Messums - Summer Programme 2019

Getting more out of our programme • Private tour of A Very British Collection with Johnathan Messum London – Tuesday 11 June, 6.30pm • Bruce Munro Studio Visit Wiltshire – Wednesday 12 June, 11am • Festival Of Spoken Word ‘After Hours’ Dinner (advance bookings) Friday 5 July, 7pm • Collectors Tour for Christopher Kurtz and Material Wood Wiltshire – Friday 12 July, 6 – 6.30pm • Sadler’s Wells Young Associates Lunch with Ruby Portas and Anthony Matsena Wiltshire – Sunday 21 July, 1pm

• Collectors Tour for Tuesday Riddell London – Tuesday 6 August, 6 – 6.30pm • Friends Tour to Istanbul Biennale 9 – 14 September 2019 • Friends Tour to Venice Biennale 1 – 3 October 2019 Spaces on these events are limited.

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Email: melissa@messumswiltshire.com

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MESSUMS

LONDON W I LT S H I R E

SUMMER PROGRAMME

EXHIBITION : 15–30 JUNE

Philip Gumuchdjian – Sensing Place 15 – 30 June Messums Wiltshire, Barn Preview Friday 14 June, 6.30 – 8.30pm Collectors tour, 6 – 6.30pm Sensing Place describes twenty years of architectural output by the award-winning architect Philip Gumuchdjian via a series of handmade models. On show at Messums Wiltshire’s thirteenth century barn this June, these models represent the ideas that are the DNA of Philip Gumuchdjian’s projects and are

objects that - for the most part - remain hidden in plain sight.

The practice is rare in that all of their architectural models are hand made and are beautifully intricate and beguiling objects in their own right.

Models for projects including the Think Tank in Ireland, the Giant Recycled Paper Building in the Millennium Dome, the Marylebone Performing Arts Centre in London and the controversial Hopton Tower by the Tate Modern will form the basis of the exhibition and provide a springboard for a programme of architectural talks and debates with contributions from Philip Gumuchdjian, Jonathan Tuckey, Mike Stiff, Dr Tarsha Finney, Peter Clegg and Gerard Evenden.

EXHIBITION : 15–30 JUNE

Daniel Agdag 15 – 30 June Messums Wiltshire, Long Gallery Preview Friday 14 June, 6.30 – 8.30pm Collectors tour, 6 – 6.30pm Daniel Agdag is an artist and filmmaker based in Melbourne, Australia whose practice sits at the nexus of sculpture and motionography.

He creates highly detailed sculptural pieces that have been described as ‘architectural in form, whimsical and antiquated in nature and inconceivably intricate’ and Messums Wiltshire is delighted to present his UK debut

as a solo exhibition in our Long Gallery.

Daniel uses the utilitarian origins and monochromatic presentation of cardboard to create a paradox of fragility and strength with structures that resemble architectural forms and machines. Utilising a medium that is essentially paper he preserves them under glass vitrines or bell jars. His work is both delicate and eccentric and his process is very much akin to freehand drawing - he spends a lot of time thinking and absorbing objects in the built environment, their peculiar details and functions, which, once resolved in his mind, begin to slowly emerge, fitting together to compliment the overall idea.

EVENT : 15 JUNE

Sensing Place Philip Gumuchdjian in conversation Saturday 15 June, 10 – 11am Messums Wiltshire

Sensing Place focuses on the last twenty years of architectural output by Philip Gumuchdjian and the ideas that underpin that work – in order to explain and expose ‘the main paradox of an art form that has ambitions to communicate but by being inherently mute is entirely reliant on the poetics of form and space to do so.’ It is a timely look at the present state and responsibility of architects and architecture, in all corners of the globe, to explore new approaches to encourage the betterment of the lives of people on our ‘environmentally depleted, socially inequitable and commercially over-exploited planet’.

EVENT : 15 JUNE

Screening of Lost Property Office and talk by Daniel Agdag Saturday, 15 June, 11.30am – 12.30pm Messums Wiltshire Lost Property Office is a 9-minute stop motion film written, directed and designed by artist and film-maker Daniel Agdag. The film, produced

by Liz Kearney and funded by Screen Australia, tells the story of Edward, a meticulous and thorough custodian of a large city transit’s Lost Property Office. Alone, in the basement office,

Ed is kept company by a tiny toy robot and an old gramophone, both of which he has lovingly restored after finding them lost and broken at train stations around the city. What emerges is a wondrous and whimsical tale of forgotten relics.

The film was shortlisted for an Academy Award in 2018 and won Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at Newport Beach Film Fest in California (2019) and Best Animated Short Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival, LA (2019).

EVENT : 15 JUNE

Building the Future – Environment and Landscape Saturday, 15 June, 1.30 – 3.30pm Messums Wiltshire Dr Tarsha Finney (senior research tutor and programme lead on the City Design MA, School of Architecture RCA), Peter Clegg (environmental design pioneer and senior partner, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios) and Philip Gumuchdjian (Former chair of RIBA awards and award winner, and co-author with Richard Rogers of ‘Cities for a small planet’, 1993) will discuss the role of architecture and how it is pivotal to our

responsibility for the planet and how we are able to live together. With the UK parliament becoming the first government to recognise a “climate and environment emergency” the issue is at the forefront of thinking in planning and construction.

Join us in the largest surviving thatched building in the country to hear this discussion on how we can build for our future.

EVENT : 15 JUNE

Reimagining and Restoration The Creative Reuse of Old Buildings Saturday, 15 June, 3.30 – 5pm Messums Wiltshire As part of our In Focus Fortnight: Architecture series of events we are joined for a talk on a topic close to Messums Wiltshire’s heart: Reimagining and Restoration – The Creative

Reuse of Old Buildings by Julia Barnard (Interior Designer and specialist in the renovation and decoration of listed buildings), Mike Stiff (Founder Stiff + Trevillion and deputy chair of The Architecture Club), Jonathan Tuckey (director, Jonathan Tuckey Design and founder, Building on Built) and Roger Zogolovitch (founder, Solid Space).

EVENT : 19 JUNE

Gerard Evenden Talk + Supper Club Wednesday 19 June, 6.30pm Messums Wiltshire Gerard Evenden BArch (Dist), RIBA is a Senior Executive Partner and Head of Studio at Foster + Partners. As Head of Studio 5 he has been responsible for a number of schemes in the United Arab Emirates including the World Trade Centre, Central Market, The Index, Sheikh Zayed National Museum and Masdar City. In response to the problems of mass housing his

team has developed the design of modular housing for manufacture and distribution in large numbers, and realised a prototype in Abu Dhabi.

The theme of sustainability that runs through Gerard’s projects is also demonstrated by two UAE Pavilion’s designed for the Shanghai and Milan World Expo’s, which were constructed in China and Milan respectively, and subsequently dismantled and relocated to a permanent home in Abu Dhabi.

Join us to hear Gerard talk about his work for one of our ever-popular Wednesday night talk and supper club events.

EVENT : 29 JUNE

Observational Drawing with Nesta Fitzgerald Saturday 29 June, 10 am – 4pm Messums Wiltshire “To draw what one sees without prejudice takes something very like courage.” Matisse.

On this Observational Drawing course run by Nesta Fitzgerald on Saturday 29 June students will explore Messums’ medieval barn and the surrounding countryside through the process of observational drawing. Using the barn as a focus students will take time to draw what they see and importantly develop ways of imparting what they find, considering the barn’s aesthetic, its function and why we are drawn to draw it. This

one-day course will aim to develop confidence in drawing outside – enabling those to deal with and embrace the challenge of changing light and weather and the practical demands of working in a portable way.

Nesta FitzGerald received a Masters in Illustration from Kingston University and has been working as a commercial illustrator since 2009. She recently completed a one-year drawing programme at the Royal Drawing School to reengage with drawing by hand and in the landscape. She has created artwork for Chiswick house, Selfridge’s, Waddeston Manor as well as hotels and museums in the UK and Ireland. She has recently started making etchings of woodland animals in the UK.

E X H I B I T I O N : 3 J U LY – 2 A U G U S T

Antony Williams 3 July – 2 August Messums London Cocktails & Canapés Tuesday 2 July, 6.30pm “When Williams paints human faces and bodies in tempera – whether his own, or that of another sitter – he makes the viewer intensely aware of surface detail. One sees, more insistently perhaps than one does in life, the little marks of

wear and tear, the furrows and wrinkles…”, Martin Gayford, art critic and writer Antony Williams works almost exclusively in egg tempera – a painstaking, exacting medium in which egg is used instead of linseed oil as the binding medium. It is a technique to which Antony is wholly devoted, as he meticulously covers his panel with endless tiny brushstrokes and his work is based on intense observation, particularly of human flesh, creating as a result a heightened sense of realism.

E V E N T : 5 – 7 J U LY

After Hours Friday 5 July, from 6pm – late Festival of the Spoken Word 5 – 7 July Messums Wiltshire After Hours, 5 July, from 6pm Our After Hours event and supper club will incorporate a Slam poetry performance by Ben Norris and a jam session with singer-songwriter and spoken word performer Jade Cuttle as well as a chance to meet the performers and poets ahead of Saturday’s Festival of Spoken Word.

Messums Wiltshire’s second iteration of our Festival of Spoken Word builds on the legacy of language as an art form and is even more

extensive than last year’s festival. It includes rising star poets, spoken word artists, writers and rappers - all of whom explore one of the most exciting art forms of the moment. As before, our gathering place is our thirteenth century barn, providing the backdrop to a series of talks, readings, performances and music.

The techniques of the spoken word often remain a mystery despite the power of the performance, yet like any craft it has its masters and willing students. By hearing how these different techniques can be put to use across a range of events – from panel discussions on the differences between the spoken, the written and the sung word, to servings of personalised poetry courtesy of The Poetry Takeaway – we are the beneficiaries of greater understanding and greater enjoyment of the art form itself.

E V E N T : 6 J U LY

Why Speak When You Can Sing?

With authors Tariq Goddard, Ryann Donnelly and Nathalie Olah Saturday 6 July, 11am Messums Wiltshire ‘Why Speak When You Can Sing?’, a panel discussion on the differences between the spoken and written word and song will be chaired by Tairq Goddard of Repeater Books with contributions from authors Ryann Donnelly, whose new book ‘Justify My Love’ explores sex and gender in one of the most consumed art forms of our age, the music video – and Nathalie Olah whose writing focuses on the intersection between politics and contemporary culture, with an emphasis on marginalised and

working class communities and includes essays, fiction and reviews which have been published widely in Dazed, AnOther, i-D, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Independent and the Times Literary Supplement. Ryann is a musician and writer and Nathalie is a music journalist turned author. Alongside publisher and author Tariq Goddard they will address the differences, and similarities, between the sung, the spoken and the written word, and the power of each to effect change. The discussion will be followed by a performance by Ryann, accompanied by an electro-pop soundtrack, and a reading by Nathalie from her forthcoming book ‘Steal as much as you can: How to survive austerity and win the culture wars’.

E V E N T : 6 J U LY

Poetry Takeaway Saturday 6 July, 12 – 4pm Messums Wiltshire Sugar J and Bump Kin Saturday 6 July, 5pm Back by popular demand The Poetry Takeaway will be providing fresh poetry for festival-goers throughout Saturday. Poetry Takeaway are a brilliant collective of ‘Poetry Chefs’ who create personalised poetry for guests, written performed and delivered for free, all from their mobile Poetry Emporium.

Their aim is to make poetry accessible with

a personal interface that quickly breaks down barriers between poet and participant. Taking peoples ideas, stories, hopes, dreams and even nightmares as ingredients they guarantee everything from tears, laughter and everything in between!

Poetry Takeaway will be followed by a performance from Sugar J and Bump Kin – razor sharp poetry focused on relationship struggles, diaspora, rum and love. Sugar J and Bump Kin are a duo blurring the lines between spoken word, poetry and hip hop. They started making work together as poet and producer after meeting as Barbican Young Poets in 2016 and will be making the FOSW debut this year.

E V E N T : 6 J U LY

Performances and Reflections with Tristram Fane Saunders, Joe CarrickVarty, Warda Yassin and Jade Cuttle Saturday 6 July 12.15 – 1.45pm Messums Wiltshire Exploring the craft of the poem from page to stage and reflecting upon the value of the written spoken word in today’s world, Annan,and 2019 Handmade Tristram Fane Saunders will be in discussion stoneware with Joe Carrick-Varty (New Poets prize 33 x 22cm winner), Warda Yassin (New poets prize winner) £3,300

and Jade Cuttle (Poetry Critic award winner) following performances by each.

This journey with a new generation of poets will set the stage for a discussion on the role of poetry today.

Tristram is writer and commissioning editor for the Telegraph where he casts an analytical eye over all things cultural. As a New Poets Prize winner of 2018 Tristram is skilled in the art of the poem and seasoned in the art of performing them. He will also be reading from his new chapbook ‘Woodsong’, a tragi-comic retelling of an old Irish myth, published this June.

E V E N T : 6 J U LY

Connect – what is the most direct way to convey presence? with Mat Osman and Tariq Goddard Saturday 6 July, 2pm Messums Wiltshire ‘Connect – what is the most direct way to convey presence?’ brings together musician Mat Osman with publisher and author Tariq Goddard to discuss the ways in which ‘presence’ can be communicated. Mat is the bassist and founding member of the iconic British Rock band Suede who will discuss his past, present and future as a musician, and now author following publication of his debut novel, ‘The Ruins’, a dark and dreamlike story of

identity, ambition and music.

Tariq Goddard is the founder and publisher of Repeater Books, a publishing imprint based in London that aims to publish in every sphere and genre.

Mat will close Saturday’s festival with a DJ set. Suede was one of the finest bands to come out of the UK in the first half of the 1990s and their debut album, released in 1992, won the Mercury Music Prize. Whilst the band went their separate ways in 2003 they reformed in 2010 and last year, released a new album. When not touring with the band or writing and promoting novels, Mat likes to play loud, badly behaved records from 1960 to 2019 in the shape of funk, soul, glam, electro and rock ‘n’ roll.

E V E N T : 6 J U LY

Laurie Bolger: Talking to Strangers Saturday 6 July, 6.30pm Messums Wiltshire Laurie Bolger is a stand-up poet and presenter based in London. She has performed and hosted venues such as The Royal Albert Hall, Old Vic Theatre and St Paul’s Cathedral and has been Poet in Residence in various public spaces including The Ivy House Pub and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Her ‘Talking to Strangers’ performance brings you stories and chats about comfort food,

supermarket meltdowns, tea and pub love. Her warm and witty poems ask the big questions: how does that annoying passenger on the bus turn out to be the stranger that saves the day?

Sometimes, when life is lonely, strangers give us the answers we need.

Laurie was lead facilitator for BBC 1Xtra’s Words First and has received national airplay on the BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra and BBC Radio 3’s The Verb. She was shortlisted for Young Poet Laureate of London, performing at major London venues and has also performed at festivals across the UK including Glastonbury.

E V E N T : 7 J U LY

Find Your Voice: How to find your voice and speak with confidence, credibility and grace with Caroline Goyder Sunday 7 July, 10am Messums Wiltshire This fun and interactive workshop led by leading international voice coach and keynote speaker Caroline Goyder, combines theory – including an instrumental took kit – and practical exercises to ensure that you can take away some tips to help

you find your voice and confidence.

Caroline worked at Central School of Speech and Drama as a voice coach for over 10 years before launching her own company. She has over fifteen years of experience providing voice and gravitas training to people of all ages, including celebrities, teachers, broadcasters and the corporate sector. The author of two books she is currently writing her third due to be published in 2019.

E X H I B I T I O N : 1 7 J U LY – 2 A U G U S T

Malene Hartmann Rasmussen 17 July – 2 August 2019 Messums London Cocktails & Canapés Tuesday 16 July, 6 – 8pm Danish ceramicist Malene Hartmann Rasmussen works with figurative narrative sculpture and installation, creating work from individual handmodelled ceramics and found objects. She is part of a vanguard of artists who choose not to define themselves by discipline or craft but instead blur the boundaries between Applied Art, Design and Fine Art, with exceptional hand-craftsmanship at its core.

This will be Malene’s first solo show with the gallery. Reflecting her Danish ancestry and the tales of northern European folklore her work is also a cathartic metaphor for the relationships of her past – both with her family and the adolescence she left behind. The brightness and immediate visual appeal belies a darker narrative where reality and daydreams are merged.

Malene graduated from the Royal College of Art Ceramics MA in 2011 and was awarded the Danish Ceramics Residency, Victoria & Albert Museum in 2018. Her work will be part of ‘Beyond the Vessel’ – a group show curated

by Messums Wiltshire at Meşher, Istanbul in September 2019.

E X H I B I T I O N : 1 3 J U LY – 1 S E P T E M B E R

Beth Moon 13 July – 1 September 2019 Messums Wiltshire, Long Gallery Preview Friday 12 July, 6.30pm For over a decade, American photographer Beth Moon has been documenting the biggest, oldest and rarest trees in the world. This journey has taken her to desolate mountainsides, private estates and protected lands, where she

has made portraits of some of nature’s most majestic giants. Her work highlights the delicate duality of their existence – as both powerful but also vulnerable to environmental elements and human intervention.

This will be Beth’s first exhibition in the UK and we are delighted to be showing a body of her new work as part of our Material: Wood exhibition in the Long Gallery. Beth will join us at the end of August for an in conversation event about her work as a photographer.

E X H I B I T I O N : 1 3 J U LY – 1 S E P T

Christopher Kurtz 13 July – 1 September Messums Wiltshire, Barn Preview Friday 12 July, 6.30pm Collectors tour Friday 12 July, 6pm The telescopic scale of the works and their sublime grandeur of conception, position them outside of human interest. The mental space they open up is bigger than that – as big, in fact, as space itself. Glenn Adamson, May 2019 Christopher Kurtz first showed at Messums Wiltshire as part of Material: Wood in the summer of 2018, resulting in an invitation to create a solo response to our thirteenth

century barn.

The vast scale of the barn presents the perfect backdrop to these new works – physically slight, composed of slim limbs of linden wood, each constellation is tapered with a drawknife before being joined together into converging vertexes – the sculpture then covered with white milk paint to create a seamless surface.

Christopher is one of the leading lights of what has been dubbed ‘the Hudson River school of Wood sculpture’ in upstate New York, making pieces so thin that they challenge the tensile strength of their material as well as the wits of their maker, and has gained international attention with his sculpture and studio furniture.

He is included in several public and private collections worldwide and has been awarded the New York Foundation For the Arts (NYFA) Award (Lily Auchincloss fellow).

EXHIBITION : 7 – 24 AUGUST

Tuesday Riddell 7 – 24 August Messums London Cocktails & Canapés Tuesday 6 August, 6.30 – 8.30pm Emerging artist Tuesday Riddell’s works present a dark foliage filled world populated by insects, birds, snakes and fish – they are studies of the psychological and transformative nature of the environment. Tuesday incorporates historical techniques like Japanning, Chinoiserie, gilding and wood graining to construct an atmosphere poised between magical and eerie.

After completing a Painter Stainer’s Decorative Surface Fellowship at City and Guilds, London in 2018 she showed with Messums Wiltshire as part of our Emerging Talents series. We are delighted to be showing her new work as a solo presentation in our London Gallery this summer. Beneath the luscious golden surfaces of her lacquered black and gold works is a collection of dark images exploring intimate ground level observations of insects and animals in a place between beauty and horror. The scenes reflect not only enchanting insect filled environments but confront the darker side of the world we inhabit.

FURTHER AHEAD EVENT: MOVEMENT Sadler’s Wells Young Associates Ruby Portas and Anthony Matsena 5 – 7 September Messums Wiltshire EXHIBITION Laurence Edwards – Recent works 13 Sept – 4 October Messums London

14 Sept – 19 October Messums Wiltshire, Barn EXHIBITION Egg Tempera – James Lynch, Antony Williams and David Tindle 14 Sept – 19 October Messums Wiltshire, Long Gallery EXHIBITION Miles Richmond 9 October – 2 November Messums London EXHIBITION: IMAGE Process-based photography in collaboration with The Photographers Gallery 26 October – 1 December Messums Wiltshire, Long Gallery EXHIBITION: MOVING IMAGE ‘Under’ by Martina Amati 30 October – 1 December Messums Wiltshire, Barn EXHIBITION Kurt Jackson: New Work 4 – 21 December Messums London EXHIBITION Bruce Munro: Light 7 December – 26 January 2020 Messums Wiltshire, Barn and Landscape

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