Upcoming
Jordan Baseman, A Different Kind of Different, premiering in January 2021
A Different Kind of Different, an animated short film by Jordan Baseman, charts the psychological impact of breast cancer. Reflecting on the initial ordeal of loss, the film reveals a journey to acceptance via the liberation of mastectomy tattoos – “holy fucking crap!”
The film will launch in early 2021 with three free online events on 14, 21 & 28 January, 7pm. Exploring trauma, consent, agency, and ownership of bodies, the online event series invites artists, writers, scientists and breast cancer specialists to respond to aspects of the film that relate to their practice or field of interest.
LIVING WITH TRAUMA
Thursday 14 January 2021, 7-8.30pm (GMT)
Speakers include medical tattoo pioneer Mary Jane Haake; writer, editor and curator Anna McNay; artist Jade Montserrat; writer for performance, page and video Sally O’Reilly; and artist Jordan Baseman. Talks will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the artist, Jordan Baseman, moderated by Clare Barlow, Curator of Exhibitions at Science Gallery, London.
CONTROL/ CONSENT/ AGENCY
Thursday 21 January 2021, 7-8.30pm (GMT)
Speakers include Fiona MacNeill, an accomplished consultant breast surgeon who specialises in reconstructive and oncoplastic surgery; artist Lindsay Seers; John Troyer, Director of the Centre for Death and Society; and curator, educator and writer George Vasey. Presentations drawing on the speakers’ specialisms will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the artist, moderated by curator and writer Jes Fernie.
RECLAIMING THE BODY
Thursday 28 January 2021, 7-8.30pm (GMT)
Speakers include internationally acclaimed artist and filmmaker Mania Akbari; European tattoo historian Dr Gemma Angel; and Anees Chagpar, Professor of Surgery (Oncology) at Yale School of Medicine. Presentations will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the artist, moderated by art historian, writer and curator Gemma Blackshaw.
Watch the trailer and book at kindofdifferent.org
MattFlix
Melanie Jackson, spekyng rybawdy, until 5.59pm 18 December 2020
Melanie Jackson, spekyng rybawdy, 2020. Still from video, Duration: 4:14. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Our monthly MattFlix programme continues with Melanie Jackson’s spekyng rybawdy, a new video created for MattFlix, accompanied by a book which will be published by Procreate Project this November.
Spekyng Rybawdy
eMED s.v. “ribaudi” (n.), (b): “obscenity, scurrility, bawdry; coarse speech; an obscene story”;
DMLBS s.v. “turpiloquium” (n.): “foul or offensive speech.”
The video and book draw inspiration from obscene and provocative medieval pilgrim badges – small cast pewter or tin or lead alloy brooches often discovered in the banks and the beds of its rivers. They are exquisite, rough hewn and lively sculpted reliefs. A group of these – of which little was written or acknowledged but many made and found – are known as the bawdy badges, or the secular badges, sexual badges, or the erotic pins. These badges delight in hybridity – an extravagant imaginary of social and sexual reproduction.
Ben Rivers, Look Then Below, 6pm 18 December – 5.59pm 15 January 2021
Ben Rivers, Look Then Below, 2019. Still from video, duration 22:30. Courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London.
Ben Rivers’ Look Then Below will feature on MattFlix from 6pm 18 December. The work moves through an eerie, smoke-filled landscape, conjuring up futuristic beings from the depths of the earth.
The short film was shot in the vast, dark passages of Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset. This netherworld of chambers, carved out over deep time, once held remnants of lost civilisations. Now, they map a future subterranean world occupied by a species evolved from our present, environmentally challenged existence.
Look Then Below is part three of a trilogy of speculative films, with text written by Mark von Schlegell.
Sally O’Reilly, 6pm 15 January – 5:59pm 19 February 2021
Sally O’Reilly, Fantastic Engine, 2012. 16mm film, 30” loop; part of Lucy Reynolds’ Anthology. Courtesy of the artist.
Next up on MattFlix is a season of Sally O’Reilly’s video and sound works, taking place over five consecutive weeks.
Artists’ News
Jordan Baseman, NEW SHORTS: Screen on Screen, London Short Film Festival 2021, 16 January 2021
Jordan Baseman, GLF LSD, 2020 (film still). Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery.
Jordan Baseman’s 2020 film work GLF LSD will show as part of the 2021 London Short Film Festival as part of the series NEW SHORTS: Screen on Screen, an offering of visual experiments and moving images. From intimate meditations on nature’s healing and drug-induced becoming, to radical deconstructions of cinema, language and architecture, this programme showcases film’s potential to both abstract and interpret a chaotic world.
The work is narrated by Alan Wakeman, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front, discussing the connection between the GLF and LSD as an essential part of becoming.
Willie Doherty, Unapproved Road II, 1995. Courtesy of the artist; Alexander and Bonin, New York; Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich; Matt’s Gallery, London; and Galeria Moises Perez de Albeniz, Madrid.
Fondazione Modena Arti Visive presents Where / Dove, the first solo exhibition by Northern Irish artist Willie Doherty in an Italian institution , which will be held at Palazzina dei Giardini, FMAV from 7 November 2020 to 31 January 2021.
Where / Dove centres around the notion of the border; with the aim of inducing the viewer to question their own beliefs about its value and meaning, revealing its complexity and its numerous political, social and psychological implications.
Benedict Drew, Towner International, Towner Eastbourne, Until 11 April 2021
Benedict Drew, The Bad Feel Loops, 2019, installation view. Image courtesy Science Gallery London, credit George Torode.
Now extended until 11 April 2021. Benedict Drew was one of 24 artists selected to participate in the inaugural Towner International, a new biennial exhibition of contemporary art at Towner Eastbourne. The selection panel included Polly Staple (Director of Collection, British Art, Tate), Turner Prize-nominated artist Mike Nelson, and Noelle Collins (Exhibitions & Offsite Curator, Towner Eastbourne).
Artists include: Adam Chodzko, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Alexi Marshall, Arpita Shah, Ayo Akingbade, Benedict Drew, Carla Wright, Ian Land, Jack Shearing, Joe Packer, Jonathan Baldock, Julia Crabtree and William Evans, Maeve Brennan, Marianne Fahmy, Mohammed Sami, Mu-Tien Tammy Ho, Omar Vega Macotela, Paul Becker, Rita Evans, Ryan Orme, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Sherko Abbas, Stuart Middleton.
On show is Drew’s video installation The Bad Feel Loops, which was commissioned by and first exhibited at Science Gallery London in 2020. The Bad Feel Loops uses the language of noise – feedback, rhythm and repetition – to invoke the feeling of anxiety, and invites the viewer to stay with the difficult feeling until it becomes an almost ecstatic experience. You can listen to the soundtrack for The Bad Feel Loops here.
Benedict Drew, Visions in the Nunnery 2020 | Programme 3, The Nunnery, London, 15 December – 17 January 2021
Benedict Drew, A Tuning, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Now extended until 17 January 2021. Benedict Drew is the lead artist for Visions in the Nunnery 2020 | Programme 3. Programme 3 is an ethereal exploration into fantasy and fiction, with artists drawing on music, 16mm film, poetry, ritual and nature to make sense of our current moment in time.
For Visions in the Nunnery, Drew will be showing a new single-screen work in which he tunes into vibrations and waves of energy from celestial objects, thinking about how to improvise with others through telepathy in the shadow of catastrophe. As with many of his works, the visual will transform itself through music, giving itself over to the transformative effect of sound.
Selected by Benedict Drew, Tessa Garland, Sophie Hill and Kamila Kuche, the internationally-based artists participating in Programme 3 are: Tommy Becker, Arianne Churchman, Caryn Cline, Anita Delaney, Karel Doing, Richard Forbes-Hamilton, William Glass, Zewiditu Jewel and Lucy Cordes Engelman, Jess Johnson, Luke McCreadie, Stuart Moore, Yuri Muraoka, Reed O’Beirne, Caryn Cline and Linda Fenstermaker, Lou Lou Sainsbury, Chiemi Shimada, Holly Slingsby, Vicky Smith, Lara Smithson, Amy Steel, Emily Whitebread, Ruby Wroe, Daniela Zahlner. More info here.
Benedict Drew, Bad Bad World Run by Bad Bad Men, The Bower – Box of Delights
Benedict Drew, Bad Bad World Run by Bad Bad Men, 2020. Three colour risograph. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Bad Bad World Run by Bad Bad Men, a new three-colour Risograph print by Benedict Drew, is available to purchase at the Bower’s annual fundraiser, The Bower – Box of Delights.
All funds raised through sales in the shop will go directly towards The Bower’s programming and reopening in 2021. This year’s edition of Box of Delights takes place on the Bower’s online shop.
Sholto Dobie, Nevery, Thanet Tape Centre (artwork by Benedict Drew)
Sholto Dobie, Nevery, released by Thanet Tape Centre, 4 December 2020. Album artwork by Benedict Drew.
Benedict Drew’s label, Thanet Tape Centre, present a new set of works by London-based artist and performer Sholto Dobie. Nevery is made using a hand built table organ, hurdy gurdy & field recordings. Recorded and mixed in Druskininkai, Lithuania, November 2020. Mastered by John Hannon (no recording). Album artwork by Benedict Drew.
Listen and pay what you want here.
Jimmie Durham, My name is not Refugee, Firstsite, 3 December – 21 February 2021
Jimmie Durham, Our House, 2007. Dry point on copper plate. Courtesy the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Our House by Jimmie Durham is currently on display as part of My name is not Refugee at Firstsite, Colchester. Consisting of artworks from the Arts Council Collection chosen by a group of asylum seekers and refugees local to the gallery in collaboration with Refugee Action Colchester and Firstsite staff, the exhibition invites viewers to discover a new view of life in Britain.
Also featuring artists Jananne Al-Ani, Peter Doig, Mona Hatoum, David Shrigley and Rachel Whiteread and more, My name is not Refugee gathers artworks which inspire different ways of thinking.
Our House is part of Matt’s Gallery’s E3 4RR print portfolio.
Graham Fagen, 36th Annual Open Exhibition, Southwark Park Galleries, London, until 31 January 2021
Graham Fagen, Lockdown Rainbow (21), 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Graham Fagen’s Lockdown Rainbow (21) is showing in Southwark Park Galleries’ 36th Annual Open Exhibition. This year the Open has gone digital, and the always-low submission fees have been waived to encourage as many artists living and working in the UK to show their work and raise some much needed income before the holidays.
What began as a local cultural phenomenon has now become a vast national manifesto of a show. Work of all mediums is included by artists from all four corners of the UK including Scotland, Hull, Liverpool and London.
Graham Fagen, New Symphony of Time, Mississippi Museum of Art, Mississippi, USA, Until September 2021
Graham Fagen, The Slave’s Lament, 2015, video still. Image courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
New Symphony of Time expands the boundaries of Mississippi’s identity, casting light on a shared past to help reflect an expansive, more inclusive future. This ongoing exhibition features a single screen version of Graham Fagen’s, Slave’s Lament amongst other contemporary pieces such as Benny Andrews’ Mississippi River Bank and Jeffrey Gibson’s Sharecropper, pieced quilts, historical paintings, and self-taught artwork, which provide an alternate lens from which to consider the significant creative contributions of the state of Mississippi and its place as part of a broader, American narrative.
Lucy Gunning, Outfaced, Centre Pompidou Málaga, until 11 April 2021
Lucy Gunning, The Horse Impressionists, 1994. Still from video, duration 7:24. Courtesy of the artist, Greene Naftali, New York and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Lucy Gunning’s The Horse Impressionists features in Outfaced: Confronting the Portrait, Photography and Video, 1972-2011 at Centre Pompidou Málaga. The short film, originally shot on Super 8 film and transferred to VHS, comprises footage of five women – Lou Birks, Rachel Ind, Penelope McGhie, Tansy Edgerton and Marie (surname not revealed) – doing impressions of horses.
Portraits are part of the founding myths of images. As both a memory aid and instrument of social representation, this discreet genre has figured among the major challenges in photography from the very beginning, before it became an essential part of identity documents in the course of the 20th century. Covering the last fifty years, Outfaced focuses on the recent history of this practice, as artists have envisaged and reinvented it in the face of the increasing dominance of a controlling society and mass media.
Lucy Gunning, Not I and The Bower Sun, The Bower – Box of Delights
Lucy Gunning, Not I, 2019. Risograph print. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Along with Benedict Drew, Lucy Gunning has also donated works to The Bower – Box of Delights, including the Risograph print Not I (a still from Lucy Gunning’s exhibition ‘My Heart is like a Singing Bird’ at The Bower in 2018). Also available is a unique work from the same exhibition, The Bower Sun.
All funds raised through sales in the shop will go directly towards The Bower’s programming and reopening in 2021. This year’s edition of Box of Delights takes place on the Bower’s online shop.
David Osbaldeston, The White Columns Curated Artist Registry
David Osbaldeston, Somewhere Between My Finger and Thumb (The Book of Lies), 2020. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
David Osbaldeston’s work now features on the White Columns Curated Artist Registry, an online catalog of digital images documenting the work of artists who are not affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
David Osbaldeston, The Serving Library Collection, 019 Gallery, Ghent
David Osbaldeston, The Variable: Translator, 2018. Half-tone digital print on Somerset paper, 102 x 71 cm. Photography by Michiel de Cleene. Courtesy of the artist and Matt’s Gallery, London.
David Osbaldeston’s work can be seen in a long term exhibition of The Serving Library Collection, which is on semi-permanent display at 019 Gallery, Ghent until late 2021.
A number of works by Osbaldeston will be shown in the collection, including Another Shadow Fight, a series of woodcuts from 2008 and more recently The Variable: Translator from his 2018 exhibition at Bonington Gallery. The collection houses over 100 works and objects, and includes artists Janice Kerbel, Ryan Gander, Frances Starck, Richard Hamilton, Chris Evans, Sanya Kantarovsky and many more. Click here for more information about The Serving Library Collection.
The Serving Library Annual 20/21 is published by Roma and functions as a catalogue for the collection’s semi-permanent display. Click here to read more and buy.
Lindsay Seers and Keith Sargent, Nowhere Less Now³ [flying saucer], Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, until 26 December 2020
Lindsay Seers and Keith Sargent, Nowhere Less Now3 [flying saucer], 2020. Installation view: Sharjah Art Foundation. Commissioned and produced by Artangel, London, Sharjah Art Foundation and the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania. Courtesy of the artists and Matt’s Gallery, London.
Nowhere Less Now³ [flying saucer] is an episodic work that addresses the dark legacy of British colonialism and Lindsay Seers’ journey through history in search of (the) truth. Presented in cycles, it is conceptually structured around Henri Bergson’s philosophy of memory. Seers builds on Bergson’s complex proposition of ‘intuition as practice’ to develop a specific method for the act of filming. Formed from his three fundamental propositions for asking the right creative question, her method is based on reenactment and evocations that are created to reveal qualitative relationships between things. These connections, which may be conceptual, historical or visual, emerge as she travels to relevant locations. The resulting installation has a multitude of narrative streams and a collage of imagery as time (past, present, future) is compacted.
The iteration of this work currently on show at Sharjah Art Foundation, Nowhere Less Now³ [flying saucer] , significantly differs from the previous episodes in that it is embedded in a building of Googie architecture. The futuristic structure from the mid-1970s, formerly situated next to a British military encampment and acquired by Sharjah Art Foundation in 2015, is known as the Flying Saucer because of its shape. Basing her work on the Gulf Weekly Mirror’s 1978 report about a flying saucer hovering over Dubai, Seers uses the architectural elements of the building to narrate an alien tourist’s landing and its fascination with the forces impelling humans to move to a pulse, a rhythm. The alien attempts to understand something about life on Earth from geometry, gestures and movements. All the while, we are left to question whether we can find a way to move beyond language to nuanced deep thought that transcends cultural and biological stereotyping and reorders time as nonlinear—where the present is immanent and not defined by the past and the future.
Lindsay Seers & Keith Sargent, D02.2, Plicnik Space Initiative, until 15 October 2021
Lindsay Seers & Keith Sargent, Anomaly 4, 2020. Still from video, duration 18:34. Courtesy of the artists and Matt’s Gallery.
As we transition into an online era, Plicnik Space Initiative proposes to test dissonances between physical and virtual spaces. Launched as an open call in June 2020, the project invited artists to propose works to be shown aboard the D02.2 spacecraft with the aim to test ways in which participants would interact with both illusionary spatial constraints and how they would respond to distinct spatial narratives.
For D02.2, Lindsay Seers and Keith Sargent present Anomaly 4. Anomaly 4 does not really want to be explained by an elucidating text; it wants to rest in the medium that shapes it. It does not follow a convention of story telling that governs theatre/cinema. What it does follow is a freewheeling set of associations and the vagaries of our interpretations of events. As a construct it wants to be like consciousness might really be … fragmented, discontinuous, oscillating, driven to constructing false cause and effect narratives from endless occurrences that ultimately have no clear singular causal relation.
Lindsay Seers and Keith Sargent, Recent Awards Success
We are delighted to announce that two works by Lindsay Seers and Keith Sargent have been selected for several film festivals, details of which can be found below:
S/He is still inside you²
Official selection, London Rocks Film Festival, 2020
care(less)2
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