His work is largely unknown to the wider British public and the Serpentine exhibition offers an overview of both the early and more recent works of this seminal practitioner. The exhibition also features previously unseen drawings, studies, scores, photographs and documents, predominantly from the artist’s own archive, that offer an insight into his working practice.

The exhibition is organised by the Serpentine Gallery, London, and presented in association with the Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, France.

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2007/04/anthony_mccalldecember_2007_ja.html

Mapping the Imagination @ V&A

until 27th April ‘08

Maps are simplified schematic diagrams that employ a universal visual language through which we codify and comprehend our world. We all use maps in our daily lives as sources of information about places, routes, networks and boundaries. They offer us the means of describing and understanding the intangible too – everything from air routes and constellations to states of mind.

Although mapping is a method of gathering, ordering and recording knowledge, all maps are to some extent the products of imagination. No map is ever the truly objective description of a place that it purports to be. Every map is shaped – and coloured – by political, cultural and social conditions, and by the personal experience or imaginative projections of its maker.

This display includes maps made to inform or to entertain, maps enhanced by imaginative embellishments, maps that show imaginary places, and works in which artists have adapted map iconography to express their ideas and experiences of place.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/mapping_imagination/index.html

**NEW ADDITION**

Daniel Eatock – Editions & Originals @ Kemistry Gallery

until 12th January

Kemistry Gallery is delighted to announce the first solo show by Daniel Eatock.
Entitled ‘Editions & Originals’ the show presents a collection of works and ideas
in a multitude of permutations, all linked by the belief in concept first.

Eatock is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch
lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others,
seriality, collections, discovery and inventing. Eatock makes conceptual things
that are resolved in a reductive, logical and objective way, and is especially
interested in the connection of the start and end points of a hand drawn circle.

Eatock’s work responds to personal fascinations and the desire to invent, discover
and present. From an edition of prints made using every colour Pantone felt-tip
pen, to the ongoing Channel 4’s Big Brother identity, all work is unified in its
conceptual, reductive, rational attempt at forming an answer or a conclusion. The
simple notion that work made without a brief is ‘art’ and work made in response
to a brief is ‘design’, does not fit, art and design cross, merge and collide
challenging preconceptions from each respective discipline.

Kemistry Gallery

http://www.kemistrygallery.co.uk/

See more info on Daniel Eatock’s Alternative Olympic Logo (above) and other projects on his website:

http://www.danieleatock.com/project/olympic-logo-alt/