Homeland

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Exhibiting JAN 2012 27th - 5th February

With the achievements of the avant-garde Dada and Fluxus artists burning in the back of some deep recess of our unconscious, the artists of the exhibition ‘Homeland’ look to vanquish the established ‘norms’ and ‘correct practices’ of exhibiting art work within the (usually) restrictive walls of an established gallery space. 
 This is not to say that the curatorial practice of such an exhibition has been completely void of any protocol, au contraire mes amis!

 These, some of the finest of Liverpool’s up-and-comings, are welllearned in the correct practices of gallery exhibitions, but feel there’s a thing or two to be amended about the formulaic application of rights and wrongs, dos and don’ts when it comes to hanging art work. 
 It is their hope that this exhibition expresses a more Humanistic approach to the coherent unveiling of art works: Celebrating each art work as an individual piece, whilst still playing that individual off of its neighbour. Thus creating more than simple picture hanging where viewers are cohered into milling clockwise from one frame to the next, with thumb and forefinger poised on chin whilst nodding with agreement. No. None of that here thank you, this exhibition aims to be more of an interactive environment where the viewing of the work is as much a valid aspect of concept as any produced outcome. 
 Its time to shake some foundations, rattle a few cages. The Liverpool young bloods have been let loose, and have something to say. -Dave Whiteley

WOLSTENHOLME CREATIVE SPACE LIVERPOOL

WOLSTENHOLME CREATIVE SPACE LIVERPOOL

AND KUNSTHALLE ATHENIA IN ATHENS Between the 20th and 27th of November 2011 myself and seven other students visited Athens to work with the MONODROME biennial. This was part of a online project/residency called Mobile Art School Athens [http://www.mobileartschoolathens.org/] we were able to meet and work with the co-directors of the biennial Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and Poka Yio. As part of this trip we were introduced to the staff of Kunstalle Athenia [http://www.kunsthalleathena.org/] where they showed us around the area and then onto the gallery space – we all found this space to be extremely innovative and exciting. We were introduced and shown around by the director of Athena called Marina Fokidis. This really brought up questions about my visual thoughts for Homeland and how space can be used in different countries socially and politically. Jannis Varelas collaged paintings were gorgeously placed in the space. His use of black painted spots were planted on the walls of Athena space. This was a very subtle way of exploring the visual aspects of his work.

Dave Whiteley, film still from A Waltz round Kunstalle Athena (2011) blurb: The video features an exhibition held at the gallery 'Kunsthalle Athena', in Athens. The resident artist exhibiting at the time was the brilliant Jannis Varelas. The music is part of a video installation which adds to the already heady atmosphere of the gallery.

Kunsthalle Athena proved to be a classic example of contemporary practice regarding the re-thinking of the distribution and established assumptions of 'the gallery' as both an institution and place for artistic consumption. The work and space seemed so fow seamlessly leaving no doubt of exquisite curatorial skills as a expressing finite fuidity between concepts (which regarded the physical appearance of the city as well as the economic situation of the country of Greece) and the aesthetic of the featured art work. As well as being a fabulous example of the capabilities of a freestanding grass-roots artistic institution in the middle of an economic crash, and the production of truly moving environments (being as much a part of the art as anything on a wall), the exhibition was a great big, shining two-fingers-up to the white cube gallery space which has become expected from most art-going cronies of the modern day. The significant lack of frames isolating individual works was refreshing. The gallery became more of an organic ecosystem for the expansion of works, rather than a sterile space for the extracted pieces to be worshiped individually. This was also refected in the fact that the walls bore the scars of previous exhibitions and boasted them proudly. Knowing that what had inhabited the space previously (in the form of

exhibitions) was regarded as much a part of the history of Kunsthalle Athena meant the significance of what was there in the 'present' was all the more potent and significant. Pride was something which this gallery had an abundance of in evidence. What a change from the commodified notions employed by the 'big wigs' of the art societies of England. The world would be a better place with more places and people like those at Kunsthalle Athena in Athens. -Dave Whiteley

VISUAL

These are some of the concepts and explorations that have infuenced homeland, painting, thinking and working with a architectural space with predominantly visual artists in areas of photography, painting and film.

SOCIAL POLITICAL PAINTERS

A core part to understanding the sociopolitical painter is the quasi-European ideology of war-art and socio-photography and how this relates to architectural structures post 2000. Adrian Ghenie (1977) recently exhibited a show that encapsulated forms of imagery, politics and autonomous vendettas at the Haunch of Venison in London. Ghenie was part of the Romanian scene hitting and setting up galleries in places like Berlin, Cluji and showing in large spaces in American like the David Zwirner gallery, New York. Also part of this production is Michael Borremans, Marleene Dumas, Alice Neel and Luc Tuymans circulating post 90’s as some of the most inventive painters today. Ghenie plays an important part to understanding the sociopolitical painter in an ever-growing white cube space. Like Luc Tuymans, he references a specific backdrop to 21st century life within photographic insemination in post-propaganda imagery. Ghenie also uses pre-modes of imagery- he uses film stills and photographs throughout 19 th century history. A Farewell to the western world (2007) was inspired by a photograph from the 1939 New York World's Fair shows some small architectural models that evoke iconic New York skyscrapers. This painting manifests a vast dialect with history in museums and destructive utopias. It also importantly plays with ideologies of architecture. Part of his painting largely includes self-portraiture, defining a social, illegal prosperity. John Pultz’s idea of ‘…1950’s anxiety over the invisible in society…’(Pultz, 1995, p.105) especially relates to the architectural loom over basic structures of artistic space: the photography studio, the bedroom and the outside street. These are just a few examples of the expansion of what it means to be

closely related to these allegories of space and how to modernize them. Though the ‘invisible in society’ can also relate to the transparency of many buildings in post 2000. By transparency i am relating to the current trend of buildings in high rise institutions – this transparency metaphorically and realistically relates to the block planning that was created in 1960’s, whereas now

A farewell to the western world 250 x 200 cm oil on canvas 2007 SOURCE (NOLAN JUDIN GALLERY)

it is clear that nothing private can be held back; we can see everything that’s going on. This partly may relate to the idea of mass surveillance and power control but the affiliations in today’s political climate post Britain is completely different. There is, in parts, no idea of what one can want beyond the glass building, even if we can see what’s behind it; that doesn’t seem to

matter anymore. Ghenie is still part of an architectural masonry bound up in paintings lost DADA –ism’s – this has in turn infuenced a lot of his work. Though what concerns a reader of his painting is where is the statement of 2011 today? Adrian Ghenie comes from a part of Romania where communism and art don’t exactly mix. His access to western film and photography creates a colder sack of treats. Unlike some contemporary painters such as Luc Tuymans or Jutta Koethers he regresses this imagery as it is so specific of it’s time – perhaps this is the relation between photographic documentation of the time and manipulation of it at a later time; perhaps photography is not timeless. Perhaps using pictorial imagery is dangerous.

MIT MEDIA LAB Photograph by andy ryan in the Boston Globe Correspondent Isabelle Graw (2006) raises the question of social constraints that are also present in painting and how this can be negotiated at all with oil or acrylic. Graw analyses Jutta Koethers working environment - here she discuses the elements of “bad painting” cropping up with in movements like German expressionism and also from a resurgence in Cologne. ‘…Koethers paintings were (and are) subtly biographical, rife with cryptic allusions and theoretical references, and existentially loaded…’ These kinds of themes are extremely referential to understanding the prescriptive social exploration of a painter through their work. This is a repetitive pathology used by painters in a concession of work. In Peripheral Vision, Graw recognizes divergent modes that lay out a framework for Koethers practice by infiltrating what it most disapproves; ‘Think, for example, of Koethers decision to attend to Whitney Independent Study Program in New York 1992: The program was a hotbed of anti-painting theory,

in a city whose broader art community was itself arrayed against expressionist painting. Koether positioned herself in the center, geographically and culturally, but also placed herself at the periphery.’ Graw, Isabell (2006) Peripheral Vision: Isabell Graw on the Art of Jutta Koether [online] Available at: <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_44/ai_n26804454/ >[Accessed 12th June 2011] Pultz, John (1995) Photography and the Body Weidenfeld & Nicolson

LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES ADA BUILDING (BALCONY) DALE (GREATER MANCHESTER) 2011

Post-studio

The postproduction of studio space is now more accessible than ever. This goes beyond the gallery space and has given artists access to old factories, disused shops and building spaces to use as studios. Some of these studios have already created a group of artists working in one space that expands back to setting up exhibitions. Studios can illustrate intimate productions, as they become an object of critical discussion in the post 1980’s anxiety of space, however studios are also mystified. The mystified studio has been cooked up to represent all artists though painters specifically use the boundaries and structure of a studio. Is the painter and studio really that far away from a romantic notion of the isolated autonomous individual or did it represent a wider social concern that was getting closer to the melting pot? There are key points here: the white cube should also be considered as subject of site specificity. This was also associated with artists like Marcel Broothaers and Eva Hesse who looked at material systems belonging to a site and place. Is this not also important to recognize in the neutralization and evolution of a painting in a white cube space? One of the biggest claimed myths is Mark Rothko. Part of understanding his work is to look at the way he uses his studio. Morgan Thomas explores Rothko’s link with the studio in Studio Vertigo: Mark Rothko (p.24-41) he opens up questions about the studio working as frames in Rothko’s work. Rothko used studio devices such as rope, pulley systems, moveable walls, foor lamps, and spotlights moving the studios infrastructure around. This is working with a site. Additionally Kaneda’s discussion about the painters Rothko, Newman and Reinhart creates a hit between discursive history on painters and the mythical studio. Kaneda re-constructs feminine and masculine within the painters own research and practice rather than the emptiness of government constructed sociality and gender. Kaneda challenges the formal language barriers created between masculine and feminine in the height of cold war abstract art. These debates were a core part of encouraging a break and link between social and political issues post-abstract. This does not water down the autonomous artist but challenges a more humanist, rationale approach to a mixture of hierarchical layers and political placement. ‘With Newman and Rothko, we have the ‘masculine/feminine’ of painting in which

both positions are equally successful in the relationship to the necessity of articulating the abstract horrors of existence.’ (Kaneda 1991, p.74)

Myers, R., Terry (2011) Painting (Documents of contemporary art) 1st ed. MIT Press Davidts, W, Gelshorn, J, Paice, K, Marks, JM (2009) The Fall of the studio: artists at work, 1st ed. Valiz Harris, Johnathan (2003) Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Painting: Hybridity, Hegemony, Historicism, Liverpool University Press

WOLSTENHOLME STUDIOS COLETTE LILLEY AND CHERIE GRIST

Part of this project was to evolve with the name homeland – this has come about in collaboration as a group but also individually. Everyone has had a central understanding of what they would like to use the title Homeland for in their work. This has evolved in areas of their practise directly through the Wolstenholme space. Two of the artists Cherie Grist and Colette Lilley have studio space at Wolstenholme. I knew them both when they had studio space on Victoria Street. Cherie had a space upstairs from Redwire studios which we shared. Colette worked with Redwire for a while before deciding to move to Wolstenholme Creative space. The studio space we had upstairs was owned by a complete nutter and was taken over by new management before they both moved. Part of the reason why Colette and Cherie moved is the cheap space Wolstenholme has to offer. This space is also diverse and incorporates film, music and art. Cheries and Colettes work are both different through the mediums of drawing and painting. Cherie and Colette have both started to inhabit the gallery space downstairs. Although they both theoretically have studios in Wolstenholme and both have been to lots of shows there, it is now different as they are working larger and more closely with a different architectural space. This is their own homeland but a new space. This relates closely to a intrinsic part of site specificity but this is also a experiment for everyone.

Extract from interview between Rose and Cherie ; R; Whats it like having a studio in Wolstenholme Creative Space? C; It's more inspiring here. The artists in the building take their work seriously- being part of the environment with the space. The atmosphere in the studios in Victoria Street was different – it didn't feel like it was serious working studio environment. Does the studio space and the general feel of Wolstenholme effect your practise in anyway? Space of the room effects the way I can move around – I can do business things in the corner, I can draw in another corner, I can speak to artists. So do you feel like communicating is important in the studios? Yeah definitely, I appreciate and trust everyone. There is a different movement of work here. People have been here for years and some have moved on. Thats another thing, I don’t feel like I want to move unless I move out of Liverpool. People choose to be at Wolstenholme. Its not just about finding a studio. What about the structure of Wolstenholme – do you think it has worked as a gig/gallery space? Have you seen many shows here? Yeah, the space itself adds to every show and gig it's had on here. My mate Caroline’s exhibition Unintentions was great – the photograph projections worked amazingly. It wasn't just the photographs – the whole room was part of the show. You studied fashion and photography in London – why did you come back up north and decide to try painting? I couldn’t afford a studio in London when I was living in Islington. I was just painting in my room. I heard studio spaces were available in liverpool so I came back here. During my degree I started a lot of drawing but I honestly started painting as a therapeutic thing. I was a passionate photographer – I always shot film. Photography was drawing. I was doing painting with the camera. I didn’t feel restricted with a camera but therese two were the same colour in film photography. I just changed tools.

What do you think about us constantly having to talk about our work as practitioners? I wasn't very good at expressing myself with the work. I've meet people who just have the lingo to do it instantly. It's really interesting that you have studied photography and fashion together but you don't seem like you are interested in it conventionally. Your paintings have a interesting fascination with colour which seems in it's infancy. Though I know you have a passion for film photography. Is there a link between art school then and your work now? Yeah. I haven't changed the way I work with film photography but I just paint now. 75% of our class was overseas so I had a good range of interaction and it was different being in the middle of London. What about tutors, did you have a good relationship with them? And did they challenge you critically? I had a good relationship with Paul Bevan – who was a fine art photographer. I spoke to him about living the course all the time. I didn’t know how I was feeling with it all. We did presentations of our work very visually with slides of images and music. I always saw my photography as paintings. I never wanted any models in the photographs even though I studied fashion and everyone else was using models. I just really like the colour of film photography. My friends are styling at the moment, some are doing fashion shoots and are involved in that production of that. I still love fashion, but I didn't want it to be my job.

Will you stick around Liverpool? No, theres a couple of places I want to live. Liverpool is just right for me at the moment – with support and thats dead important. You don’t have to constantly think about your work as a independent artist and it took me three years after art school to get use to that!

Extract from conversation with Colette; R; Do you like wolstenholme as a studio space? C; Yes. Cheap, no jokin! It’s just a affordable place, with a good creative atmosphere. Everyones really friendly. R; Has Wolstenholme affected the way you work with your drawings compared to the RedWire studios? C; The space has allowed me to get bigger. Theres more of a mixture of different artists and a mixture of different things going on here, so it must effect my work somewhere. R; What is it like moving down to the gallery space and doing your practise there? Has this changed the way you have worked? C; I am still in the early process of it – but it has allowed me to get more freer and more expressive with my drawing. R; You seem to have this fascination with heads and bums. Do you feel like this is going to be a repetitive practise from now on or do you feel like it will progress into really big drawings in different areas? C; I think it will evolve into different subjects but I think it will still be linked to the body. But what it is that I draw is secondary importance to the process. Its more therapeutic.

R; The anatomical process of drawing seems really important to you. And its interesting you talked about linking to the body. What history do you have with this? Was this also in the areas you were studying at art school? C; When I was doing a MA I was looking at exploring creativity and ways of understanding it. This was just practise, my little thing I was interested in. I wanted to be able to understand it to improve to link in with my drawing. I realised that the creative process is a process of balancing between structure and logic, intuition and expression. This is what I am trying to explore through my artwork. R; This seems kind of normal in most artistic practises; this idea of exploring expression – that’s quite obvious in its philosophy- is kind of tied up from that. Do you feel like this is particularly useful to you today compared to practises in art where people exploit that and always subjectively change it? C; Oh. I think this is more natural for me. Its very much like part of me, but I don’t want to say it like that. Its just second nature. It feels like a compulsion to do this. R; What do you think about us constantly having to talk about our work as practitioners? C; It depends what for. Its between other artists it can be helpful but I think the art should stand alone. It should be appreciated in its own right. R; It seems like communication is still really important to you as an artist. I know that you’ve critique nights at Wolstenholme and in Redwire. Why did you set them up? C; I set them up with another girl to get a bit of debate going. Its one thing you miss from university – the feedback – its good to have a support network. R; Do you feel like this is easier in a studio environment rather than a gallery environment? C; It it just comes more natural to a studio environment. R; Is that because everyones in there comfort zone or is it just because everyones relaxed and are aware of whats going on in Liverpool art wise? C; You just start talking, everyones there for the same reason. Everyone talks about their work. R; How do you think your drawing relates to homeland?

C; Because Im drawing my home. This is where I have my studio – I suppose this place is a home for my art. This place has helped me developed. But I'm still always at the beginning of things, and it’s got far to go.

Cherie in studio Wolstenholme (2012) http://www.cheriegrist.com/

Colettes studio at Wolstenholme (2012) https://colettelilley.wordpress.com

HOMELAND ARTISTS

LUCY WESTALL

I was born and raised on the island of Cyprus until the age of 16 when I moved to England to pursue higher education. My parents still live and work in Cyprus on a British Garrison where I grew up. Growing up on the army base held many restrictions and led to quite a sheltered lifestyle in which I have come to realise and revisit through my work and in Homeland I have tried to explore this, as well as the politics of the Island. Negatives have been used in order to build up a narrative between the images. Two of the the negatives used belong to my Father, who used to be the Garrison Photographer back in the 1980’s. The subject matter of the original images appears to be quite mundane but it is the aesthetic of the negative which I find appealing. When all three images are together they create a narrative, almost like a film strip showing time and movement. They are an insight into army life. The remaining image was taken in the Northern side of Cyprus, which still bares the scars of the Turkish invasion in 1974. Today, much of the Turkish side has been left derelict and is still guarded closely by the Turkish army and the UN. I came across a large stretch of wasteland where empty houses lay home to birds. I found this incredibly moving and began shooting photographs of the signage marking the out-of-bounds territory. It was the repetition of the signs that I found so interesting, and for fear of being caught photographing the zone, many of the images came out blurred, showing a sense of urgency.

This image shows a ghost town close to the Green Line, which divides the island of Cyprus in two, the Turkish in the North and the Cypriots in the South. The image to me is emotionally provoking and remains eerily abandoned. (Again this area is heavily guarded with photography disallowed, meaning I could only capture the village from a moving car.

This photograph was taken in the Northern side of Cyprus on Famagusta beach. The beach is a popular tourist spot, with one side of the beach littered with the remains of bombed and derelict hotels. The buildings are heavily guarded and photography is prohibited.

MATT WEIR

Homeland is a series of photographs taken from Google street view exploring my home town of Charlotte, N.C, USA. I’m capturing glitches in time and space by finding interesting subject matter that is fractured by the process of merging photographs. I am trying to relate these technical errors with the errors in our memory from childhood whilst at the same time commenting on the new realms of interaction through the internet. I am also starting to explore a series of letters I found that document my Grandmother’s first trip outside of the United States to Berlin just after the Second World War. She is writing to her Mother and telling her stories of communication difficulties, difference in culture, and boys she has met since her travels began. I feel that there could be an interesting dialog between these two mediums, one being photographs of a city we shared at very different periods in time and the sharing of modern technologies. Her most contemporary mode of communication was the typewriter, mine is Google street view. I want to have my Mother and my Sister read the letter’s forming a lineage through the family by the use of these letters. I will record their readings of the letters and use it as a soundscape collage mirroring the glitches in the photographs with imposed glitches on the readings. As a mode of presentation I plan on projecting the images with the soundscape played over the top. I will mirror the interaction aspect of Google street view but manually connecting the typewriter to a computer. This will allow viewers/users to dictate what photography/soundscape they listen to buy then choosing a number allocated on the typewriter.

Matt Weir film still from Faces (2010)

Matt Weir film still from Phantom (2011) [http://vimeo.com/mattweir]

DAVE WHITELEY

TERRITORY: D. Amos, Territory Performance: Artist, Space of Occupation, Urine and Realisation (of audience) with video documentation (2012) The performance piece filmed in Wolstenholme consists of the artist ‘marking his territory’. The act of urination both cementing the area as his own whilst ridiculing it simultaneously through defecation. “This seemed the perfect (or at least most coherent) way to ensure the work refected the very intrinsic relationship between the artist and the exhibition space, albeit from a very personal point of view- a concept which highlights the symbiotic relationships existing between people, spaces and ownership.” Through the production of this performance piece, the artist, D Amos, has recognised that the established and (socially expected) ‘normal’ place of residence for the work of the artist has been designated as the gallery space. D Amos has accordingly made the work as a reaction to this assumption. D Amos refers to the work of ‘Aktionist artist’ Rudolf Schwarzkogler and the performance and conceptual artist Vito Acconci in their presentation of documentation or ‘proof’ of actions, when talking about his permanent work within the gallery, and how the documentation of performances (as art works) highlights what is within the capability of the artist.

HOMELAND AND PERFORMANCES The artist, D Amos, has proposed to exhibit two performances, along side the permanent works featured in the exhibition. The performances will take place on the opening night: Thursday 26th January and Thursday 2nd February. These performances aim to both inhabit and interact with the space seeing both interaction and occupation on an equal plane. This form of exhibition of a fine art outcome has been a result of questioning the validity of artists putting work up in a gallery and that being the end of the artists’ interaction with what they have produced. In this situation, the use of performance art within the gallery aims to question the worth this act of hanging and exhibiting object based art still has in a contemporary art climate, and also ensures that the work is never removed from its association with the artist. The use of ‘the self’ and ‘action’ as the medium of which is in fact the art work requires the audience to look beyond beauty and aesthetic. Performance art requires a broader lexicon and understanding of the concept which drives the production of art. This acknowledgment of reading art work beyond what is visually obtainable is something which should be applied to all the exhibited works of ‘Homeland’. The performances aim to also bridge this divide between works of art and audience receptivity of conceptual value. Performance #1: Check-mate: The objective of this performance is interaction. The unverbalised dialogue between the two characters through the game Chess, and the exchange of moves, each one of which are representations of the individual, resulting in an understanding which could never be verbalised. The chess board has always been seen as a battle ground to ‘play out’ frustrations. The performance element is to utilise this previously established and artistically valid medium of game play which can communicate (without language) concepts and theories (artistic, psychological and sociological), as is the assumptions and attempts of many contemporary fine art practices. Checkmate draws a comparison to the work by Lee Mingwei featured in Liverpool Biennial 2010 ‘Mending Project’ in which the artist engaged in an activity and dialogue with individual

members of the audience through sewing (mending) items of clothing. Performance #2: The Artist is Present: Taking the title of the piece from the performance artist Marina Abramović featured at MoMA (NY) 2010, the artist D Amos plays on the notion of artist necessity in the gallery space. Where as Abramović fabricated encounters between artist and audience in the contemplation of emotive input from the performer (amongst other things), here the artist looks to understand the relationship the gallery has to the artist, and why it has become a relationship via the work placed into the space rather than a direct relationship acknowledgment. D Amos will follow a previously established rout clockwise around the gallery space in silent contemplation from the opening of the gallery to its closing. Posing, through this action, questions of captivity, occupation, willingness and complacency.

D AMOS COUNTER PUBLIC SPHERES, Athens, film still (2011)

COUNTER PUBLIC SPHERES, ATHENS 2011 Observed in Athens Since the dawn of the democratic and politically monitored age, in all societies, those aforementioned bodies who have sought to understand a population—whether it be for the purpose of control, nullification, profit, improvement, destruction, or any other variable of alteration—have faced the mammoth and ceaselessly difficult task of maintaining mass conformity to a restricting definition imposed by others not a part of the defined collective. Unity is not what is being discussed here, unity is something founded by the collective population; the support of a realised ideology. What we see in any political regime is the attempted synchronicity which in fact is only achievable through anarchy. The Athens Biennial has shown a convergence of creative understanding regarding this very human instinct to resist the confirmative notions of political administrated populist definitions. What is seen in evidence is the fundamental and philosophical ideologies of socialism in action. The concern of this project is that there are an infinite number of people who have no means of communication or association with these movements, and so rely on the media for information of these developments. The reservations with this notion of communication via external ‘middle-men’ is that, like the political bodies, media organisations in an attempt to communicate to the masses of other nations, populations and communities will attempt to understand by the definition of actions, people and movements. Here we see how anarchy and socialism can be terms misconstrued in mass communication and translation. Both terms applicable, both philosophically comparable in their distribution of equality, but both carry with them their own historically derived connotations.

RESPONSE What I chose to describe through the development of this project has been this miscommunication of restrictive and presumptuous definitions of groups and populations by their actions. Using the visual representation of a ‘Venn Diagram’[1] I hoped to translate, through the descriptive power of action, the futile effort of restricting populations, which are inseparably compiled of individuals, to hypothetical ‘Spheres’. One notion which was viewed as being empirical within this work is the notion of the Athenian public unwittingly refuting these notions of both action and identity restrictions. The video, though not the actual manifestation of the art work, acts as documentation describing and illustrating the metaphor of classification abolition in action. The movements of the citizens of Athens across the chalkdrawn Venn diagram describes the movements between definitions of Socialists and Anarchists which grass-roots economies have be selectively interpreted and defined by both media and opposing political parties, these are restrictions of definition which all groups have had to contend with when attempting to set up an economic system built by the people for the people. This in turn represents the way which the media and other parties

external from the defined population attempt to restrict individuals in order to 'understand' them. Well done people for resisting against these systems!

[1] Venn Diagram- Diagram describing the relationship between two separate or independently identifiable groups or sets. Identifying the similarities and differences of their relationship or comparison.

HOME AND LAND PISS SPOTS

LUCY SOMERS

Painting in an institution is odd. To paint in an institution hell bent on a critical conceptual purpose to painting is weirder. My Homeland is where my private practice meets a public, to be read, chewed, understood, misunderstood and laughed at. This show is a game of dress-up; to play with ideas of what an introspective practice could say to the world, finding an outfit that could be beautiful and critical at the same time. My personal zone is for investigation into my attachment with the shapes and colours of home. The use and comfort of the "Home" region of the gallery serves as a meeting ground for interaction; to “Land” where the objects meet with an assumption of their status, isolated, out of context, seen as strange. A zone for the critical bones and bodies of the work. Angles that dive into other angles, of spaces created by the balance of rich sweet, dirty soft colours, a light that catches shapes and throws them across the foor, so that they join and intersect your shadow, sat on the sofa. An action to paint something is a cathartic way of observe it. When you look at the painting, do you see the observation or the scene, which dress suits the party, which pick-up line works? I would say…”Come and see” but that would just be naff, just do

PHILIPPA PREECE

THE REMAKES

The contemporary is derived from its traditions, thus the Remake takes the past and creates new meanings and avenues. By considering the work of past artists Philippa Preece reconstructs famous art works, and plays with the slippages that exist between the contemporary and the historic. She questions what it’s like to develop a cultural and engaged art practice in the aftermath of postmodern hybridity. The project questions a number of aspects within current art: What separates an original from a reproduction? Has computer technology changed the definition of a gallery space? What difference has the web made to our perception of art? what is the contemporary role of a curator? By actively involving herself with each of the stages in art production and exhibition, Preece hopes to move closer to an understanding of the mechanics of the current art world. In doing this she hopes to question the validity and authenticity of art production in the age of digital production. The Remakes question the values of reproduction in relation to the original by displaying the two in close proximity. Their separation between rooms, (territories) experiments with the tensions of their aesthetics, forcing us to appreciate them for their differences and how a art object is viewed before entering a gallery.

Preece’s working process also is a relevant aspect of her work. P.P- As a painter I feel it is very important to create a space in which I feel comfortable. I need to feel completely at ease; not only that but I like to shut myself off from the rest of the world, I guess you could say I work in my own territory and develop a homeland’. Her choice of space to work is her parents garage. It is not just the working conditions that form sentiment in her work. The presentation and positioning also become relevant when you consider the relationship her work has with its surrounding environment. The juxtaposition of the traditional guild frame and the unconventional rustic gallery wall gives a jarring sense of contemporary versus historic and questions traditional methods of display. Furthermore by placing the two forms of work in different territories this competition is emphasized. In the Wolstenholme exhibition the Digital photo frames in the ‘Land’ (a dimly lit, impersonal and clinical space) are separated from The Remake paintings in ‘Home’ (a warm and habitable space) by a wall division, but in such a way that if necessary the two can also be viewed as one entity through the doorway. This distal-unity allows the viewer to question the effect of mass reproduction and the alterations that occur during this process.

Preece’s Remake of ‘Whistler’s Mother’ alters the portrayal of a strong, restrained, pious mother to adapt to a contemporary setting. The portrayal of Preece’s mother depicts her as again frail and exhausted, weighed down by contemporary woman’s dual existence of work and family responsibilities. She finds solace in a glass of wine to combat the ennui. Secondly “A Young Man at his Window” exchanges the optimism, open-ness and elegance of the original for an existence decimated by technology-enforced isolation. Finally in her Remake of “A Bar at the Folies Bergere”, Preece substitutes the melancholy and detachment of the original barmaid for the boredom and tedium of a contemporary retail setting.There is a trace of aggression and defensiveness in the expression and body language of the barmaid; perhaps this displays her resignation to her position in life.

Internet It should be mentioned that The Remakes project does not solely exist to explore the reconstruction of art works, but also attempts to address wider issues within the institutions of an art establishment, such as gallery spaces and curation. This is an ongoing project that does not work within the confines of a true gallery space but in fact, online. By using technology to superimpose her own imagery into areas of the Tate, and by adopting an edited version of the Tate logo (Virtually at the Tate) she attempts to regain autonomy of a gallery space. Ironically, the concept was infuenced by ‘Zeichensaal’ (Drafting Room) 1996, a photographic installation piece at Tate Liverpool by Thomas Demand. ‘The status of film and photography as objective documentation is questioned by fabricating the subject, highlighting the way photographic mediation affects the values we give to our experience of the world.’ – TATE Liverpool This is fundamentally what the ‘Virtually at the Tate’ website aims to achieve through the manifestation of the World Wide Web. Overall Preece aims to question the mechanics of the art world, the traditional versus the contemporary. Her work up to this point forms an initial statement about her view of the two branches of the art world. She aims to convey a message about the differences between the traditional and the digital. There is no intended critique of either medium. They should be recognized for their individuality and embraced for their differences.

'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère' Remake (Originally by Édouard Manet) at TATE Liverpool

2012

'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère' Remake (Originally by Édouard Manet) 2011 oil on canvas

JUSTYNA CZASNOWICZ

My choice of works for Homeland was very much inspired by the Wolstenholme Creative Space building, which although situated near by the dynamic and modern city centre holds memories of the past. Amid the crumbled walls one can find a weaving loom, or a very aged church bench.With the installation Windowsill, I'm bringing the private space of my memory into the building using photographs taken in Poland and in various spaces that I visited during my travels.Because Homeland is the territory that I know. Growing up in Post Communist Poland with the omnipresence of the Catholic Church, then travelling, and studying art has provided me with a source of imagery that still echoes in my snapshots of a daily life. I find elements of Byzantine Iconography or Russian Constructivism in one bathroom, surrealist fragmentation of the female body in another, and reminiscent of cubist deconstruction in my neighbour's broken sink. For the Windowsill I worked with the images of those visions, and used the materiality of the photographs to transform them into playful and kitschy objects, where the meanings are created by the presentation of the images, materials and the process, which brings together the handmade and the machine made, the domestic craft, and the products of new technologies.

This is also a exhibition about a painters practise and what it means to turn it upside down in a art world where painting seems so pre-defined. This is questioning what it is like to curate a show with a painters philosophy and understanding of visual art work. Lets hotbed antipainting theory. Lets hotbed pro-painting theory. Painting has infuenced setting up this show heavily.

One of the key elements about painting over the last thirty years is its movement within the expansion of gallery space. This has in turn infuenced painters work in architectural and social ways. As Jean Baudrillard (2006) questions in Mass Identity Architecture:

'And here i'd like to know, as part of this question of context, what happens to social and political data, to everything that can constrain things, when architecture is tempted to become the expression, or even the sociological or political transformer, of a social reality, which is an illusion – in the negative sense of the term.' (Baudrillard, p. 24) Painters are now able to re-kindle a relationship between literature and the visual image in critical ways. This has lead to areas of practice where painters can create independent publications or catalogues. Photography and paintings coexistence has enabled us to think more conceptually about the use of imagery today where imagery has become more sophisticated with the use of technology. Paintings involvement in performance and film has enriched its lifespan as a practice but also in what it means to exhibit work. With semi-fresh ways of working, exploring visual formats for showing work -i.e websites or PDF publications can now enhance viewer’s interest in the arts. However this also informs other artists around the world of what's happening today in all different areas and how this can inform their practice.

Excerpt from the New Painting (1876) by Edmond Duranty: Here they are then, these artists who exhibit in the Durand-Ruel Gallery, linked to those who precede or accompany them. They are no longer isolated. One must not consider them as thrown upon their own devices. I have, therefore, less in view the present exhibition than the cause and the idea. What do they produce? What does the movement produce? And, consequently, what do these artists produce, wrestling with tradition body-to-body, admiring it and wanting to destroy it at the same time, realizing that it is great and powerful, and for that very reason attacking it? Why then should we be interested in them? Why do we then forgive them for too often producing (though not out of laziness) nothing but sketches and abbreviated summaries? It is really because it is a great surprise in a period like this one, when it seemed that there was no longer anything left to discover, when preceding periods had been analysed so much, when we seem stifed beneath the mass and weight of the creations of past centuries, to see new ideas suddenly spring up, a special creation. A young branch has developed on the old tree trunk of art. Will it cover itself with leaves, fowers, and fruits? Will it extend its shade over future generations? I hope so.

EDITORS ROSE PARISH CONTRIBUTORS LUCY WESTALL MATT WEIR JUSTYNA CZASNOWICZ LUCY SOMERS COLETTE LILLEY CHERIE GRIST DAVE WHITELEY PHILIPPA PREECE BIG THANKS TO BRIAN HACKNEY, MIKE AIKEN, PRIYA AND CAROLINE (DIRECTORS OF WOLSTENHOLME) ANNA MULHEARN, THE ELECTRIC VALVES & REPULSIVE RAPTURE FOR PLAYING AT THE OPENING NIGHT AND EVERYONE IN THE HOMELAND EXHIBTION FOR WORKING INCREDIBLY HARD

contact: r.parish@ymail.com

http://www.wolstenholmecreativespace.com info@wolstenholmecreativespace.com

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