CARRY ON ULISES: ULISES CARRION, 'GOSSIP, SCANDAL AND GOOD MANNERS' AT THE SHOWROOM, LONDON

performance by Martha Hellion and Martha Hawley


Gossip, Scandal and Good Manners
Works by Ulises Carrión
12 – 26 June 2010

Opening hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12-6pm

Gossip, Scandal and Good Manners is the first solo presentation in the UK of the work of Mexican artist, writer and publisher, Ulises Carrión (1941-1989), curated by the first year MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with Martha Hellion. Comprising an exhibition, series of events and publication, the project will invoke the spirit of Carrión’s practice through the activation of his provocative propositions and methodologies.

Incorporating concrete and visual poetry, mail art, videos, sound works and ‘bookworks’, Carrión’s diverse practice focused on language as a raw material and the exploration of alternative forms of distribution and communication. Gossip, Scandal and Good Manners, the video work from which the exhibition takes its title, is built around marginal patterns of everyday information exchange, or gossip.

Carrión’s practice emerged from literary and concrete poetry circles in Mexico before he moved to Europe in the mid-1960s, at which point he also became associated with Fluxus. He promoted a transnational dialogue with his mail art projects and initiatives such as Other Books and So, active as a bookshop in Amsterdam (1975-1978) and subsequently as an archive. Apart from hosting exhibitions, performances and the making and publishing of artists’ books, the shop also functioned as an informal meeting point for artists and publishers.

Informed by the structure of Other Books and So, The Showroom’s exhibition space will double as a flexible platform for performances, seminars, talks, screenings, and a display of the different elements of Carrión’s practice alongside rare archival material. This material will be presented in a modular display system conceived by Fay Nicolson and Oliver Smith, which takes its inspiration from the cardboard vitrines designed by Martha Hellion for the FLUXshoe exhibition that toured the UK in early 1970s. The display structure will also house a range of contemporary artist books that continue in the spirit of the ‘bookwork’, as well as re-editioned versions of Carrión's own ‘bookworks’ and contextual material on his practice.

An accompanying publication designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio will provide documentation of the exhibition project and events programme, together with newly commissioned texts setting Carrión’s work in context. This will be launched on Friday 2 July 2010 at KALEID editions.

This project is realised with the kind support of the Monique Beudert fund.
With special thanks to Martha Hellion, without whom this project would not have been possible.

EVENTS

Private View
Friday 11 June 2010, 6.30-8.30 pm
Martha Hellion and Martha Hawley, close friends of and collaborators with Ulises Carrión, will present a unique performance together on the night of the opening. The evening will continue with drinks and Bolero music from Carrión's collection.

My name is Ulises. What’s yours?
Saturday 12 June 2010, 12.30-3.30pm
This two-part seminar will provide an historical context to Ulises Carrión's practice and explore how it relates to contemporary artists’ books and publishing strategies. The first part will take the form of a conversation between Martha Hellion and Martha Hawley followed by presentations by writer and curator Clive Phillpot and artist Alun Rowlands.

45 Revolutions per Minute
Wednesday 23 June 2010, 7-9pm
Guy Schraenen, a curator and publisher who collaborated with Carrión to produce his sound works, will discuss Carrión's performances and sound works. This will be accompanied by a screening of The Death of the Art Dealer, the documentation of the performance The Robbery of the Year and a presentation of the sound works Hamlet for 2 Voices and 45 Revoluciones por Minuto.

Lilia Prado Festival
Saturday 26 June 2010, 6-9pm
In 1984, De Appel Arts Centre hosted Ulises Carrión's four-day event, Lilia Prado Superstar Film Festival, a screening of five films starring the Mexican actress, to which she was also invited. Prado was little known in the Netherlands at the time and this event was Carrión's attempt to situate his past culture in that of his present. Ulises Carrión’s retelling of the event, The LPS File, will be screened alongside Luis Buñuel's Subida al Cielo, and tequila cocktails.

Publication Launch at KALEID Editions
Friday 2 July 2010, 6-9pm
KALEID Editions will host the launch of the accompanying publication designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio.
KALEID Editions, 23–25 Redchurch Street, London E2 7DJ

http://www.theshowroom.org

THE SHOW MUST GO ON: THE SHOWROOM REOPENS IN A NEW LOCATION!

Kodwo Eshun from the Otholith Group


Anjalika Sagar from the Otholith Group


The Showroom

One of the first East End galleries in London, The Showroom marked its twenty years as a publicly funded venue with a move to a new area of London, occupying a new space on Penfold Street, London NW8, close to Chuch Street Market, Edgware Road and Lisson Gallery. In addition to this, in 2008 the board re-structured the gallery’s director position to a 3-4 year post, the first of these being Emily Pethick, formerly director of Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht (2005-2008), who was appointed in May 2008.

The Showroom was one of the first galleries to be established in what is now a thriving East End art scene, occupying its Bonner Road site in Bethnal Green for over twenty years.

During this time the gallery was run by three directors, David Thorp, Kim Sweet and Kirsty Ogg, and developed a strong focus on commissioning artists to make their first solo shows in a London publicly funded space. Kirsty Ogg’s artist commissions included Jim Lambie, Eva Rothschild, Subodh Gupta and Claire Barclay’s first solo shows in London. Kim Sweet commissioned first solo shows from now established figures such as Sam Taylor-Wood, Simon Starling and Elizabeth Wright. David Thorp presented seminal new works by Mona Hatoum, Rasheed Araeen and Marc Chaimowicz.

As well as supporting young artists by presenting their first solo exhibitions in London, The Showroom has played a central role in developing discourse around contemporary art practices. Since 2004 Showroom conferences have considered art and politics (To Change an Opinion), alter-modernism (New Moderns?), and Props, events, encounters: the performance of new sculpture.

The Showroom’s new 3,000 square foot building on Penfold Street has been reconfigured by Berlin-based architects ifau + Jesko Fezer in collaboration with London’s Working Architecture Group to provide a dynamic flexible space for its long-term growth.

Opening in September 2009, the gallery will accommodate a programme of commissioned projects, as well as an expanded education facility that will host workshops, conferences and events for artists, writers and curators. While continuing to support the production of new work by artists underrepresented in London, director Emily Pethick will emphasise emerging practices and ideas, collaborative approaches, and projects situated in the public realm that build relationships with the gallery’s new neighbourhood, Church Street, which is one of the most deprived wards in the UK.

First Exhibition:

The Otolith Group
A Long Time Between Suns (Part 2)
Opening 8 September 2009

A Long Time Between Suns (Part 2) is the second installment of a two-part solo show by the Otolith Group, which has been organised in collaboration with Gasworks. Having shown the films Otolith I and II at Gasworks in March 2009, the second instalment is the premiere Otolith III, and is also the first exhibition The Showroom’s new space in the Church Street Neighbourhood, London NW8.

http://www.theshowroom.org