Mark Sealy, Director of Autograph

Visited Autograph for a meeting with Mark Sealy (Autograph Director), Ajamu (artist and curator) and Deborah Cherry (writer and academic) regarding a partnership project focusing on the work and legacy of Maud Sulter. Maud was a Glaswegian artist, writer, playwright and culture historian who was active around feminist communities in London in the early 1980s, and a life long advocate of black women’s creativity. Amongst a prolific body of work, she has used a variety of conventions from portraiture to question ‘national’ heritage and the history of colonialism. The project is being developed by Ajamu and Deborah through Street Level and Autograph, and it is hoped other institutions will be brought in to the project as partners in the exhibition in 2014. It will be a fantastic opportunity to revisit and re-present some of Maud’s key works and celebrate her photographic projects. Other partner institutions are hoped to be involved.

Born in 1960, Maud died in 2008 after a long illness. The Herald printed an obituary of Maud on 22 March 2008 (cant track down who wrote it!) which helps cover some of the key bodies of Maud’s work:

“Notable works by Sulter include Zabat (1987; London, V&A), a series of Cibachrome photographic portraits of contemporary black artists, musicians and writers, posed as a theatre of ancient muses; Syrcas (1994; Wrexham and Portfolio Gallery, Edinburgh), a set of montages and texts linking the horrors of African slavery with the European persecution of minorities in the 1930s and 1940s; Jeanne Duval: a melodrama (2003; Scottish National Portrait Gallery). This last was a series of self-portraits as Baudelaire’s muse, Jeanne Duval, recovering an almost invisible presence in a way that only Sulter could have carried off, with her beauty, sensuality, confidence and ability to dramatise a situation.

She was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to photograph several children’s writers, and used a special Polaroid machine which produced 20″ x 24″ photographs. This was also the medium for a series of portraits she made of Scottish cultural figures in the summer of 2002, and 10 of her portraits of writers were toured round Scotland by the Scottish Poetry Library in 2003-4.

Glasgow acquired the splendid portrait of Edwin Morgan from this series.

As well as her academic writing, she published several collections of poetry: As a Blackwoman (1985), which won the Vera Bell Prize for poetry that year; Zabat (1989); and Sekhmet (Dumfries & Galloway Council, 2005); and a play about Jerry Rawlings, Service to Empire (2002). “I often address issues of lost and disputed territories, both psychological and physical,” she wrote in 1994. “The central body of my poetic work is unequivocally the love poetry which is addressed to both genders.” Sekhmet begins with a roll-call of love and gratitude to friends, lovers, family across the world, to medics, and to the ancestors, “who walked beside me when I needed them most and carried me forward when the terrain was too rough but never absolve me of the responsibility for my own life and identity”.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/maud-sulter-1.877045

Knowle West Media Centre is an exemplar organisation negotiating the complex intersection of community, art and social/ economic regeneration. Knowle West (an estate of 6,500 households) is an area of Bristol, which, according to KWMC’s Annual Report, faces high poverty, unemployment, poor mental and physical health and educational under-achievement. KWMC began in 1997 as a temporary photography project and has since developed to become nationally recognised; personally, I felt one of its strengths lies in employing some of its staff from the area, deepening the sense of engagement and understanding of the local context.

KWMC is now housed in an award winning, purpose built centre designed by local young people. KMWC’s team involved the community as much as possible during the planning process in order that they didn’t become isolated by the changes; with a new, larger- scale building on the community’s doorstep, they wanted to avoid the perception that the centre was ‘no longer for them’.  The building, made with eco-friendly materials, is a huge asset to the terrific work of the centre: with extensive space and production facilities for exhibitions, video, sound and learning.

We had the opportunity to meet a number of staff members who gave their time to explain the operational/artistic arrangements at KWMC. There is a vast range of work being carried out, and it is obvious that as well as delivering a very strong education and arts programme they also have an enterprising spirit, which reflects the history of the centre. Only recently it was announced that KWMC would become an Arts Council England portfolio organisation, highlighting that KWMC has been very proactive in identifying ways of earning income. They have been sustaining themselves since the outset, adding to project grants through office space hire, doing web/ graphic design, consultancy work and workshops/ courses for schools.

Carolyn Hassan, the centre’s Director, told us about the new 6-month training programme for staff, named Somewhere Else. Born out of supporting the transition to an ACE portfolio organisation, it was deemed necessary that staff felt confident in the language and debates associated with the arts. With many staff not coming from a ‘traditional’ arts background it was decided that a bespoke series of talks and discussions was needed to promote confidence within the team. The programme will also lead towards the creation of a 3-year arts strategy; gathering input from across the organisation, as they feel a non-hierarchical approach is particularly important to KWMC.

The diverse arts and education programme at KWMC is very interesting. One of their obvious strengths is the wide variety of partners they have developed, including with Arnolfini, Watershed and Pervasive Media Studios, University of Bristol and also the University of West of England; alongside Local Authority, regional and community organisations. While we were at KWMC various members of staff told us about the youth programme, the recording studio, exhibitions, Green and Digital Neighbourhoods- a programme promoting the social, economic and environmental benefits of digital technology; Whose Data?- a project exploring new and innovative ways in which ‘live’ data can be represented to benefit local people; as well their recent project with internationally renowned artist Suzanne Lacy known for her exploration of social and urban issues .

There was some obvious links with Street Level’s Red Road Community Studio; (include live link -

http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/programme/educationandcollab/rrcs/redroadstudio.html)

as well as similar challenges in how you move between notions of activism, ‘high-art’, socially engaged practice, community cohesion and regeneration agendas. These challenges are also evident within the funding frameworks, especially as both KWMC and RRCS work across sectors, i.e. both within an arts and community context straddling the myriad of aims and objectives their funders require to be fulfilled. KWMC made the point that learning the language of the different sectors is ongoing and can make monitoring, evaluating and reporting complex. Interestingly, they have recently spent a great deal of time developing a project management system that will help them more expediently assess their core indicators of success.

Lucy Keany

ICP window - Stan Douglas

Interpreting the power and evolution of photography, the ICP is a museum and school dedicated to the understanding and appreciation of photography which it does through exhibitions, collections, and education in vocational, degree and post-graduate studies – thousands of students pass through here every year. It was founded in 1974 by Cornell Capa (1918–2008), as an institution to keep the legacy of “Concerned Photography” alive.

It has 6000 square feet of space including galleries, offices, education, library, collection and facilities. Their bookshop is probably the best photography bookshop in the States. The facilities we saw included a darkroom with 15 enlargers plus private darkrooms and 4 digital suites – the demand is huge apparently. They also have an analogue colour printer – use of this however is shrinking and it is likely this will disappear. Three staff members look after this facility (includes equipment hire also). There are 6 staff responsible for exhibitions and 6 for the collections alone. We met with Christopher Phillips who showed us all the facilities, including their collection and archive – this includes 100,000 images, including the collection of social documentary photographers Robert Capa (yes, Cornell’s brother) and Cartier Bresson. The entire collection of Weegee was bequeathed to ICP by his wife at a time when he was not very fashionable – now however this is a big source of income for ICP. He shows us Capa’s contact prints from the Paris Liberation with markings and highlights by the photographer, illustrating something of the editing process in the artists mind.

The early Magnum photographers were big donators of money, and are therefore represented very well in the collection. They also collect period magazines in which photographers work was originally shown. These artifacts are often of more interest to photography historians than the work itself. In previous decades Christopher would be able to pick up these magazines in Parisian second-hand bookshops, but now they are something of a rarity, and expensive too.

When Christopher joined ICP in 2000, they had no records of their archive, no inventory and no index card. Six years ago they received funding to undertake an online archive and we met with the digital archivist who is using The Museum System database which all the museums in the US are using. Coincidentally he was working on a contact sheet of Capa’s, and scanning in VU and Regards magazines from the 1920s. This is an endless yet fruitful job. There is page for each artist, and links are embedded from the magazines to the relevant artists. They are also collecting audio and moving image that relate to the photographers – we hear of Weegee talking about his photograph of Sreigelitz. In their framing room, one of the 3 framers is working on Weegee’s famous photograph of Coney Island. Many works in their collection is lent out – the Coney Island image for example if being sent to Paris Photo, and this helps promote the collection and the institution abroad – France and Spain are the two main countires they deal with but very little contact with the countries of the UK.

In their exhibiton space, there is a major show by Peter Sekaer, a Danish photographer who resided in New York in the 20’s and 30’s – a friend of Walker Evans, the stark black and white prints illustrate depression era America. A couple of quotes by Sekaer chime with ICP’s mission to preserve and spread concern for humanity, as expressed through photography – ‘ Photography intelligently produced can be more than an adjunct to the presentation of facts and ideas. It can be their complete interpretation.’ And ‘As I see it, the world is made up entirely of photographic subjecgt matter. With pictures you can say what you cant say with words.’ In the basement galleries are three exhibitions commemorating the disaster of 9/11 – this painful and tragic event lingers on and envelopes much of the public consciousness still.

In their staff meeting room which overlooks the magnificent Chrysler building and Empire State Building, is a scale model of their gallery spaces – this is still the preferred method of planning the layout of exhibitons (rather than digitally). They put much onus of changing the gallery space for every exhibition – the New York public, he tells us, are very fussy about this.

We talk about Street Level and the desire for international collaborations despite the difficulty of economic viability in relation to transportation – the proposal of exchanging digital files may be conducive to an emerging photographer, but for the established names it is problematic in terms of Intellectual Property, copyright and editioning. We hear about the ICP Triennial, the next one of which comes up in 2013. We agree to help promote that and to source and encourage potential photographers to apply to their international call.

ICP digital suite

ICP does not receive any public funding – it is supported through sponsors and major givers, of which there are hundreds. Its turnover is a staggering 13 million. The full time role of the Director is in sustaining this support and extending it year upon year.

Christopher is an advisor to Three Shadows Photography Centre in Beijing (see an earlier blog entry on them) which he has supported since its early days. He is also a guest curator for the Lianshou Foto Festival, and he invites us along to a press conference for the event the day.

 Lianzhou Foto 2011 - Towards the Social Landscape

Lianzhou is a small city in the south of China, a town otherwise relatively unknown if were not for the international photography festival held there each year, of which there have been 7 so far. The theme of this forthcoming festival dons its cap to an exhibition of the same name that was held at the George Eastman House in Rochester in 1966. Their method is to have one or two chief curators each year. This is taken on this year by Christopher Phillips who is dealing with the international section and Duan Yuting, the artistic director of the festival, who is in attendance at this press gathering. The festival is supported by the municipal government, an uncommon occurrence in China, in recognition of its contribution to the culture of the town and its encumbant tourism potential. I give Duan a copy of Tom Normand’s ‘Scottish Photography: A History’ – several copies of this and Colin Gray’s Steidl book ‘In Sickness and in Health’ made the journey as gifts for all the people met. Duan shows us a wide range of Chinese photographers work and Christopher his selection of American and Canadian work which is being included. We hope to follow up this connection for the festival in 2012 and cards are duly exchanged in anticipation of this. 

right - Christopher Phillips, middle - Duan Yuting

Bruce Davidson's book Subway

The current show by Bruce Davidson at Aperture is a fascinating series of documentary photographs of the New York subway in the early 80s – a subterrean graffiti scrawled world that has been substantially cleaned up since then. Unusually, these are all in vivid colour, accentuating the vibrancy of the subject matter. First published in 1986, his classic book Subway has become critically acclaimed for this extreme use of colour and shadow set against flash-lit skin. The information on the show describes the work as moving the viewer through a ‘landscape sometimes menacing, at other times lyrical, soulful and satiric. The images include the full panoply of New Yorkers—from weary straphangers and languorous ladies in summer dresses, to stalking predators and the homeless’. In this respect, it is VERY New York.

We meet with the Exhibitions Coordinator Annette Booth, who draws our attention to Joseph Keubelka’s ‘Prague 1968’ book and tells us it is opening in Moscow the following day, the heart of the beast that crushed that Spring revolt in Czeckoslovakia. Other shows currently out on tour include Brian Ulrich’s ‘Copia – Retail, Thrift, and Dark Stories’ and Jonathan Torgovnik’s ‘Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape’, in Boston and Cleveland respectively.

Aperture Exhibitions Coordinator, Annette Booth

Like ICP, there is little contact with UK venues and again the shipping costs are prohibitive. Aperture magazine is still their main method of profiling what they do outside of America (which you can buy in Street Level incidentally). Their hanging wall space is probably slightly larger than Street Level by a metre or two, a nice surprise. She tells us of the difficulty of touring exhibitions these days, with venues preferring to be involved in partnerships of one kind or another. I pass on information on Street Level and ask her to send me info on their current exhibitions. The following night they are hosting a slide talk by Diane Arbus, an original recording from the early 70s. As a publisher, they produce a number of books per year, some of which have become cult classics, such as Nan Goldin’s ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’ which illustrates a late 1970s/early 1980s New York now lost to time, and a seedy underworld that ‘is visceral and seething with life’. Only one other book epitemises the New York’s incandescence, and that is Patti Smith’s book ‘Just Kids, about her youth and friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, which I manage to find in a local art bookstore.

Patti Smith book - background downtown Manhattan

Like many of the places we visited, they have an impressive list of sponsor, donators, and major givers and in addition to this they undertake an annual Benefit, Auction and SNAP Party. This is coming up next weekend and is one of several benefits being held by venues visited (Gallery 44, WCP included). Their ‘support Aperture Foundation’ postcard maps out the range of support that can be given: a contribution of your choosing, a programme advertisement, a benefit party ticket at $150, dual ticket $250, a $1000 friend ticket, $1500 patron ticker, $10000 friend table and the higher amount of $15000 patron table. It includes nearly 100 works by luminaries such as Arbus and Davidson, Alex Webb and Charlotte Dumas.

http://www.aperture.org

I first met Debra Klomp-Ching and Darren Ching in 2006 at the much missed Rhubard Rhubarb portfolio review in Birmingham. KlompChing Gallery opened in 2007 with Simon Roberts’ exhibition ‘Motherland’  and is owned and run by Debra Klomp-Ching and Darren Ching, the former UK based curator (Arts Councl of England, Pavilion – Leeds) and Darren Ching, creative director at Photo District News. It is a pristine private gallery based in the Dumbo Arts Centre, which houses a multitude of other galleries, co-ops, Not for Profit, and Commercial spaces, as well as the Brooklyn Arts Council. Dumbo is an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

Dumbo Arts Quarter

KlompChing is a gallery driven by a commitment to the exhibition and collecting of contemporary fine art photographs. They are passionate about the work the new talent they embrace as well as the established work they represent, and all of the artists they do take on are selected for the strength of the image itself – work that ‘demonstrates creative integrity and intent, originality, narrative and aesthetic challenges and the highest level of craftsmanship’.

Brooklyn to Manhattan

A recent write up describes the gallery as ‘dynamic’ and this is amplified by a handout which gives thumbnails of the artists represented including Roberts, and fellow Brit Tessa Bunney and Welsh photographer Helen Sear, newcomers such as Cornelia Hediger whose work is on show in the gallery, and striking work by Vojtech V Slama. Hediger’s work is titled ‘Doppelgänger II’ and is a new series of photographs which explore the ‘uncanny, constructing complex pictorial narratives into segmented tableau vivants, consisting of up to eighteen individual photographs combined into a single composition’. The gallery is funded solely through the sale of artists work.

Cornelia Hediger from the series 'Doppleganger II'

Debra Klomp-Ching

Debra also undertakes consultancy work in areas such as building up a collection and on organisational development. She offers to broker some introductions to other curators/galleries in order to extend the connections.

Along the corridor is another private gallery and publishing house, Umbrage, who exhbition by Tim Hetherington ‘Liberia: Long Story Bit by Bit’ which explores the dynamics of power in that country.

http://www.klompching.com

The Kitchen, New York

The Kitchen is one of New York’s most famous interdisciplinary art institutions driven by a commitment to experimental work and the support for the early and mid-career development of the current artistic generation. On show in their space in the ‘hub’ of Chelsea’s art galleries are two exhibitions, one by Jennie C. Jones from Brooklyn and the other by Joe Winter, based in Long Island. Also available on a computer is a fascinating collection of video art works and documentation covering the 40 years of The Kitchen’s history featuring some of the most influential artists in America – John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Childs, Bill T. Jones, Philip Glass, Christian Marclay, Robert Longo, Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, David Byrne and The Talking Heads, among many others. Their aim is to make their archive accessible on the internet and through that process restore tapes that are most at risk of deterioration. A screening of some of this work wouldn’t go amiss in Glasgow, though the online presence will to some degree fill that gap.

The Kitchen installation view

Some of the audio archive has already been curatorially re-presented and a number of these are available to buy. ‘New Music New York’ is the first CD in ‘from the Kitchen Archives’ series featuring some of the performances from 1979 – Philip Glass, Monk, George Lewis, Phil Niblock, Tony Conrad, Nyman and Reich, amonst others. The most recent CD is ‘Pianos in the Kitchen’ with Harold Budd, Anthony Davis and some of their well known names like Glass, Monk and Palestine. These two productions encapsulate the pioneering position that the organization has had, as well as being a fine panorama of new music.

'New Work New York' 1979, and 'Pianos in The Kitchen' from 1976-1983

http://www.thekitchen.org

Anton Kern Gallery

Lothar Hempel from 'Suedehead'

Along the road a mile of two is Chelsea’s bustling arts quarter and within that is Anton Kern gallery who will be showing a collection of work by Jim Lambie next month – as I write Jim’s work is currently being manufactured for shipping out by Glasgow’s foremost makers of artists work, Scott Associates. Their current exhibition is by Lothar Hempel, based in Berlin – an eclectic display of sculpture, paintings on aluminium and three-diamond shaped photo-montages. The title of the show is ‘Suedehead’ after the cult pulp fiction book by Richard Allen, and a reference to an early 1970s subculture. The work combines a range of material from blown up photographs on metal, cast concrete, and other elements. The press release is also very flowery, but it’s appropriate: ‘The bold colors, the hardedge qualities of the materials and the use of manufactured, rather than hand-shaped forms speak to the character of the work and the artistʼs intention. While the title refers to a past (yet, uncannily timely!) moment of youth dissatisfaction and aggression transformed into the nuanced and ambiguous style of the Suedheads with their grown-out Skinhead crop, dapper Hard Mod clothing, and latent hostility and demi-monde aloofness. It is Hempelʼs skilled language of combinatorial synthesis that allows the viewer to look beyond the intricacies of subcultural signifiers and to enter a world of body language and abstraction. Elegant modern dance poses meet thuggish posturing and swagger, while both coexist on a stage of extensive artifice and cunning craft.’

Lothar Hempel from 'Suedehead'

http://antonkerngallery.com/index.php

At Hunter College’s Times Square Gallery until November is an exhibition ‘Industrial Aesthetics – Environmental Influences on Recent Art from Scotland’, which celebrates one aspect of the Glasgow art scene around Glasgow School of Art’s MFA orbit, noting that the past twenty-five years, the city has developed into one of the world’s most influential and 
imaginative centres of artistic production, linking that to Glasgow’s cultural 
rebirth, and Scotland’s transformation into a ‘vital creative nexus’. Claiming to be the largest exhibition of contemporary art from Scotland ever seen in the United States, the narrative accompanying this sizeable display positions it as having emerged out of a ‘unique set of circumstances. The participating artists are the originators and caretakers of a dynamic and inventive art scene that echoes ideals of social organization and communal action—hallmarks of Glasgow’s political and commercial history’ – stating that these artists are caretakers of the art scene seems a slightly over-dramatic as it relates to a particular, yet important, milieu connecting back to or having much reference to the MFA course at GSA. It’s an engaging and thorough exhibition however.

Jessica Harrington - 'Jane' (2011)

Accompanied by a catalogue which features a reprint of David Harding’s influential treatise on the post-conceptual current emerging out of the Environnmental Art Department at GSA, and a discussion with Sam Ainslie, it contextualizes their various 
aesthetic and conceptual concerns within wider social and civic legacies of their environment, which, as I suggest, is only one dynamic of many a larger set of scenes. In bridging the current practice of artists such as Gary Rough, Sandy Smith, Ruth Barker, with the likes of Douglas Gordon and Jim Lambie, it reinforces notions of a spiritual kinship that it proposes went hand in hand with the city’s ‘cultural and fiscal renaissance’.

Iain Hetherington - 'Group Engage in what Looks Like Action' (2009)

The show contains some notable work – Jessica Harrington’s fascinating and disturbing found ornaments; Alex Frost’s colourful sculptures and self portrait; Craig Mulholland’s beguiling ‘Peer to Peer’ (2008); Iain Hetherington’s mischievous lean towards working class style and its intelligensia; the dry yet rigorous formalism of Dan Miller, which is counterbalanced by the playful and seeming spontaneity of Sandy Smith; and the highlight of the show Gary Rough’s ‘Motorcycle Mirrors’ (2011). Needless to say, Lambie’s plastic bags are enduring, and Gordon’s ‘I Remember Nothing’ is prophetic within the context of the show as a whole.

Gary Rough 'Motorcycle Mirrors' (2011)

It was a pleasant surprise to find out about the show in New York (from David Dale Gallery who some of the newer kids on the block have associations with) and something of an oversight that it hasn’t been promoted back home in Scotland as there is much to celebrate in this, if not to show the work in a civic venue, with the linked press release tweaked for more inclusive tastes.

Alex Frost 'Self Portrait'

Ruth Barker

Alex Pollard 'Dandy Outlaws Gesturing in a Forest' (2009)

Sandy Smith

Neil Clements

Martin Creed 'Lamp Going On and Off'

http://industrialaesthetics.wordpress.com/

The exhibition includes work by: Laura Aldridge / Ruth Barker / Neil Clements / Martin Creed / Rory Donaldson / Alex Frost Carla Scott Fullerton / Douglas Gordon / Jessica Harrison / Ilana Halperin / Iain Hetherington Jim Lambie / Duncan Marquiss / James McLardy / Andrew Miller / Dan Miller / Craig Mulholland Alex Pollard / Kate V. Robertson / Gary Rough / John Shankie / Sandy Smith / Ric Warren 

3.10.11

WCP is situated in Woodstock’s main artery – Tinker Street. It was founded in 1977 as a not-for-profit artist-centered organization and its initial mission continues to support artists working in photography and engaging audiences through exhibitions, talks, events and production facilities. At present they are about to select their Fellowship for 2011 – in addition to this they support 7 residencies throughout the year by providing workspace and support of new projects. It is an idyllic setting in which to concentrate on making new work, but obviously a tourist haven for hippies and hippie watchers, old and young alike (the town, not WCP I should emphasize!).

We arrived to see the exhibition of work in their 2011 Benefit Gala, Vision Awards Ceremony (honoring Fred Baldwin & Wendy Watriss, who founded Houston PhotoFest) and the 33rd Annual Auction of Contemporary and Classic Photographs. The auction includes work from renowned historic masters to some of the outstanding work from emerging and mid-career artists. This year it includes such photographers as Stephen Shore and Robert Mapplethorpe! As well being an important fundraising event for WCP, the exhibition/auction attracts new collectors as well as discerning new buyers. It is never known however just how much it will raise.

The range of agencies who fund WCP are wide and some are displayed on a banner outside the venue. These include –

Milton & Sally Avery Foundation, the Honickman Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts a State Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Community Foundation,  the Town of Woodstock, Ulster County, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Adobe Systems, B&H Photo Video, Blurb, Bostick & Sullivan, Canon USA, Kodak, Dyna-Lite, GTI, Light Impressions, MAC Group, Mamiya, Museo Fine Art Papers, Pocket Wizard, Sekonic, Toyo,  Wacom, X-Rite,  and from individuals, & our members

The ‘side’ gallery – which is dedicated to putting on small to medium sized solo shows is currently exhibiting work by Carla Shapiro – was sponsored by Kodak and there is a plaque commemorating that. Canon supply their printers and also sponsor them through this, and Adobe have also supplied essential software. They don’t go to companies with a begging bowl or under the pretext of being ‘not-for-profit’ – Ariel Shanberg, their Director of the past 12 years, is quite clear that what WCP offer companies is the direct contact with hundreds of potential customers through their programme, a large percentage of which will probably buy equipment to set up their own domestic digital facility. They lease their Apple computers, but a major asset is that they own the building which was bought in the early days of setting up. Their digital facility is run by Phil Mansfield, himself a noted freelance photographer, and akin to the other centres visited, gives artists one-to-one help in production and mentoring – to accentuate the homely feel of the place, their facility called The Digital Kitchen.

1.   2.    3. 

1. Phil Mansfield – Digital Lab Manager 2. Lindsay Stern – Education Coordinator 3. Deborah Mans field – Development Director

Malcolm and Ariel

The main gallery was used as a café at one point (1999) – Ariel tells us that his predecessor had hoped that a cafe would generate income but with 6 other cafés in the street, it never really worked. WCP also thought that this was not really its core purpose. We manage to have a quick chat with their Development Manager, Deborah Mansfield, who works part-time at WCP – she was formerly coordinator of major ‘gives’ at New York’s International Centre for Photography.

They also offer paid internships in arts administration – a unique opportunity for people in the Woodstock and Hudson Bay Area (a population of 6000). Through that they Interns learn business practices and fundraising strategies associated with an artists’ space dedicated to serving contemporary photographers. Candidates have to have an interest in photography and the visual arts, of course, and also consideration is given to how they will contribute to the work of CPW and its projects. Credits for college entry are also available through this, though how this works I am not sure.

WCP have a substantial collection of work of over 1,500 photographs and considering they don’t have an acquisitions budget this has been done through artists donating prints who work there or have received support – it is not discretionary but artists are asked if they will donate a work to support WCP. This has knock on profile for the artists in terms of pr and WCP’s annual auction. Their collection is kept at the Dorsky museum. Some of their collection is currently on show as part of the auction. Buying companies will often purchase as a tax write-off (but I presume they also like the work and decide to buy art instead of something else).

Ariel is modest about his role and thinks that the curatorial role should be in the background when artists publicly present their work in exhibitions. They have had a comprehensive lecture series running for some time and recently received a grant to get that up online as a way of connecting with audiences far and wide, without distance being an issue. We agree to exchange online links and also to see in what ways we can promote each other respectively.

PQ (aka Photography Quarerly) is produced twice a year and is a glossy A4 publication with colour reproductions, including articles and artists profiles with one page devoted to reproducing their work. Issue 99 is guest edited by Debra Klomp Ching, co-owner and Director of Brooklyn bases gallery KlompChing, who we will be visiting this week. The broad theme of this issue is ‘photography’s ontology’ and includes a profile of Helen Sear by curator Addie Vassie (she wrote the short essay in Street Level’s opening Trongate 103 exhibition by John Hoppy Hopkins), who looks at the body of work ‘Inside the View’ and her technique of layering negatives in an analogue way to it’s current migration to digital imaging. It is one of a few key photography magazines dedicated to art and photography in the USA – Blind Spot, Aperture, Contact Sheet are three of the others. It is a high cost commitment, and with a $13,000 reduction in their funding this year they may have to look at alternatives to the print version, through Print on Demand, or in having available as pdf downloads. Getting the back issues up online is also in the pipelilne, similar to Light Work’s archive for Contact Sheet – front covers and contents can be currently viewed. PQ is an essential distributor of their work as well as a way of tracking their history, and in keeping conversations alive. We talk of the essential need for that social space through the page and the gallery space, of the value of bringing people together. Think of it this way – would you rather sit on the toilet with a book or an Ipad?

We discuss with Lindsay Stern, their Education Coordinator, the possibilities of a dialogue with Street Level’s RRCS Coordinator. In conclusion, I agree with Ariel to be in touch in a few weeks time to arrange a day when we can have a dialogue and where we can write up their ‘case study’. I feels like the beginning of a relationship with Street Level that have some tangible outcome and ripple effects – through the exchange of work and expertise.

It’s day two in Quebec and another visit to Meduse cooperative takes us into La Bande Video and an installation by Sri Lankan artist Pavitra Wickramasinghe, ‘Refusing to Make a Scene’ – an elegiac installation drawing on her childhood memories of watching television when she thought that the scenes in the box were real and miniature misc en scenes. The photographic installation covering the windows of La Bande Video is called ‘Smog’ and is by Mériol Lehmann (who is also Director of Production at neighbouring Avatar, the organization for audio and new media in Meduse) and it mirrors the view of Quebec whose scenic panorama is jolted by the smoke from a local power processing plant (I think), an unusual sight in a city centre.

Alexis Bureau from VU recommends we visit two other organisations in the city, La Chambre Blanch and Le Leiu.

La Chambre Blanch

Isabell Demers and Catherine Blanchet

La Chambre Blanche is based in a former shoe factory and is one of two contemporary artist run spaces that are not based in the Meduse centre. They are currently collaborating with La Bande Video, Avatar and a Brazilian organisation, MIS, in a residency by Claudio Bueno, who isn’t present today but Isabell Demers and Catherine Blanchet are there to guide the visitor around and tell more about the work of their organisation. It is a documentation centre on contemporary art and has a massive collection of books, journals and magazines, all catalogued for viewing. Their current magazine shelf shows the range of publications produced in Canada today – Inter (Quebec based), Fuse (Toronto), C Magazine , Musicworks (Toronto – the last three are all based in 401 Richmond building), BorderCrossings (the successor to Borderlines), and I think more.

As well as their first floor library which contains back issues of probably all Canadian art publications and magazines, their are two spaces on the second floor which are used as working spaces for artists who are in residence and who also use it as exhibition spaces – artists are invited to create unique, ephemeral work, and the space is considered to be a laboratory. The public are invited to drop in and contribute to or quiz the artist on their processes. They have a membership which is categorised into ‘active’, ‘producers’, ‘friends’ and ‘support’. In their accreditation, it is members who are prioritised as supporting the organisation, followed by the Candadian Council for the Arts, the Quebec Ministery of Culture and Communications and the City of Quebec. Time did not allow any furthering exploration into the levels of funding and self-finance here, but I aim to follow that up in e-mail.

They also have a digital and web lab which encourages artists to create and rethink the idea of ‘site-specific’ within the context of cyberspace, and it is used by members for web art projects also.

La Chambre Blanche began their ‘artist-in-residence’ programmes in 1982 as a way of furthering the exploratory aspects of art making and the processes involved. Their large publication ‘Résidence – 1982-1993’ chronicles their first 15 years of in-situ residencies, looking at the delicate balance between individual research, public contact, and the nuances of residencies that result from collaborative efforts. It is also a useful record in printed form of their history. The gift of this book and the DVD of web performances from more recent residences are fitting memento’s of the visit and useful additions to our own archive at Street Level that folk back home can peruse.

www.chambreblanche.qc.ca

Le Lieu (Centre en Art Actuel)

Richard Martel

Le Lieu (Centre en Art Actuel) is the other artist run space that is not contained within the Meduse Centre. The Director here is Richard Martel, a performance artist, who, interestingly, was involved in the collective who started La Chambre Blanche. He talks of their festival Rencontre internationale d’art performance (RIAP) which has been running every year (sometimes every other year) since 1994, the latest being in 2010, the sixteenth edition. For that event he worked in collaboration with curators/artists in Brazil, China, South Korea, Mexico, and Singapore. The festival presents a wide range of artists working in the fields of action art and performance art. That event also included a programme of French-language action poetry.

He mentions some UK based performance artists that he has encountered and who are familiar to me from various events – Stuart Brisley, who he was involved in presenting in Quebec in the early days, Andre Stitt, Roddy Hunter, and John Jordan. As   an artist, he has undertaken work in Belfast and Cardiff, but hasn’t had any  dealings with anyone from Scotland, yet. I tell him of the National Review of Live Art and say I will pass on info to them. He shows me the substantial tome ‘Art Action – 1958-1998’ an abundantly illustrated book that covers 4 decades and nearly 20 countries/continents of Action Art practices which came out of a report and symposium held in Quebec City in 1998 and which brought together the historic protagonists of ‘diverse forms of Action Art: the

Fluxus DVD

Happening, Fluxus, ZAJ, Body Art, Action Poetry and Actionism’. The back flap also tells us that the book is dedicated to Dick Higgins, who passed away in Quebec City on the final day of the symposium. There are, claims Martel, only 7 of these books left in the world, but after some chatting, he agrees to sell me one to take back to Scotland.

Le Lieu archiveLe Lieu video archive

Now there are only 6. Martel, reveals his unique collection of video documentation of some of the major names – Jean Jacques Lebel, Otto Muhl, Beuys, Higgins, and others. It is yet to be digitised and preserved.

La Lieu installation

Le Lieu itself has a gallery space – the work on show at present is an installation of broken statues and plinths rescued from abandoned chapels, 19 studio spaces (which I am guessing here the rents from which pay the space?) and an archive library with a focus on the avant-garde lineage through Dada, Fluxus, Happenings, performance, actions, and critical art activities. It is somewhere to spend a lot of time. They also publish Inter magazine which Martel started in 1978 as ‘Intervention’, changing its name to Inter in the early 80s – a French language multimedia magazine which has just published its 107^th edition, this time on the theme of ‘Art and Activism’. An earlier issue from the Autumn of 2008 is a dual translation edition and worth the purchase as it chronicles the evolution of the Quebec art scene of the last 30 years and it also coincided with the 400^th anniversary of Quebec as a city, so it is a valuable resource in putting into perspective the history of the scene here. In here there are section on VU, La Band Video, Engramme, and the other organisations in Meduse. Martel resisted the temptation to move into Meduse when it was being planned, preferring instead the autonomy of their own space, which, as I can see, adds greater diversity to the city’s cultural scene.

A web search on Martel reveals he is also a poet, multimedia artist, curator and publisher, author of a number of books, numerous articles for catalogues, literary miscellanies and anthologies published in Quebec, Canada and abroad. He has undertaken more than two hundred actions and performances at various galleries and museums in America, Europe and Japan. His creative activities are of social character and is the subject for consideration for leading art critics. He is, also, a supporter of Quebec independence’.

I am grateful to Alexis for passing on the names of the two organisations above – it is easy to miss out on activities that are not on your radar when you visit a place, as it often the case when visitors come to Glasgow. Whilst Meduse is an artistic hotbed, the existence of Le Chambre Blanche, Le Lieu, and the latter’s activities and through Inter and the performance art festival, further edifies Quebec’s role as a hub of the cultural avant-garde, and the fact that they can and continue to work together creates a dynamic context for creative activities in the city.