SHAUN GLADWELL - SPACEX UK
3 Oct 2009
SHAUN GLADWELL
Seven Year Linework
3 October – 28 November 2009
Spacex is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the UK by Australian artist Shaun Gladwell.
Shaun Gladwell critically and poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video, painting, photography and sculpture. His works engage these concerns through forms of urban expression such as skateboarding, hip-hop, graffiti, BMX bike riding, break-dancing and most recently, extreme sports.
Seven Year Linework presents a selection of projects that are drawn from Gladwell’s ongoing investigations of conceptual drawings rendered in video. Beginning with one of Gladwell’s earliest experiments in video, the exhibition includes a series of recorded performances from different points of view. Gladwell’s use of slow motion has become a trademark of the artist’s aesthetic style, however the video projects in this exhibition regard a sense of slowed motion in real time footage.
Double Linework (2000) records the artist tracing various road lines within urban environments. Using the camera’s viewfinder as his eye, Gladwell elaborates upon Baudelaire’s notion of the flâneur and the Situationist strategy of derive. One of Gladwell’s contributions to these two theories of strolling and drifting (respectively) is to experiment with the process of creative movement through the urban environment with his chosen vehicle, be it bicycle, motorcycle or skateboard.
In Woolloomooloo Night (2004) we study a figure performing at a gas station at night, within a fixed frame. Observing the performance from a distance, we enter an intimate space that at once connects us to the performer’s introspection and at the same time maintains the distance between us. We witness the Capoeira performance (or training) with such intensity that after a while everything in the camera’s frame is performing, and time begins to stand still in contemplation.
Calligraphy and Slowburn (2006) examines the performance of a BMX rider as he contorts his body in response to the calligraphic forms that hang behind him. In this video traditions of still life and vanitas are extended through this discipline of movement, and another way of slowing time is explored through the stillness of extreme physical endurance.
In a Station of the Metro (2006) continues performed stillness, largely influenced by elements of Bhutto and in particular its notion of the grotesque, physical endurance. The work takes its title from a Haiku poem by Ezra Pound that is cited as a reflection on the process of inspiration and translation. The act of translation specific to this work takes place within the contemporary culture of hip-hop dancing, a form initiated in New York City and now practised and developed worldwide.
The rider in Maximus as Narcissus: Broken Field of Reflection (2007) pauses to contemplate his reflected image before destroying the picture plane by moving through it with his prosthetic drawing apparatus, a motorcycle. This action creates a new, abstracted image, before the passing of time brings the reflective surface of the water back to its resting state.
The video works are accompanied by an experimental self-portrait – Self-Portrait (Linework) (2005) – depicting physical markings on the artist’s body that reference the traced lines of Gladwell’s skateboarding actions. Lit up like an x-ray, this work draws our attention to the internal, to the artist’s introspection and observations of his own body drawing, and to the video portraits in Seven Year Linework, which also explore the psychological dimensions of performance.
Gladwell has recently presented new work at the 2009 Venice Biennale in the Australian Pavilion.
This exhibition is curated by Tania Doropoulos.
For more information or high resolution images contact Mandy Barber, Exhibition and Marketing Coordinator, telephone: ++44 (0)1392 431 786, email: mandy@spacex.org.uk
www.spacex.co.uk
Seven Year Linework
3 October – 28 November 2009
Spacex is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the UK by Australian artist Shaun Gladwell.
Shaun Gladwell critically and poetically links personal experience with contemporary culture and historical references through performance, video, painting, photography and sculpture. His works engage these concerns through forms of urban expression such as skateboarding, hip-hop, graffiti, BMX bike riding, break-dancing and most recently, extreme sports.
Seven Year Linework presents a selection of projects that are drawn from Gladwell’s ongoing investigations of conceptual drawings rendered in video. Beginning with one of Gladwell’s earliest experiments in video, the exhibition includes a series of recorded performances from different points of view. Gladwell’s use of slow motion has become a trademark of the artist’s aesthetic style, however the video projects in this exhibition regard a sense of slowed motion in real time footage.
Double Linework (2000) records the artist tracing various road lines within urban environments. Using the camera’s viewfinder as his eye, Gladwell elaborates upon Baudelaire’s notion of the flâneur and the Situationist strategy of derive. One of Gladwell’s contributions to these two theories of strolling and drifting (respectively) is to experiment with the process of creative movement through the urban environment with his chosen vehicle, be it bicycle, motorcycle or skateboard.
In Woolloomooloo Night (2004) we study a figure performing at a gas station at night, within a fixed frame. Observing the performance from a distance, we enter an intimate space that at once connects us to the performer’s introspection and at the same time maintains the distance between us. We witness the Capoeira performance (or training) with such intensity that after a while everything in the camera’s frame is performing, and time begins to stand still in contemplation.
Calligraphy and Slowburn (2006) examines the performance of a BMX rider as he contorts his body in response to the calligraphic forms that hang behind him. In this video traditions of still life and vanitas are extended through this discipline of movement, and another way of slowing time is explored through the stillness of extreme physical endurance.
In a Station of the Metro (2006) continues performed stillness, largely influenced by elements of Bhutto and in particular its notion of the grotesque, physical endurance. The work takes its title from a Haiku poem by Ezra Pound that is cited as a reflection on the process of inspiration and translation. The act of translation specific to this work takes place within the contemporary culture of hip-hop dancing, a form initiated in New York City and now practised and developed worldwide.
The rider in Maximus as Narcissus: Broken Field of Reflection (2007) pauses to contemplate his reflected image before destroying the picture plane by moving through it with his prosthetic drawing apparatus, a motorcycle. This action creates a new, abstracted image, before the passing of time brings the reflective surface of the water back to its resting state.
The video works are accompanied by an experimental self-portrait – Self-Portrait (Linework) (2005) – depicting physical markings on the artist’s body that reference the traced lines of Gladwell’s skateboarding actions. Lit up like an x-ray, this work draws our attention to the internal, to the artist’s introspection and observations of his own body drawing, and to the video portraits in Seven Year Linework, which also explore the psychological dimensions of performance.
Gladwell has recently presented new work at the 2009 Venice Biennale in the Australian Pavilion.
This exhibition is curated by Tania Doropoulos.
For more information or high resolution images contact Mandy Barber, Exhibition and Marketing Coordinator, telephone: ++44 (0)1392 431 786, email: mandy@spacex.org.uk
www.spacex.co.uk
