Tuesday 2 October 2007

Second Nature


Second Nature, Vitreous Gallery and Cathedral Truro sept/oct







http://www.vitreous.biz/gallery/vitreous_contemporary_art.php


Berlin, Trier, Port Bau, (Geburt und Tod) 2007. By Andy Whall



'Illuminations" by Delpha Hudson 2007





'walking a tortoise'

Monday 1 October 2007

Times newspaper article

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article2387214.ece

Live Art Falmouth LAF June 2007

details to follow

handbag readings, TRUCK festival Sept 2007


Handbag Readings, performance at Fete Encounter, TRUCK festival, September 2007 Delpha Hudson Adopting the character of failed palm reader Madame Marina Sac-a-mano, Delpha will 'read' the handbags (or for those without this essential item, the contents of pockets...). What can the objects that we choose to carry about with us, tell us about ourselves, our present, our past, even our future....? Sac-a-mano is an extreme, fictitious caricature of a charlatan, gypsy seer. Sac-a-mano is a parody and slips between reality and fiction as the 'act' is at best amateur. The intentional slippage between the character and the artist, plays with performativity, theatricality, and live art. Whilst intentionally humorous, dealing with peoples' things is a delicate, and private transaction. Publicly exploring what people own, why, and what it might say about them, has currency with a body of work in which I explore the relationship between people and things. What do the objects we choose, and value say about us? What are the deeper psychological meanings and messages about 'our' objects? Are they transitional, comforting, do they constitute who and what we are?

Bait seminar

Women's work

A BAIT seminar at Hayle Town Hall

Reflections by Rebecca Weeks

Delpha Hudson introduced the third of the BAIT lectures by explaining that the event was a response to the exciting ‘Women in the front room project’ at the Salt Gallery in Hayle, where in recent months the installation room has been dedicated to showing five female artist's works.

Delpha welcomed artist Fran Cottell as the main speaker, and Judy Clark as invited guest, and outlined some initial questions......... for a full description of the seminar click on link http://art-cornwall.rupertwhite.co.uk/feature%20rebecca%20weeks%20fran%20cottell%20Judy%20Clark.htm

Miss-Readings, site-specific performance, Barbara Hepworth Museum, St Ives, as part of Tate St Ives 'Art Cornwall Now', February 2007


Playing with the expectations and context of the historically and politically correct museum tour, an alternative tour was created that responded to the contradictions and tensions in Dame Barbara Hepworth's life, spaces and oeuvre. As a critical intervention that contrasts and strip away the layers of public expectation and preciousness about museum spaces, this performance tour has the intention of bringing the space to life and contemplating different ideas about Dame Barbara's achievement; in spite of being female and mother, in spite of being an 'established revolutionary', in spite of male friends and critics who purportedly helped her. Playing around with the persona and performance of the 'guide', in a personal and textual exchange, intended to be banal, esoteric, slightly irreverent and absurd, Miss -Readings re-interprets place, engaging the public in new dialogues and possibilities for site and history.

for a video clip of performance http://art-cornwall.rupertwhite.co.uk/exhibition%20index.htm

Art Now Cornwall, Tate Gallery St Ives

Photo]images from Coney Beach, Porthcawl, South Wales.

Andy And Delpha were both in this show. Andy's DVD was shot initially for this show.
http://www.site-ations.co.uk/senseinplace/index.cfm

[ The begining of a documented journey.
[Photo] The video was shot in Cornwall as part of material for a collaborative project with Dr Chris Short from UWIC. The origin of the work caused some trouble for the director Susan Mcellroy Daniels when I wanted the source and co authorship of the work credited in the catalogue. Eventually we agreed on a credit in the back of the catalogue but not on my page! All in all it was a strange show. personally I felt it would have been stronger and more challenging to have focused on the media, performance and installation. see http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/exhibitions/artnowcornwall/artistinfo.shtm http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/exhibitions/artnowcornwall/artistinfo.shtm http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A19884883 http://www.artcornwall.org/feature%20TobyWeller.htm (private view photo's)

The St Ives School; 1997-2007 Howard Gardens Gallery Cardiff






6 artists of from St Ives have been invited to show at the Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff in January and February of 2007. The curator, artist and writer Chris Short explains why he chose to refer to the idea of ‘the School’ in the exhibition title, and what relevance the word has for St Ives art now.


The St Ives School: 1997-2007

Dr Chris Short



Why the claim to group identity, to a “School”? Indeed, use of the word School in the title of the exhibition may seem something of an anachronism. The kind of formal, ideological and social unities that could have been construed as constituting a School in the 19th and 20th Centuries tend not to occur in the art world today. Critics and historians are more cautious about categorising such unities, justifiably concerned that their identification speaks more of the writer’s values - and even prejudices - than the truth of the artists and artworks about which they are writing.

Use of the word School here has two primary functions, the first negative and critical, the second more positive and constructive. First, the claim to the title “The St Ives School” is intended to confront. It is my contention that the importance of art being produced in and around St Ives began to fall into decline after about 1965. That art had been formally and (to some extent) ideologically challenging, and held a position of importance in the international art world. Since then, the importance of St Ives modernism as a historical movement has increased - largely as a result of Tate St Ives - and the importance of art produced in and around the town may be seen to have decreased, becoming for the most part, little more than a commodity and an object of and for tourism. The significant exception to this is the work that the exhibited artists have been producing over the last decade or more. Thus, the resuscitation of the title indicates a resurgence of important art in and around the town, and it operates to exclude and hence critique the commercial, ersatz culture that has grown to service and exploit the town’s tourist trade. The art on display in this exhibition, in its commitment to fundamental and real problems of art - that is, problems that have been addressed consistently by significant artists both in St Ives and beyond - is the rightful heir to the title “The St Ives School.”

Second, the concept “School” in many ways accurately describes the group exhibited. The English word derives from the Greek “schole”, which meant leisure, as in a place or time of leisure. According to Raymond Williams, the word “passed from meaning ‘leisure’ to the ‘employment of leisure in disputation’ and from that to both the institutional meaning and the more general description of a tendency.”[1] Each of the exhibited artists is professionally occupied as such in St Ives, and making a living as an artist is, for most, far from a leisurely activity. Nonetheless, the notion of leisure, and particularly the employment of leisure in disputation, is central to the group. Largely through shared social and leisure activities - whether a gathering in a local public house, a surf trip or a voyage in a tall sailing ship - the various positions on art held by each member of the group have been repeatedly brought together in both contestation and agreement. Over a decade or more, such discourse has led to mutual understandings, shared projects and common perspectives in relation to the visual culture and the art (modernist and contemporary) in St Ives and beyond.



From these two primary functions of the concept “School”, then, a series of characteristics of importance to the group identity can be isolated. First, geographical proximity of the artists, and a sense of place (whether established positively or negatively) that centres around a particular location and particular activities; second, continuity with art produced in and around St Ives through the modern period until the mid-1960s, whose purpose as art was to address questions about the fundamental condition of art; third, opposition to the kind of visual artefacts produced in the town that exploit and simulate the formal appearance of art to essentially financial ends; fourth, a social and intellectual grouping of continuity and dispute. These characteristics combine to support the cultural formation that this exhibition proposes. I look forward to seeing how the group develops, and where the title “The St Ives School” leads in the next decade.



The participating artists are:

Sam Hall, Andy Hughes (pictured 3rd from top), Richard Nott (pictured 2nd from top) Sax Impey (pictured bottom), Graham Gaunt, Andy Whall (pictured top)



[1] Raymond Williams, Culture, Fontana Paperbacks, 1981, p.63.



CS December 16th 2006

Wheal Art Weekend, Wheal Frances mine July 2006

The performance was called 'arsenic licker'


http://www.level2art.co.uk/html/archive.htm
http://art-cornwall.rupertwhite.co.uk/exhibitionswhealart.htm I did a rather strange performance for this project, a bit of a mix and match and a chance to experiment a little.

'Tract' 2006 Press

Although the project itself attracted no local press. Frank Rurhmund wasn't interested even after having a chat with James Green, gallery director. No suprises there then! However the national and then international press got hold of the story and it literally went global. The tract website http://www.tract-liveart.co.uk/ had over 8,000 visits in less than two hours on the night of Kira's performance. We had threats from animal rights acitivists and had to put ion place an extensive risk assessment that took into account attacks, firebombs, riot etc. It was also the first perfromance that I'd been involved in where we hired two undecover security guards.

The first link is a fairly typical story from the Daily Mail, otheres followed with varying degrees of distortion and untruths. Google (Kira O reilly Newlyn) and you will see the full extent of the coverage.

Local and radio 2 also paid the story a lot of attention.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401165&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source