Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009

9 Selectors Ellen Gallagher, Saskia Olde Wolbers, John Stezaker and Wolfgang Tillmans

12 September – 25 October

10 November – 20 December

Cornerhouse 70 Oxford Street Manchester M1 5NH

A Foundation London Club Row Rochelle School London E2 7ES

As a cutting edge communications company, Bloomberg has long championed innovation and has established an international reputation for supporting organisations dedicated to promoting new ideas and extraordinary talent.

Now ten years since Bloomberg first sponsored New Contemporaries, this dynamic partnership has provided a vital platform for over 400 of the UK’s most interesting and exciting emerging artists, a legacy that has both national and international reach. It has been a great privilege and inspiration to watch so many recent graduates and fine art students from the UK build international reputations from their first New Contemporaries exhibitions and we are delighted to be continuing our support to provide another 47 young artists with wider recognition and a public audience, many for the first time.

Bloomberg’s support of New Contemporaries forms part of a dynamic programme of contemporary arts sponsorships. Bloomberg’s philanthropy programme reflects the company’s commitment to civic involvement and corporate responsibility, particularly in the more than 125 communities where we have offices and news bureaus. Bloomberg invests in education, literacy, health care, medical research, social services, arts and culture, public parks and the environment to improve the quality of life for people around the world.

This year’s New Contemporaries is marked by a combination of the best aspects, the best possibilities, the best work. The excellent, highly motivated, disciplined and generous selection panel selected a high standard of new and open work. The selection process was exciting and stimulating. For the first five days, spent very much in the dark, the selectors discussed and scrutinised every image. Never rejecting out of hand, allowing, each time, the image, or film, or proposal to stand on its own terms. They achieved a high level of discussion and consensus, even at this stage, around each and every application.

Of course the second stage, where image and object become palpable, carries real surprises in terms of touch and scale. The pleasure of the discussion, the rationalisation and investigation of intention is represented here, for the first time, by a sample of discussion recorded during the final stages of the selection.

The structure has stayed the same for over a decade. If anything, New Contemporaries has grown in reputation, yet really it is the excellence of the work, and therefore the brilliance of artists, that makes the point and provides compulsion and excitement. We want especially to thank those who have applied a sophisticated range of ability and experience to the complex and responsible job of administrating New Contemporaries. We are thoroughly grateful for the constant support of Arts Council England, for the continuing financial and logistical kindness of Bloomberg, and the unfathomable value in kind that comes from the A Foundation.

Sacha Craddock Chair of the Board of Directors of New Contemporaries

Selection Video Transcript: May 2009

All: (Move to look at Konrad Pustola’s work) SC: Let’s talk about what this is like, what form it takes.

We publish here excerpts of discussion at the very end of a long selection process, filmed at the conclusion of the two days when selectors were able to experience the actual shortlisted work. This comes many weeks after the five-day session considering image and proposals alone. We include these extracts not so much in terms of what is said about an individual’s work, but as an indication of the level of involvement and the attention to detail the selectors give while moving from work to work.

We particularly recorded discussion around the photography in the show because the form an image takes can be so variable, so vulnerable and precarious, and because any artist, at any stage, has to decide what best represents their practice. This recording, made when it had already generally been agreed which artists were to be included in the exhibition, concentrates on which individual works best represent their intentions.

The job of New Contemporaries is, after all, to best convey what the selectors understand an artist wants to say. (Sacha Craddock)

EG

Ellen Gallagher

WT

Wolfgang Tillmans

SO

Saskia Olde Wolbers

JS

John Stezaker

BB

Bev Bytheway (New Contemporaries Administrator)

SC

Sacha Craddock (Chair of New Contemporaries)

DL

Des Lawrence (New Contemporaries Board Member)

WT: I don’t think we should decide right now. Let’s look at all the photography and then decide.

EG: Saskia and I were saying that we had some reservations here.

SO: I think it’s a bit too straight documentary in a way.

WT: But then that in itself isn’t a problem.

EG/ SO: No. WT: I mean, one could say the opposite, one could say it’s too arty in its long, long, long shape but… then it’s a choice. It’s an industry standard camera, a wide-angle, large format camera. It’s not too crazy but… I quite respect the idea of him going into these kinds of places with such a large and fixed camera.

SO: I like this one.

EG: I think the travel through the space is the most interesting thing about it. I’m just not sure he has found a way to make that.

WT: No, but the photographer has, he’s given us the images the way he wants them seen. But we prefer the portfolio prints. It’s the large scale and the mounting on aluminium…

EG: I remember you said, ‘That’s assured, but it doesn’t work.’

JS: That’s my problem with it, the panoramic – panoramic, nocturnal, sleazy.

SC: That was the bit of the discussion we were having about how should this be shown and about its scale.

There are moments where the detail disappears into the darkness and then reappears, which we particularly like.

EG: At this scale it’s not working.

WT: Exactly, and the thing is, really, first of all in every school, in every second year, there is one student who goes into the park and photographs the lake or the common, or goes into a sex club. In that context this is definitely a cut above the rest. I think these are really quite, quite an achievement you know, quite good.

EG: Does it disturb you that he hasn’t figured out how to show them? I mean, the way that this artist wants to show them is large scale and mounted on aluminium.

But we are all unanimously agreed it is not interesting on this scale and in this order.

SC: Yeah, but we just made somebody’s work better.

SC: Yeah nocturnal. But actually what it is, it is an impossible way to see and it is very heightened – literally – with this area here, so in a way it’s taking a rather tacky, stylistic thing to deal with a place like this.

It would be no good if they were more of a domestic scale. In a way it needs that heightened, atmospheric, tacky aspect.

EG: So you think the larger scale image works.

SC: No, no, no I’m just thinking, suggesting, that the idea [that] this person hasn’t worked it out, is wrong.

I think that the person worked it out enormously… it is what it is, isn’t it?

EG: I know, I know, I know.

WT: Exactly. Imagine what these prints will be like framed… maybe he comes back with something terrible.

So let’s not single out photography with this major framing issue, even though it’s important.

All: (Move to look at another photograph)

EG: It’s not a framing issue in terms of the literal frame. We were speaking about the pencil drawings before – the likelihood that the drawings will come back framed and we might not like the way the work is framed – something we find tacky or just not right.

However, in this situation what we are talking about in terms of frame, really we are talking about scale. In the photography we are considering nothing seems fixed.

You know the drawings aren’t all of a sudden going to come back twenty feet bigger, you know what I mean?

With the drawing, we either like the frame or we don’t.

That seems secondary to the actual work. Here, when we’re talking about frame we’re talking about scale.

We are actually making decisions about the work. Did this person travel through this space and consider how we might travel through this space?

WT: This is a great picture and I really don’t think they’re bad at all. I really can’t think of throwing these out.

SC: Yeah, this person did think about it as far as I’m concerned because this is sort of, heightened. (Turns to JS) you talked about, what was it? You used the word…

JS: Nocturnal.

WT: I think this one’s a very good picture.

JS: Which one?

EG: Then we should move on…

All: (Move on to the next work: Bee Emmott) SC: We added these in at the end of the first round of selection, because we thought we hated it all. But I’m reminded of the fact that it was particularly this image that everybody held on to because it was somehow sort of touching… the hand holding the image of the hand, hand on hand, and so on. John, talk about it.

JS: This is quite wonderful I think, in composition, in terms of the relationship between the hands, and inside and out… the whole thing’s got tension, but that tension is immediately dispersed if you see the other works by this artist, which don’t really have that.

SO: What about the one over there John? That hasn’t got an image within an image but the one with the nails has got a structure and an image within an image.

BB: Is it strong enough to stand alone in the show?

JS: I think it is actually, I think it’s unique because it looks… it’s so fragile.

and we have the portfolio of prints to select the actual images from.

EG: I think it’s strong enough to stand alone but I prefer it alongside the other works.

WT: It’s not so bad.

WT: To me it looks like if it stands alone, without context, it looks like a Metro Pictures picture from 1981.

JS: Well that’s true!

EG: It’s its own thing. I think that’s why we need all three because I think if we just choose these two or just this one we are limiting it. I do think this artist is really doing something. We clearly prefer the photograph with the fingernails and the steering wheel.

EG: That’s beautiful.

SC: What is interesting is how forceful it is. How much sex is in it. Is it real? Is it constructed? What is the role of the person taking the pictures? It’s a really great straightforward relationship between the photography and the model/subject. We were saying before, it’s really daring even though it seems so obvious.

SO: Yes.

WT: Look how beautiful…

JS: Does anybody know the relevance of the titles, fourteen months… one year?

EG: Yeah, wow!

EG: Didn’t we say relationships? They were the length.

SC: You like that one don’t you?

JS: Length of the relationship?

SO: Yeah, yeah I do.

BB: There are none that are twenty-five years (laughs).

SC: Say a bit about that one. We have talked about how photographs appear in this world and these photographs are the most smartly presented and yet are the most tenuous and low tech.

SC: This straight couple here, for a moment you think, constructed or set-up and then you look and you realise…

SO: I just think that visually the fingernails and this folded paper thing, which is a different scale, creates some tension. I like the hand in that position and the image within an image projected on the sculptural shape. But the other image of the feet… I don’t see there is another tension to it, it’s just a straight image.

EG: I wouldn’t have less of this artist in.

SC: Cool, let’s look at the sex.

All: (Move on to look at Paul Knight’s work) BB: What’s happened is the artist is having a difficult time actually, with the quality of printing at this scale.

He has had real difficulties in finding a lab that can produce this scale of image to the quality he wants.

So he has given us the ideal of how he wants it presented – at this scale and mounted on aluminium –

SO: But didn’t we think that it is the same man, with different partners?

SC: No, no.

SO: But was it the same man?

EG: No, no.

BB: They’re three different couples.

WT: Do you know that? Is that… so that’s a fact?

EG: This was another work we talked about in terms of scale. [In] the blown-up version, the flesh just disappears. While at this smaller scale it really is so present and marked. Much more sexy than when scaled up… I think the skin goes really dead at the larger scale.

WT: The photographer has mentioned that he was unhappy with the quality. I don’t think the quality’s so bad, but it is flattened.

JS: Is it a medium format or large format?

SO: Medium.

JS: There’s no way that’s done without… there’s nothing spontaneous. It is a set-up, obviously.

SC: No, it’s not whether it’s spontaneous or not… obviously the person didn’t burst in and go, ‘Hold it’. But it’s to do with the relationship between people, whether they can believe they can fall back into something that is sexual and real, which is kind of extraordinary really.

And that’s why it seems radical – that’s why we’re talking about these photographs particularly. Because a lot of New Contemporaries work has come in different forms and obviously the painter paints a painting, and actually now with film and video it’s incredibly fixed in terms of its form, we know what we’re looking at, but with photography, this is the only stuff that’s come in that’s unclear and that’s why we’re talking about it.

SO: And I think people often make the mistake of blowing-up images, just really big – the same with video – just wanting it projected really big.

SC: I really wanted to talk about that.

SO: It loses intensity.

EG: Loses the flesh.

SO: Yeah.

SC: When we sit looking at imagery in the first round of selection, we are trying to project and work out what it is we are looking at. Here, at the second stage of selection, we’ve got everything, the actual work, and we see the reality or actuality of the object. But the one thing we haven’t got on the whole are the photographs and in a way the role carries on for the selectors to project on to the work how the photograph can exist and how it should be seen, working out the actuality of the object, so it’s like forever left…

SO: You find people submit sketch photographs and portfolios, which actually end up being the work, but these, this scale they are really good, I think. And then we need to have these photographs that are quite particular, shouting out in that scale but they could also be quite intimate in a way.

EG: We’re so sure about this work that we would be willing to suggest the portfolio photos are the work.

Even if he has sent them in as sketches. Whereas the earlier panoramic photographs we discussed, because he used a format that is so historically specific, we hesitate to say, well actually we prefer this to the more neutral large scale images.

WT: It makes me feel bad for my medium to see a photographic artist who doesn’t seem to think about what this thing does in the space it is going to exist and be seen in.

DL: It’s a totally recent phenomenon. Before, when you had to print them out and they would have to be done in a darkroom by hand, everything would be very fixed, you wouldn’t have [those] ambiguities, ‘We could do this, or we could do that,’ whereas at the moment they’re printing one up and going, ‘Hmm…’ They’re hedging it.

BB: Everything exists on a computer these days, they don’t have to print it out, they don’t have to make these decisions.

SC: Or they can’t afford to.

WT: I think the problem is more that photographic image making has a reality outside of the gallery. It happens on the printed page, so there are a lot of image makers attracted to that side of things but then end up with the presence of art. Their work is of interest to the gallery but they do not actually know how to show it because they don’t think about the actual object. On the one hand I want to understand the problem and on the other hand actually hold [it] against each one of those photographers, the fact that they were unable to present us with a final thing, because at the end of the day there is no reason why photography should not be a presentable object.

SC: Because there’s been such a strong sway towards the notion of the image being a currency in itself, that’s very obvious but, also why it’s interesting is when you’re looking through the selection at the initial stage you deal in imagery. And that’s why this stage is so

absolutely delightful and fantastic because everything is the fact, and you deal with the fact of something. The one or two times when there’s friction, you have to talk about it. You’ve still got this odd relationship between the fact and possible fact but photography does exist in a separate ether or that’s just to say historically it’s in a separate ether, it’s a currency that is different.

All: (Move to look through some prints: Martina Lindqvist)

SO: Some of these trees are not miniature, I think they’re real.

JS: I think so too.

SO: I think there’s some Photoshop going on!

JS: The enlargement of miniature models has become kind of an industry but people are getting better at it.

They’re not stunning pieces, and I think you have to accept that students are students aren’t they? They’re going to be following a particular trend and if they can pull it off, that’s all right.

SC: These photographs are sort of playing with painting.

WT: They’re not my cup of tea.

EG: No, me neither.

BB: But you do have the reality of the photograph this time. They have thought it through.

SC: Yes. BB: And it’s a series and it’s physical.

JS: It’s playing between the edge of photography and painting. Playing with the idea of the sublime and the miniature. But it’s irritating, the presentation, and the hue, the miniature models. For me, out of all of these, it’s just a tiny corner of this one… I just fell in love with it and I just don’t know why. But that tiny little bit just seems to redeem the rest of the project. It’s kind of like the corners of a Poussin. He often creates a microcosm, usually in the left corner of his paintings.

SO: Are these trees all miniature?

EG: Yeah, everything is miniature, She’s made a model of a vacation island she visited as a child.

SO: Are the miniatures based on snapshots or memories?

EG: Maybe they are memories. There is something about it that is heightened like memory. Where certain areas, like this, which are incidental, become so clear, which is not really typical when somebody has made a model and taken a photograph of it. She’s constructing an area that’s really lusted after and remembered differently, apart.

All: (Move on to next work: Francis Mason) WT: Ellen.

EG: What happened?

SC: I’m just debating whether or not this is photography.

EG: Of course it is… We selected one and two.

WT: I think it’s awful.

EG: The sticks are definitely out, we chose the two with the concrete.

JS: This changes it ever so slightly.

EG: Yes, it does.

SO: It does change its role.

EG: You know, it’s funny how our moods change because of the selection and possible groupings… I’m more for it after this choice.

JS: We did this together, Ellen and I. We took these two out from the rest, but there’s something about the way that this relates to that. You almost feel as though you can touch that, like frosted plexi-glass, it’s like an alchemical thing going on there. But here I felt a similar feeling with this foreground, it suddenly became like the edge of a frame or it became wooden. It’s as though the presence of this kind of muddy material came out, like an alchemical response to the physicality of the photographic image and that there’s a kind of weird transmutation occurring.

WT: We’re in agreement then. It’s a great surface, and I think it’s worth seeing maybe, but I’m not sure that if somebody does that, if they’re really…

SC: Some of them are willing victims and some of them are being reluctant victims and I think the really reluctant ones we took out.

SC: Aware.

WT: I think making it a smaller project like this does it justice. I wouldn’t blow it into anything bigger.

WT: Yes. EG: Good, okay let’s go.

BB: And don’t forget the two they framed up, they’re part of the series.

All: (Move to the next work: Christopher Thomas + Kristel Raesaar)

(Everyone moves to look at the framed work.)

SC: The question here is, what are you editing and why?

Can you explain why you’re editing?

EG: Even though we thought it was interesting, first of all that the subject knows they’re being looked at.

But it’s at a kind of threshold… when it becomes too obvious it started to…

JS: Become gimmicky.

EG: Yeah, even though I was originally attracted to the violence, the shift between obliterating and protecting her face. It’s gone too far over the threshold, like she really doesn’t like it. So I think that it is problematic to have it in.

SC: It’s cruel.

EG: These six were the ones we thought were just on the threshold of being aware. It’s really subtle, it’s not obviously pointing back to the camera.

SC: So the idea of this, from reading what the person said, is that if you look at it, you literally get a kind of three-dimensional photography, where you get a construction of two different views.

BB: It’s like street photography and studio photography: this is like an abstract of that. They’re caught images that were then…

WT: Yeah, there is a street photography tradition in there.

BB: How many cameras are on here? Is there a camera in front taking photographs, then a camera at the side that he’s not aware of? Is he aware of the camera at the front?

WT: It could be that there are two people shooting and…

JS: They’re not quite synchronised. There’s a time delay.

All: Yeah.

WT: I think there needs to be a bit of…

BB: So you’ve got two [cameras].

SO: Interaction, otherwise you’re just making these people victims.

EG: The subject only sees one.

EG: That’s true, there needs to be a reaction back to you.

SO: Yes but this one, there’s not really an awareness there either, is there?

WT: Maybe we should take those?

EG: Yes. JS: They are victims.

SO: Because look, he’s not eating the ice cream and there he is eating the ice cream.

WT: And the intention is…

EG: He doesn’t know he’s being photographed here [first image] but here [in the second image] he really does know, and you see it. And again the same thing in this image, the subject doesn’t know he’s been photographed, but here [second image] even though he doesn’t react, you see that he knows.

WT: Do we like it? Is it in or…

SO: I even quite like this scale.

JS: I think it’s interesting, the idea…

WT: Maybe it’s fine like it is.

EG: I think it’s in, but I don’t think we need twenty, I think we need at least six or maybe eight to maintain the sequence.

EG: I like this scale if there were more. I really liked them when they were on the table and they were flat, like a science presentation. I wonder, the way it’s presented seems so incidental, almost like film. If we suggested to them, ‘Could it be larger?’ Would that be intrusive?

BB: Six pairs?

JS: Yeah, no.

EG: No, no.

BB: Three pairs?

JS/EG: Three or four [pairs].

SC: It’s difficult work isn’t it?

All: (Move to the next artist’s work: Simone Koch) WT: By the look of this, I think this is good.

EG: Good, yeah.

WT: The breadth of what the selection includes… this is one element of practice and I think it’s interesting and one of the best examples of it and [I remember] we were interested in the commune and people’s lives, which is sort of a little bit dated now, one could almost say.

SC: The representation or the life of the commune?

EG: The representation doesn’t feel dated, the lifestyle feels… maybe this idea of the commune feels dated.

But when you see it here you think, okay this is a new and completely different generation.

WT: Still carrying on. And that’s what I like about it, it’s just carrying on…

All: (Move to the next work: Myka Baum) WT: I think we liked this picture but we need to discuss size.

EG: That’s right, this was the one where we went against all of our rules by suggesting that it’s actually larger in scale.

WT: It’s a very specific vision and maybe it’s a coincidence and the person has never done anything else interesting in their life. But it’s definitely something I have never seen before and it is an achievement.

EG: So do you think we should have all four?

WT: I don’t know… if we try these two together.

EG: Okay, all right.

WT: And then maybe they can be that size? We don’t want to push somebody into the same problem that the sex guy has.

SO: Because it’s so abstract, but they are… I think they’re good at this size.

WT: Ahhhhh, you know what this is? [It’s] ‘Presentation of the Luna Mara, photographs intended as follows: C type prints, size 102 cm by 67 cm.’

All: Ahhhhh!

SC: Can we have only two?

WT: Yes.

All: (Move to next work: Teresa Eng) WT: We all agreed on this, great. Even though it’s totally documentary, it has a surprising presence.

EG: We were shocked. This is the only photography that came in that actually shocked us in terms of what we’d seen and what we’ve got.

SC: Yes, totally unexpected.

WT: No. I mean, I expected something to feel exactly like that.

EG: That’s right, I think you fought for them. I was not so positive about this work and so I was surprised to be so interested.

WT: I’m just a little bit worried that we are putting this too much into some portraiture thing… There were other kinds of work from this artist that we didn’t select in the first stage.

EG: So should we ask for the others back? That’s what we talked about because we were so happily surprised that maybe we over edited this artist in the first selection.

SC: We discussed asking for the other things back so that it seemed like it was less of a portrait thing.

WT: I think one can do both. One can do a great portrait and [one] can do a great political reportage and do the landscape all at the same time.

JS: I don’t agree… the portraits work. I think it’s to do with the eye to eye engagement, it’s very simple and there’s a certain kind of dignity about them and I think by introducing landscape elements it becomes… colour supplement documentary.

JS: The pretext of most documentary photography is the representation of people that we regard as ‘unfortunate’ in some way and that is unfortunate as a case but that’s how it is. For me [these images] are redeemed from the condescension of documentary.

SC: But in reality how does that…

JS: I’m not interested in documentary.

SC: No. JS: I’m saying I’m not interested in the legibility of the photograph [because] that’s cumbersome… I prefer the idea of ambiguity and that you will work out who they are in the end.

SC: But these people are being represented in a certain situation.

JS: But in a way doesn’t that then dominate your encounter with that person or the reading of that image of the person. That person is freer in terms of your encounter with them.

SC: But they’re not free though, they’re trying to get on trains.

SC: But if you have this notion of dignity with this kind of thing it’s also colour supplement.

All: (Laugh).

JS: Not necessarily.

JS: By me looking at them, I’m not stopping them getting on the train, I’m not helping them either, but I’m just saying there’s a freer relationship between myself and the image here.

WT: It’s crucial – this question – to ask if the dignity disappears when one shows their shack.

EG: That’s not true.

JS: You’re representing them as victims and at that moment, it becomes a documentary.

EG: That’s what’s so strong about the portraits, you already know that, that’s already there… there’s a lot of context.

SC: So you don’t need all the other stuff.

EG: I don’t think it’s Eurostar (laughs).

EG: I didn’t think the photographs in the first place were so interesting. When we look at the commune series, I think the photographer is actually somehow part of the commune and [therefore] part of that community. Not that that’s the only way to look at it.

I think the idea of witnessing something on its own is also interesting, you know from the outside? Still, looking at this work, seemingly so holistic, but I think, ‘You never were inside’, you never get invited in, the standpoint [that’s taken]…

WT: [Maybe that’s] too prescriptive, I mean I’m not asking for much, maybe for one picture here of the refugee camp.

EG: (Laughs) That seems so prescriptive to me. Like, ‘Could I just have one shack to locate these people?’

Why can’t these faces just exist? You have to wonder, of all the photography we’ve seen it’s interesting that it’s these that are the most photo-documentary, that happen to have any kind of ‘other’ looking faces in them, and so why do we have to locate them in a shack?

WT: I want also to be true to the person that made them.

JS: That was their intention wasn’t it? This is one of the problems with selecting isn’t it? They have their intentions and we have ideas about what would be better for them and we’ve been doing that quite a bit.

SO: I think it takes a whole lot away if you add another picture to illustrate where these people are from.

EG: So, what are we doing?

WT: We should come back to this then.

All: (Move on to next work: Joseph Gower) EG: It’s a bit of lace curtain with the landscape coming in and out of focus but…

JS: I find this attention to the minutiae of photographic image is a space in which somehow the photographic image comes over as a gift. Either the original photographer who took the photograph or the photographer who has re-found it has somehow… it’s liberated, and the way I feel it’s liberated is through a lack of definition that allows, no not allows, forces you to participate in the construction of whatever image you see in it and that’s very rare because photography as a technological image blocks the movement of the imagination.

SC: It doesn’t!

JS: A lot of the time it does because it literalises it.

Whereas this, because of the photo, a tiny amorphic moment allows all kind of things to happen. I mean I can see dragons, I can see…

SC: But do you really hang around looking for dragons?

You talk about it being a gift but it’s more kind of implicit. It’s a gift of possibility but this doesn’t really carry possibility with it.

SO: I think it’s completely soulless because of the distance.

WT: It is boring.

DL: What about the other one?

SC: Isn’t it a chicken?

EG: What about just one.

WT: I wouldn’t find that problematic.

JS: I don’t either. I think it’s about singularity and about the detail and the emancipation of the detail from the overall picture.

SO: I find the work very clichéd, the dots and the newspaper print and finding an image in this vagueness I find that really, really…

JS: Fake?

SO: Not the vagueness but the obvious, like trying to find an image in the moon, you know… or clouds.

JS: Yes it is, it’s exactly like looking at clouds. I think that’s a really good analogy, it is like looking at clouds.

I think they’re gifts.

EG: What makes it more interesting to me John, is that you’re speaking as a graphic artist and it is in fact not out of focus. It really is just dots. It’s only this black and white pixelated image and yet we know it’s clearly lace.

You know exactly what it is.

JS: I don’t even think it’s about seeing your own fantasy images in it. One can, but I think it’s a bit like looking at clouds actually. When you look at clouds you think, ‘Ah, yes, that’s almost like a dragon,’ but it’s always almost like a dragon but never quite is.

EG: I keep looking at this because it is graphic and the more you speak about it, the more I’m thinking about the newsprint and the specific language that this does address. I just think it’s so slight, that’s my feeling.

JS: But that’s why I like it. It reminds me slightly of early James Welling pictures, which I’ve always found strange and mysterious in a similar way, but he worked with them very small. I’d kind of prefer these a bit smaller to be honest…

I feel as if I’m actually one against the rest of you really.

EG: No you’re not.

JS: I will give in on this.

EG: No I don’t want you to, I don’t think that’s the point, I don’t want you to.

DL: Sounds like it’s in.

All: Yeah.

All: (Move on to next work: Jack Vickridge) SC: Well there’s no question about this.

JS: What do you mean there’s no question about this?

SC: Because John you love this. Say why you love it please.

EG: You love it?

JS: I do, I don’t know why. To me it’s to do with whiteness and weight. Gravity and grace you might say.

SC: It is very like gravity and grace.

JS: And it’s about the way in which things are kept up and they fall down.

EG: Everything has a prop, even the forms that don’t seem to need one. It is also about this idea of frontality: is it a sculpture, is it a painting, and also that you can’t look behind because it’s held up by its own weight.

JS: Its fragile… its front and back and you wonder about its back, the back’s exposed and you’re looking through it and around it. I don’t know, it just makes me feel good in some way.

SC: Yeah, super well-judged. Let’s move on.

Open to all final year undergraduates and current postgraduates of Fine Art at UK colleges and to those artists who graduated in the year 2008.

ARTISTS

Adam Bainbridge Myka Baum Frances Blythe Sam Burford Amir Chasson David Cochrane Andrew Curtis Jorge de la Garza Nicholas Deshayes Bee Emmott Teresa Eng Anna M.R. Freeman Felix Frith Joseph Gower Susie Green Alexandra Handal Richard Healy Jung-Ouk Hong Benjamin Jenner Peiyuan Jiang Michael Just Dean Kissick Paul Knight Una Knox

Simone Koch Rinat Kotler Martina Lindqvist Susanne Ludwig Rachel Maclean Francis Mason Jack Newling Marco Palmieri Rebecca Parkin Chinmoyi Patel Johanna Piesniewski Sam Plagerson David Price Konrad Pustola Hannes Ribarits Nick Smith Christopher Thomas + Kristel Raesaar Jonathan Trayte Jack Vickridge Amanda Wasielewski Barbara Wolff Freya Wright

Laura Zilionyte

Adam Bainbridge Ornament I Pencil on paper 30 x 30cm 2008

Frame Pencil on paper 41 x 41cm 2008

Myka Baum

Mare Undarum – Sea of Waves C-type print, scanned from negative 70.25 x 105cm 2008

Frances Blythe Untitled 2 Series 1 Inkjet print 29.5 x 38cm 2008

Frances Blythe Untitled 1 Series 2 Inkjet print 29.5 x 38cm 2008

Untitled 3 Series 2 Inkjet print 29.5 x 38cm 2008

Sam Burford Neoset Intense Black Lightbox and original print 32 x 22 x 13cm 2008

Amir Chasson Crying Up Ink and watercolour on paper 42 x 29.5cm 2008 Following Spread

Pisspants Ballpoint pen on paper 100 x 151cm 2009

David Cochrane If I Could See You Now Cine-film transfered to digital video 1 min 28 sec loop 2008

Jorge de la Garza Untitled No. 3 (Book 1) Collage 31.4 x 23.2cm 2008 Following Spread

Untitled No. 4 (Book 2) Collage 27.7 x 20.1cm 2008

Untitled No. 1 (Book 4) Collage 22.9 x 17.2cm 2008

Dean Kissick Just a Quiet Peaceful Dance, for the Things We’ll Never Have…

Video 5 min 38 sec 2009

Una Knox When What Becomes Who Video 11 min 2009

Simone Koch But We Must Cultivate Our Garden Series of photographs 20 x 20cm each 2007 – 2008

Rinat Kotler Everybody Wants to Live Performed by Merhav Yeshoron, Kohavit Kdoshim, Tuvia Cohen Video 7 min 20 sec 2008

Martina Lindqvist Untitled 1, Ragsk채r Island series C-type print 61 x 76.2cm 2008

Untitled 2, Ragsk채r Island series C-type print 61 x 76.2cm 2008

Martina Lindqvist Untitled 3, Ragsk채r Island series C-type print 61 x 76.2cm 2008

Untitled 4, Ragsk채r Island series C-type print 61 x 76.2cm 2008

Susanne Ludwig Feasibility Fantasies 3 Video-installation

750 Years Passing Still images animated on video 1 min loop 2007

Susanne Ludwig The Wind Can Always Turn 2 min 5 sec loop 2008

Wherever You Want Still images animated on video 43 sec loop 2007

Rachel Maclean Tae ThinkMaclean Again Rachel Video 10 min 2008

Jack Newling Floor (detail) Silk-screen on plywood 122 x 244cm 2009 following spread

Green Plastic Silk-screen on plastic 60 x 80cm 2009

Marco Palmieri Untitled (w-shape) Oil on canvas on panel 50 x 36 cm 2008

Rebecca Parkin He Will Survive Oil on sized paper 66 x 92cm (framed) 2008 Following spread

In the Wilderness Oil on canvas 200 x 250cm 2008

Artist biographies

Adam Bainbridge

Myka Baum

Frances Blythe

B 1982 Boston, Lincolnshire

B 1971 Münster, Germany

B 1981 Manchester

2008–2009 MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London 2003–2007 BA (hons) Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London

2007–2008 PG Cert Photography, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 2002–2004 BA (hons) Fashion Product Management, London Centre for Fashion Studies, Middlesex University

2008–2009 MA Fine Art, Manchester Metropolitan University 2004–2005 BA (hons) Photography, Manchester Metropolitan University

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London 2009 Wake The Town And Tell The People, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London 2007 Rising Stars, Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth 2007 Graduate Painting and Drawing Exhibition, CorbettPROJECTS, London Awards

2007 Foster Fletcher Prize for Drawing 2007 Dover St Arts Club Excellence in Drawing Prize

Recent Exhibitions

2008 Group Show, Dover St Arts Club, London

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Where The Garment Gapes, The Triangle, Manchester 2006 Sefton Open, Atkinson Gallery, Southport

Sam Burford

Amir Chasson

David Cochrane

Andrew Curtis

B 1970 London

B 1968 Israel

B 1980 Manchester

B 1979 London

2007–2008 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 1988–1991 BA (hons) Animation, Middlesex University

2008–2010 MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London 2004–2007 MA Design, Middlesex University 1994–1998 BA Visual Communication, Vital – Tel Aviv Centre for Design Studies, Israel

2008–2009 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 2000–2003 BA (hons) Fine Art, Manchester Metropolitan University

2007–2009 MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, London 1999–2002 BA (hons) Printmaking, Winchester School of Art

Recent Exhibitions

2008 Electrons Composing, Kingsgate Gallery, London 2008 Materialisation, Arums Galerie, Paris 2007 Future Map 07, The Arts Gallery, London 2007 Spectre vs. Rector, Residence Gallery, London 2007 How We May Be, Late at Tate, Tate Britain, London 2007 The Church, The Court, And Then Goodbye, SooPlex, Nashville, USA 2006 One Love: The Football Art Prize, The Lowry, Manchester 2006 If It Didn’t Exist You’d Have To Invent It, The Showroom, London

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Pause And Eject, The Rag Factory, London

Recent Exhibitions Recent Exhibitions

2009 Claremorris Open, Claremorris Gallery, Co. Mayo, Ireland 2009 To Escape From The Sun, BMCA, Trade City, Manchester 2009 Condensation 09, Bodhi Gallery, London 2008 To Escape From The Sun, Deleadus Gallery, London; Littlemissmicks, Berlin 2005 Papercut, St Luke’s Agency, London 2005 MyFest, The Foundry, London 2004 Observing The Endgame, floating ip, Manchester 2003 Hans Brinker Trophy, Hans Brinker Hotel, Amsterdam 2003 Thermo 03, The Lowry, Manchester

2009 Bandstand, Café Gallery, London 2008 Group Show, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London 2007 Stone.Plate.Grease.Water: International Contemporary Lithography, MOMA Wales 2007 Stick*Stamp*Fly, Gasworks, London 2005 A2V, Bloc Space, Sheffield Awards

2009 Centre for Print Research Award, UWE, Bristol 2009 Printmakers Council Award 2009 Jealous Print Award 2009 Gwen May Printmaking Award 2006 Birgit Skiold Work on Paper Award

Jorge de la Garza

Nicolas Deshayes

Bee Emmott

Teresa Eng

B 1978 Mexico City

B 1983 Nancy, France

B 1986 London

B 1977 Vancouver, Canada

2007–2008 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 2006 PG Dip Fine Art, Byam Shaw School of Art, University of the Arts London 2002 BA Communication, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores, Mexico

2007–2009 MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art, London 2002–2005 BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London

2004–2009 MA (hons) Fine Art, University of Edinburgh

2008–2009 MA Photography, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London 1996–2000 BA Communication Design, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver

Recent Exhibitions

2008 Take Me, Show Me, I’m Absolutely Yours, Gallery 52a, London 2008 After Dark, Eleven Fine Art, London 2008 Deeparture, Front Projects, London 2007 How We May Be, Late at Tate, Tate Britain, London 2006 Wormhole Saloon V, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2006 Not Out Of The Woods Yet, The Projection Gallery, Liverpool Biennial 2006 Mix Cities, Espace Khiasma, Paris 2006 Small, Kingsgate Gallery, London

Recent Exhibitions

2007 Neo, RUN Gallery, London 2007 The Travels, Galleria 42 Contemporaneo, Modena, Italy 2006 Specimens, Galleria 42 Contemporaneo, Modena, Italy 2007 Great Buffoon, Deleadus Gallery, London 2007 Moot, Zoo Art Fair, London 2006 Artists’ Choice, Mogadishni CPH, Copenhagen 2006 Year_06 Art Projects, Moot, Mary Ward House, London 2006 From There, Bloomberg Space, London 2005 YOU, Galleria 42 Contemporaneo, Modena, Italy 2005 Noble’s Island, Moot, Nottingham 2004 Rundgang 04, Universität der Künste Berlin 2003 Xibit 03, The London Institute Gallery 2001 Supermarketed, Victoria and Albert Museum, London Residencies

2006 Hweilan International Artists Workshop, Taiwan

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Place Project, The Bowery, Edinburgh 2009 Once Bitten Twice Shy, Minto House, Edinburgh 2008 No Circumstances, Edinburgh College of Art 2008 Watt, Minto House, Edinburgh Awards

2009 The Helen A. Rose Bequest 2009 The Tempest Graduation Photography Prize

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Fresh Faced And Wild Eyed, The Photographers’ Gallery, London 2009 Never Wash A Blanket In May, 17 West Street, Hastings

Anna M. R. Freeman

Felix Frith

Joseph Gower

Susie Green

B 1982 London

B 1986 Bristol

B 1987 Shepton Mallet, Somerset

B 1979 Shrewsbury

2008-2010 MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London 2001-2004 BA (hons) Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 2003 Erasmus Exchange, Kunsthochschule Weissensee, Berlin

2006–2009 BA (hons) Fine Art Photography, Glasgow School of Art

2006–2009 BA (hons) Fine Art, University of the West of England, Bristol

Recent Exhibitions

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Music & Pictures, The Benjamin Perry Boat House, Bristol 2008 Blithe Shorts, CCA, Glasgow 2008 Forgotten To Agree, Wasps Artists’ Studio, Glasgow 2007 Pass On, Swell Gallery, The San Francisco Art Institute 2007 Guerrilla, Thieves Tavern, San Francisco

2009 Spike Island Open Weekend, Bristol 2009 Windows204, Bristol 2008 Atkinson Gallery, Street, Somerset

2008 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 1998–2002 BA (hons) Fine Art, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Wake The Town And Tell The People, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London 2008 Some Other Place, Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin 2007 re-collected, Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin Residencies

2006–2008 Artist in Residence, Galerie Kollaborativ, Berlin 2007 Room 212 Mural, Hotel Bloom! Brussels

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Wanting It Having It, Satellite Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne 2009 Propeller Island, 29 Thurloe Place, London 2007 Metteurs en Scene, The Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh 2007 Portalfolio, Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne 2007 Harry Smith Remix, Alt Gallery, Newcastle; Sensoria, Sheffield; CCA, Glasgow 2006 Electrical Activity, Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne 2005 The Set Up, Starboard Home, Newcastle upon Tyne 2005 Watchthisspace, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Alexandra Handal

Richard Healy

Jung-Ouk Hong

Benjamin Jenner

B 1975 Port-au-Prince, Haiti

B 1980 London

B 1976 Seoul, Korea

B 1981 Dover

2004–2009 PhD Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London 1999–2001 MA Studio Art, New York University 1993–1996 BFA Painting and Art History, Boston University

2006–2008 MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, London 2000–2003 BA (hons) Interactive Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University

2007–2009 MA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London 2002–2005 MA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul 1996–2002 BA Painting, Hongik University, Seoul

2007–2009 MFA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London 2001–2004 BA (hons) Fine Art, Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London

Recent Exhibitions

2009 Akhir al Layl/At The End Of The Night, Mapping Palestine, Madinat Jumeirah, Art Dubai 2005 The Subject Of Palestine, DePaul University Museum, Chicago 2001 Rebellion Of Space, Dumbo Arts Centre, New York 1998 4th International Exhibition Of Women’s Art, SOHO20 Gallery, New York Awards and Residencies

2004 Finalist for the Hassan Hourani Young Artist of the Year Award, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Palestine 2003 Artist in Residence, Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic 1999 School of Visual Arts Residency Program, New York

Recent Exhibitions

2009 When Much Is Not Too Much, Meetfactory, Prague 2009 Subvision Festival, Hamburg 2009 Session_3_Image, Am Nuden Da, London 2009 No Bees, No Blueberries, i-cabin/Harris Lieberman, New York 2009 Earth Not A Globe 1, Rokeby Gallery, London 2009 Parallel Viewing, Guestroom, London 2009 Research Annex, i-cabin, London 2009 Kiss Of A Lifetime, Rogue Project Space, Manchester; Vane, Newcastle; BEARSPACE, London 2009 SHOW, Crisp London/LA, Los Angeles Art Fair 2009 Broken Replica, Stanley Picker Gallery, London 2008 New Prints, Royal Academy, London 2008 Factory, James Taylor Gallery, London Awards and Residencies

2008 Stanley Picker Print Fellowship, Kingston University 2008 Red Mansion Art Prize, UK/ Beijing 2007 Cité Internationale des Arts Residency, Paris

Recent Exhibitions Recent Exhibitions

2009 Beyond The Line, Gaain Gallery, Seoul 2008 Parallel, G-Spot Showroom, London 2008 4482, Bargehouse Oxo Tower, London 2007 The Open, King’s Park Studio, London 2006 An Event In London, The Plum Tree, London 2006 An Unsophisticated Confession, Noam Gallery, Seoul 2006 Axis, Noam Gallery, Seoul 2005 : avi-, Gallery PICI, Seoul 2005 DECAD, Seo Gallery, Seoul 2004 Time 2004, Gallery PICI, Seoul 2004 Art Seoul, Seoul Arts Centre 2004 The 4th Songeun Grand Art Exhibition, Seoul Arts Centre 2003 Ball Of Line, Gallery LUX, Seoul 2003 hwa-gi-ai-ai, Jongno Gallery, Seoul

2009 British Land Public Sculpture Competition, British Land Offices, London 2009 Contested Ground, 176/ Zabludowicz Collection, London 2008 Editions 2, The Centre for Recent Drawing, London 2008 Abandoned By A Third Dimension, The Centre for Recent Drawing, London 2008 Kunstvlaai, A.P.I., Amsterdam 2008 Edge-Edge, Slade Research Centre, London 2008 Systems And Patterns 2, Whitechapel Project Space/ Westbourne Studios, London 2006 Plywood Utopia, 35a Gallery, Brighton 2005 Dimensions Variable, The Metre Square Gallery, London Awards and Residencies

2008 The Red Mansion Art Prize UK/ Beijing 2003 Association of Independent Art Schools Print Workshop, Germany

Acknowledgements

2009 is a landmark year for New Contemporaries; 20 years since the first show of its current set-up in 1989 and 60 years since Young Contemporaries was launched at the Mall Galleries in 1949. The premise for the project is the same now as it was then: to give an opportunity to young students to be recognised as artists and to make their work visible to the arts profession and to the public. New Contemporaries has launched many an artist’s career; has been an indicator of emerging cultural trends and has helped create a public prepared to take on the risk and challenges of fresh ideas and new talent. The attendances at any of the host venues bear testimony to the reach and popularity of this annual show. The arts have captured the public imagination and especially with a younger generation.

In 1989, I was part of the curatorial team at Cornerhouse responsible for bringing the show to Manchester. It was the start of a long association for the show with Cornerhouse as a venue and a long association for me, with the project. As a regional representative on the Board of Directors, as a programmer and now as the project manager for the annual show and tour, it has been a real privilege, especially to work with the artists and to witness their work and careers taking shape.

I would like to take the opportunity to extend my personal thanks to everyone I have worked with and who have shared in the belief in this project.

It is a dedicated and loyal team of helpers that support the administration of this project, who often go uncredited and I truly appreciate their commitment over the years. New Contemporaries will go from strength to strength and continue to play its valuable role in championing young artists to audiences across the country.

Bev Bytheway Administrator

New Contemporaries [1988] Ltd Chair Sacha Craddock Vice Chair Jill Ritblat Company Secretary Sue Prevezer Directors Eileen Daly John Huntingford Rebecca King Lassman Des Lawrence Mike Nelson Andrea Schlieker Clarrie Wallis Rebecca Warren Administrator Bev Bytheway

New Contemporaries Rochelle School Arnold Cicus London E2 7ES 0207 033 1990 www.newcontemporaries.org.uk

isbn 978-0-9540848-9-9 Published by New Contemporaries [1988] Ltd Š New Contemporaries [1988] Ltd, the artists and selectors Catalogue edited by Bev Bytheway, Megan Watkins and Eileen Daly Photography: Stephen White and the photographers and video artists Documentation of selection: Anna Arca Design: AW and LM @ www.axisgraphicdesign.co.uk Print and Reprographics: Andrew Kilburn Print Services