Architecture on Film

In The Pit (En El Hoyo)
28 September 2009 6.30pm

In The Pit (En El Hoyo)

Winner of Best International Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, this intimate and affecting look at the construction crew behind Mexico City’s Periferico Freeway charts the social reality at the core of over 10 miles of soaring reinforced concrete. Through objectively compassionate portaits of a miscellaeny of characters such as the wolf-whistling El Voyeur and the brusquely realist El Grande, the film charts the coarse life and camaraderie of the workers involved in the creation of a huge slab of the city, both floating in the air and submerged in the pit. The private life of urban infrastructure envisioned through a uniquely personal take on direct cinema, full of humour and grace.

Mexico 2006, Dir Juan Carlos Rulfo, 84 min

Trailer:

This screening will be introduced by Gareth Jones, Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics and an Associate Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas.

Tickets

£7.50 online
(£9.50 full price)

AF Members
£6.50 online
(£7.50 full price)

Concessions £7.50

Book online

Telephone
020 7638 8891
(9am-8.00pm)

Venue

Screen 2,
Barbican Centre

(via The Architecture Foundation)

It’s back! Info from Artangel below..

Photo: Courtesy Corvi-Mora, London

SEIZURE, sculptor Roger Hiorns’s brilliant blue crystal cave within a low-rise modernist development re-opens this summer on a housing estate near the Elephant & Castle. Over the course of several weeks, Hiorns encouraged the total crystal takeover of a one bedroom council flat. Blue copper sulphate crystals have grown over every surface of the space – walls, ceilings, floor and bath – to create a strange and compelling new world. SEIZURE, Hiorns’ first major sculptural project in an urban site, has earned him a nomination for this year’s Turner Prize.

Thursday – Saturday 11am – 7pm

Sundays 11am – 5pm

Closed Monday – Wednesday

FREE ADMISSION

For further information see artangel.org.uk SEIZURE is commissioned by Artangel and the Jerwood Charitable Foundation

Went to the opening last night – well worth checking out!

Look out for Celine Condorelli & Alexandre Bettler’s contributions. More info from Barbican below.

Barbican Takes Radical Nature to Hackney

Part of Barbican Art Gallery’s current exhibition Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009, the experimental architectural collective EXYZT has created The Dalston Mill, turning a disused railway line and waste ground in Dalston into a vibrant rural retreat for the people of the area and beyond.

The fully-functioning, 16 metre mill is accompanied by a 20 metre long wheat field, a restaging of environmental artist Agnes Denes’ original 1982 pioneering piece.

Come and participate in one of the events or workshops, from theatre performances and bread-making to pedal-powered music and tea-time talks with artists.

DALSTON MILL EVENTS
Events are free and open to all unless otherwise stated
Capacity is limited to 20– 30, on a first come basis

Thu 16–Sat 18 July / 7pm and 8pm
Arcola Academy present: Kontakt
A series of one to one performances between 12 young actors and 12 audience members, Kontakt presents a unique opportunity to have an encounter with someone you’ve never met before and will never meet again. Tickets £5 available from the Arcola Theatre box office on 020 7503 1646.

Sat 18 July / 3pm
The Dalston Slice – Bread Currency
Come along and bake local currency made of bread, which you can spend only in a small selection of local restaurants, cafes, cinemas and theatres in Dalston. Join artisan baker Dan Lepard and the Collaborator’s Guide collective for this unique local event.
Free

Sun 19–Fri 24 July / 3–8pm
Dalton Talking
A series of Urban Psychoanalysis sessions, using a Talking Mill, by the emergency urban psychoanalysis commando unit, UPIA. This investigation into the urban unconscious of Dalston will be the first step in an extensive analysis of the city of London.
Free

Sun 19 July / 3–4.30pm
Feral Trade Tea Service
A talk and tea afternoon with Kate Rich featuring delights such as hand-traded tea from Bangladesh and sweets from Montenegro, accompanied by a travel report tracking these products from their source.
Free

Sun 19 July / 5–10pm
Magnificent Revolution
Pedal-powered music performance by Barbora Patkova. Bring your own iPod to eco-share your favourite tunes.
Free

Mon 20 July / 7pm
Elioth + Encore Heureux
Presentation by the Paris-based engineers and architectural collective who devised Wind-it, a project in which vertical wind generators are used in place of large horizontal windmills. Wind-it presents two solutions: either grafting the generators on to the electrical network or setting up new electricity pylons integrated with a renewable production unit.
Free

Thu 23 July / 2–5pm
Gahu Dramatic Arts
Dalston-based artists, Gahu, in association with the Trinity Centre Summer School and Tenants of the nearby Rhodes Estate, will use the Dalston Mill to create delicious African dishes followed by performances of African dancing, drumming, acrobatics and fire eating.
Free

Fri 24 July / 9pm
Dalton Talking presentation
A lecture about London’s unconscious based on the results of recent sessions at The Dalston Mill by UPIA, the emergency urban psychoanalysis commando unit.
Free

Tue 28–Thu 30 July and Mon 3–Wed 5 August / 2–5pm
Hackney Young Carers workshop
A series of creative workshops and events with members of Hackney Young Carers investigating issues surrounding sustainability, the natural world and the Radical Nature exhibition at Barbican Art Gallery. The event is closed to the general public.

Sat 1 August / 3pm
Full Dinner Design
Participants in this workshop by Alexandre Bettler (www.aalex.info) will be able to design everything from the cutlery to the baking trays which will then be used at a dinner cooked and served that evening.
Free

Sun 2 August / 3–5pm
Cake Decorating workshop
Jagdish Patel from the shop ‘Party Party’ on Ridley Road will lead a cake decoration masterclass. Participants need to bring their own cake.
Free

Sun 2 August / 6.30pm
EXYZT in Conversation
Nicolas Henninger (EXYZT) and architect/artist Celine Condorelli will discuss ‘pirate architecture’ as the practice of occupying a site, and how the inhabitation of space is a response to existing conditions.
Free

Thu 6 August / 5pm
muf architecture/art
Value what’s there, nurture the possible, define what’s missing. What is the role of public space in Dalston’s cultural life? An evening of celebration and debate.
Free

The Dalston Mill
Entrance by the Peace Mural on Dalston Lane, between Ashwin Street and Hartwell Street, E8
Bus: 30, 38, 56, 67, 76, 149, 236, 242, 243, 277
Rail: Dalston Kingsland

See some of EXYZT’s visuals on Flickr here

If you cant make it to the Radical Nature exhibition before 19th October you can see some of the exhibition in the video below:

www.danishcrafts.org/visArtikel.uk.asp?artikelID=2504

(text below from Danish Crafts website)

Ole Jensen

Born in 1958, ceramist/designer. He graduated as a ceramic designer from the Kolding College of Danish Design in 1985 and from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1990.

Hot Water Bottle is a soft container that can be filled with hot water and placed on or near the body. It is typically used to ease stomach or muscle pain. “Or if you just feel under the weather and need some warmth,” says Ole Jensen, adding that the product is probably “particularly relevant in cold climates and difficult times.”

The product is made in natural rubber and metal by repeatedly dipping a clay shape into liquid rubber. The rubber is treated with a thin layer of silicone for durability. The stopper is handmade in gold-plated brass with a screw thread closure. The hot water bottles are made in five different shapes in brown or red.

Hot Water Bottles are produced by Latex One and Lars Glad in collaboration with Rasha Sager & Saxenfelt Natural Rubber Products.

Since then, Ole Jensen has exhibited in a number of places, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Danish Museum of Art & Design in Copenhagen. At last year’s Mindcraft, Ole Jensen presented The Rubber Tub – an oversize version of his rubber washing-up bowl, which is manufactured by Normann Copenhagen, and which is in use in the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among many other places.

The long list of manufacturers that Ole has worked with over the years, in addition to Normann Copenhagen, includes Muuto and Royal Copenhagen.

The main source of inspiration for Ole Jensen’s products is his attention to everyday life and his close surroundings. This is reflected, among other things, in his preference for working with practical objects that relate to everyday life and the body. He develops these things almost as if they were craft objects: by hand, in clay and other readily available materials. Always mindful of whether the process gives rise to a rationale or a phenomenon that might later be transformed with a view to serial production.

Milan 2009 highlights coming soon..!

As part of the project Disclosures, Gasworks is launching its new Reading Area. Disclosures started as a two-day seminar, residencies and commissions in March 2008, and continues with various events and projects.

The Reading Area is composed of the Disclosures Library, Pipeline and selected publications reflecting upon Gasworks’ past, current and future programmes of activities. All are available for browsing during gallery opening hours.

The Disclosures Library originated as a research archive informing the seminar and was shared onsite in reading and screening spaces during April-May 2008. It has constantly expanded since its inception and has now been relocated to the lobby area as a permanent resource. The library gives visitors access to printed, film and audio material themed around issues of openness and connecting fields encompassing critical media and visual art practice, social history studies and urban sociology.

The catalogue can be viewed online, with many texts available as links. Content is added on a regular basis, and is organised according to four different but overlapping categories:

FROM THE GROUND UP
The lived, embodied and situated realities of networked information culture, resistance to globalisation, activism in the network era, relations between land and information enclosure.

THE POLITICS OF INFORMATION AND ITS FORMS
The politics of organising forms of information and its cultural corollaries; corporate ownership, file sharing, intellectual property; enclosure of information; regulatory, political, corporate, governmental instrumentalisation and control of information.

NEW AND NON AUTHORSHIP
The diffused author, platforms for collaboration in networked media.

ART, NEW MEDIA AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS
Cultural institutions’ responses/co-optation; transfer of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) into cultural operation; labour conditions and art world precarity.

The Disclosures Library is edited by Anna Colin (Exhibitions Curator) and Mia Jankowicz (formerly Residencies Curator at Gasworks) and is coordinated by Christine Takengny (Curatorial Assistant). More texts relating to projects beyond Disclosures at Gasworks are also available through Pipeline.

Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
UK

T:+44 (0)20 7587 5202
F:+44 (0)20 7582 0159
info@gasworks.org.uk
www.gasworks.org.uk

Tube: Vauxhall/Oval
Bus: 2, 36, 88, 133, 185, 436

Admission is free

Gasworks’ ground floor has full wheelchair access

See news from ICA below:

The ICA is now Free

Don’t sweat it: it’s now free to get into the ICA

The ICA is delighted to announce that from 1 September 2008 it will no longer be charging a day admission charge. You can now access a wide range of innovative arts, ideas and culture on the Mall  for free.

This change to admission policy extends to all exhibitions and the ICA Bar Café before 11pm but not to ticketed events in the cinemas, theatre and Nash and Brandon Rooms. It has been made possible through the continued and generous support of ICA Members and Westminster Council. As we move into our 61st year we are taking an inclusive and embracing direction to bring together new artists and new audiences.

The first exhibition to benefit from this significant and historic step, is the ICA Auction Exhibition, a finale to the ICA’s 60th anniversary celebrations showcasing works generously donated from 36 of the most important and influential artists from the ICA’s history.

Other unmissable free highlights from the ICA’s September programme include Nobel Textiles, a brilliant week of exhibitions and events where five Nobel-winning scientists have been paired with five textile designers to extraordinary effect.

And with no entry charge until 11pm each evening, everyone is free to indulge in café culture with attractive food and cocktail menus at the ICA Bar Café, a stylish haven in the bustle of central London.

Going free: FAQ

Why Now?
Before 2008, because of our location on the Mall, we were bound to a complex licensing agreement which meant that we had to charge a day admission fee. Following the recent changes to licensing laws, the authority for the licence was transferred to Westminster City Council and the ICA is extremely grateful that they have now granted us permission to vary the terms of our license so that admission charge now only applies after 11pm.

What does this mean for visitors?
This means that all visitors have free entrance to all public spaces of the ICA including unlimited access to exhibitions and the café/bar area before 11pm. Admission charges only apply to ticketed events in the cinemas, theatre and Nash and Brandon Rooms.

What does this mean for members?
In addition to receiving the usual benefits including advance notice of events via e-mails, advance bulletin delivery to door, priority and discount booking on tickets and in the bookshop, free entrance at all times, private views and other special events, ICA members will now receive the additional benefit of a 10% discount at the ICA Bar Café as a special thank you for supporting us.

How can you afford to go free?
Our Members, funders and sponsors, including Westminster Council and Arts Council England have generously supported us in taking this step.

Free Range graduate exhibitions at The Old Truman Brewery until 21st July.

See events calendar here.

The exhibition for the Photography graduates opened last night with some impressive work from the University of Westminster. See Sarah Chamberlain’s project below..

Sarah Chamberlain, University of Westminster

life guards, 2007

The series, Life Guards, investigates psychological representations of boredom and social detachment. Utilising photography and video installation this series is a survey of lifeguards observing pool activity, waiting for a scenario we hope will never happen. While the lifeguards are doing their job, their ‘looks’, framed before the camera, often appear detached from their surroundings and lost in their own internal worlds unobtainable to those around them.

As a portrait series Life Guards illustrates the ongoing predicament of the portrait photographs inability to communicate the ‘whole’ of a person. Instead their state of being and their represented form are defined by a predetermined scenario of observing from the confinement of a chair and of being confined in front of a camera.

Essentially ‘guardians of life’, the subjects ironically portray an internal psychological state, resembling boredom that, we as viewers, cannot touch. This irony is further parodied when we consider Barthes1 description of the photograph as ‘little deaths’ – a deceased moment in time .

Don’t miss the World Press Photo Awards 2008 exhibition tour – details here. Well worth a look, the exhibition showcases incredible work from photojournalists around the globe. The complete collection is also available to view online at the World Press Photo Awards 2008 online gallery.

1st prize Contemporary Issues Stories, Jean Revillard

Makeshift immigrant hut in Calais, France, taken by Swiss photographer Jean Revillard for Rezo.ch

See press release below for more info..

PSYCHO BUILDINGS
28 May – 25 August 2008
The Hayward

As the highlight of the Hayward’s 40th anniversary season,
ten artists from around the world will transform the entire
gallery in PSYCHO BUILDINGS, running from 28 May –
25 August 2008.

The Hayward’s huge spaces will be filled with artist-designed architectural environments, which will spill onto the three outdoor sculpture terraces, radically altering the interior and exterior of the gallery. Inside a village made from over 200 dollhouses and a room frozen in a moment of explosive disaster are amongst the installations that will both enchant and disconcert visitors. Outside on the Gallery’s sculpture terraces, installations including a huge iridescent observatory and a working cinema will alter the exterior face of The Hayward. Visible from the surrounding area and across the Thames and illuminated by night, they add a significant public dimension to this major exhibition.

The ten artists are: Atelier Bow-Wow (Japan), Michael Beutler (Germany), Los Carpinteros (Cuba), Gelitin (Austria), Mike Nelson (UK), Ernesto Neto (Brazil), Tobias Putrih (Slovenia), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina), Do-Ho Suh (Korea), Rachel Whiteread (UK).

Borrowing its title from a book by the artist Martin Kippenberger, the exhibition brings together the work of artists who create habitat-like structures and architectural spaces that are mental and perceptual spaces as much as physical ones. The exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in a series of ten atmospheric, enthralling and unsettling installations. Combining architectural and artistic design with the use of light, colour and smell to trigger responses, these dynamic constructions actively encourage viewers to become adventurous participants. The scale and ambition of the exhibition means many of the artists will be working in the gallery for over a month in order to realise their installations.

Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward and curator of exhibition “This ambitious exhibition takes the unique architecture of The Hayward as its starting point. The Gallery’s ‘brutalist’ concrete exterior and the sculptural quality of its spaces have always proved an inspiration for artists. The extraordinary international artistic response to Psycho Buildings shows just how challenging, exciting and playful the The Hayward can be. It is a fitting way to celebrate our 40th birthday.”

Brazilian artist, Ernesto Neto will create a spatial and sensory labyrinth for visitors to explore. A ceiling of transparent fabric will divide the gallery space into two halves, linked by several openings. By climbing up ladders to elevated viewing platforms, visitors can scan the floating landscape of the upper level and also view the lower level from a different perspective, as if through a layer of translucent skin.

Two artists, Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriguez, form the Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters). They are reworking their sculptural installation Frozen Study of a Disaster especially for the exhibition. The sculpture depicts the suspended moment of an explosion ripping through a series of rooms filled with furniture.

Mike Nelson is recreating his little seen installation To the memory of H. P. Lovecraft (1999), which transforms the gallery into a scene of utter rabid devastation, as if an unseen beast had freed himself from the space by violently clawing through the walls.

Slovenian artist Tobias Putrih will present Venetian, Atmospheric (2007), a beautifully created sculpture which is also a working cinema. Designed with curved wooden walls and a ceiling onto which twinkling stars and moving clouds are projected, Venetian, Atmospheric will place the spectator in an ever-changing environment. Situated on the sculpture terrace facing Waterloo Bridge, Putrih’s structure will show a specially-curated programme of films about artists and architecture.

Outside on another of the gallery’s sculpture terraces, the Argentinean artist, Tomas Saraceno will install a large shimmering air-supported observatory made of translucent, iridescent fabric. While completely transforming the facade of The Hayward, his domed sculpture will also provide an immersive experience for visitors who, upon entering the sculpture terrace, will be surrounded by an environment in which to observe the sky.

Korean-born artist Do-Ho Suh will present a major new sculpture, Fallen Star (2008), which features 1:5 scale model of the artist’s childhood home in Korea colliding into the New England apartment where he lived as an art student. He will also recreate Staircase (2004), a ghostly evocation of an apartment staircase that the artist fashioned from vibrant red semi-translucent fabric.

Rachel Whiteread’s will present a new, larger version of her acclaimed installation ‘Village’, which has never been shown in the UK. It brings together more than 200 dollhouses that the artist has collected over the past 20 years and is a radical departure from previous work. The dollhouses are arranged in rows as on a hillside, and each is illuminated by a single light bulb, creating an eerily atmospheric scene of a neglected village.

Atelier Bow-Wow, Michael Beutler, and the artists’ collective Gelitin will be creating major new installations for the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director of The Hayward, in collaboration with the artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue produced by Hayward Publishing.

The exhibition is supported by Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Psycho Buildings opens on 28 May and runs until 25 August 2008.

The Hayward, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XZ

southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts

Information and tickets: 0871 663 2519

Opening hours for The Hayward:

Open daily 10am-6pm, late night opening Fridays until 10pm.