Dr Sharon Morris & Jon Thomson, Slade School of Fine Art

Slade Word/Image Forum presents Off the shelf: performance, film, video, poetry music.  An evening of live events staged by the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, to take place in the Wilkins North and South Cloisters plus the Old Refectory at UCL’s Gower Street Campus, 22 March 2010, 6.00-10.30p.m.

Taking as its theme a re-examination of the Small Press Collection of rare magazines housed at UCL, this event will give you the chance to engage with the spirit of the alternative ‘avant-garde’ press, re-visiting early texts that straddle the divide between art and poetry — including artists and writers Vito Acconci, Sol Le Witt, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Derek Jarman and Bob Cobbing. These texts will be explored through various forms of performance and accompanied by film, video and documentation of the period.

The evening will also stage new creative works by contemporary visual artists, writers and musicians, exploring the interaction between words and images and a ‘speaker’s corner’ with short talks by members of the Slade Word/Image Research Forum.  This is one of a series of public events planned by the forum for 2009-2011.

Hannah Höch Flight 1931, Collage, 23 x 18.4 cm

Apparently I have a work on this exhibition… should be a very interesting show regardless of whether you spot it or not*.

‘Dada South?’, curated by Roger van Wyk and Kathryn Smith presents a collision of artistic strategies and forms that reflect the impact of Dada; works conceived and enacted in the spirit of Dada, and which seek to question the conventions, values and function of art in a troubled society. The juxtaposition of works from South Africa and from abroad, aims to examine the significance of non-western cultures in Dada practice. It also provides an opportunity to consider an alternative history of resistance in a culture of isolation and repression in South Africa, one that intersects with the canon of ‘resistance art’, but which deviates into forms that are less didactic, more eclectic and experimental.

On exhibition will be historical Dada works and publications by Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz, Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, Man Ray, Hans Richter and Sophie Täuber-Arp are assembled for exhibition alongside works and objects by Jane Alexander, Walter Battiss, Willem Boshoff, Candice Breitz, Kendell Geers, Neil Goedhals, Wopko Jensma, Robin Rhode, and Lucas Seage among many others.

The opening features a series of performances by Warrick Sony, Donna Kukama and Kemang wa Lehulere and the Iziko Museums Education and Public Programmes, among others.

*  The work on display is the modified Afrikaans dictionary from ‘words oft error’ (2005)

Dates: 12 December – 28 February

Documented by art photographer John Hodgkiss

Thursday, 26 November 2009, 6pm­ – 8pm
Bag Factory Gallery, 10 Mahlatini Street, Fordsburg, Johannesburg

Featuring the work of Nadine Hutton, Anthea Moys, Mlu Zondi, Ntando Cele, Rat Western, Ismail Farouk, Murray Turpin, Bronwyn Lace, Kemang wa Lehulere, Dinkies Sithole, Johan Thom.

Following the one-night exhibition of new performance artworks by a group of emerging South African artists held in July 2008, the Bag Factory presents the Rites of Fealty/ Rites of Passage: Print Portfolio, which comprises ten limited-edition prints from the performances in a beautifully bound portfolio.

Coordinated by pioneering South African performance artist Johan Thom, Rites of Fealty/ Rites of Passage was an exploration of the transformative capacity of art, whereby the artwork is envisioned as a rite of passage through which both artist and viewer may plot alternatives to existing modes of relating to our familiar surroundings, ordinary social interactions, physical gestures and use of language. In this way art may act as a gateway that embodies the possibility for personal and societal change through direct action and physical participation.

To watch excerpts of the performances on YouTube, go to: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubw6M5dtGM4>.

This workshop and exhibition are made possible by:

Terrorizing the Concept of Meaning
Documentary about South African media artist Johan Thom
Directors: Thorolf Lipp & Tobias Wendl
Camera, Editing & Postproduction: Thorolf Lipp
English, 45 minutes
Produced by: Thorolf Lipp
Produced for: IWALEWA-Haus & DFG (Federal German Research Council)

Weblinks:

Arcadia Film: http://www.youtube.com/user/arcadiafilm

Thorolf Lipp, Cultural Anthropologist and filmmaker: http://www.thorolf-lipp.de/

Tobias Wendl, director of the Iwalewa-Haus, the Africa Centre of Bayreuth University: http://www.tobiaswendl.com