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Haroon Mirza nominated for the Northern Art Prize
Its November, its colder than it should be, and if you are as lucky as this editor, your boiler is broken. Fortunately galleries are surprisingly good places to keep warm. Here is our November round up of some exhibitions and arty things worth looking at.
It’s gonna be an arty week on the Article blog, there’s stuff going up and down all of the place, and it all needs talking about! So this week, art. Next week the new issue is out and we’ll just be talking about that! Right now, point all telescopes at Nottingham for the BAS and Sideshow exhibitions!
“In the Days of Comet” is a science fiction novel by H.G.Wells, published in 1904, which tells of a society torn apart through poverty and corruption. A comet breaks through the ozone and enters the world’s atmosphere, gassing the entire population and sending all to sleep. Eventually people wake from the haze, but instead of all the depravity each person has a new found clarity and lust for life.
If only things were so easy! The next exhibition landing at Nottingham Contemporary this month bears the title ‘In the Days of Comet’, and it is The British Art Show, so we are naturally geared up for something apocalyptic. In reference to the comet as ‘harbinger of change’, will the show awaken us to the most crucial contemporary art of now?
‘British Art Show 7 highlights how artists today explore historical episodes that shape our experience of the present and anticipation of the future’.
This 7th reincarnation of the major exhibition by the Hayward Touring, curated by Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, will present 39 notable British artists and their works in film, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and performance. This looks set to be an appropriately spectacular showcase - ‘In the Days of Comet’ at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Castle and New Art Exchange, 23 Oct 2010 - 09 Jan 2011.
Similarities between the British Art Show and the epic comet in Wells’ story are apparent, so perhaps the gases trailing the comet which miraculously invade and remedy the minds of people can be recognised in Nottingham’s Sideshow.
Sideshow is a city-wide exhibition now making its second appearance in Nottingham and it will be visible for much of the duration of the British Art Show (must stop the metaphors!). Sideshow itself proclaims to be so much more than a side serving of an art show, but a central event encompassing something different to the British Art Show. In contrast it represents the artist-led sector of Nottingham, the independent, do-it-yourself approach that its contemporary art network is so known for. It seems just right that the presence of this major exhibition has again sparked a series of events, exhibitions and performances under the Sideshow name.
Yesterday we posted about Jemma Egan’s exhibition at Nottingham’s Trade Gallery, Swiss Dogs. After much head scratching in the Article office we decided to ask her the story behind it all.
What happened in Switzerland?
Nothing much happened in Switzerland…I ate lots of cheese and lots of chocolate and bought lots of Swiss-made coloured pencils and stationary (which I like a lot). And spent a lot of time on my own drawing from Swiss postcards and tourist information leaflets…and drawing lots of St Bernard dogs over and over again (while eating more cheese and chocolate).
Why St Bernards?
I was attracted to St Bernard dogs that featured on Swiss postcards while I was away in Switzerland. I have an obsession with dogs in general…and I went through a phase as a child of watching the film Beethoven quite often!
The size of their heads is terrifying
They do have massive heads! I recently got slobbered on by a St Bernard dog - it was quite scary.
Have you ever seen a St Bernard save a man’s life or down the brandy from its collar?
I’ve not - maybe that would ruin it. They do walk like they’ve had a bit much to drink. However, I think they would struggle to open their own barrel of brandy - I suspect they’re not alcoholics.
As part of our awakening - the internet exists! - we decided to try uploading some of our magazine content in a web friendly way. This is the web version of the Life Worth Living. Here’s a roundup of the most intruiging exhibitions in the immediate future.
Dogs we’re accustomed to disregarding as nothing more than playthings satisfying ours whims for strokes and walks in the park, practical pairs of gloves, generic reality makeover TV programmes, and dead iconic pop stars - all of these form the inspiration and material for some of the works of art on exhibition this week. All quite everyday and banal stuff out of context, but in our opinion forming some of the best art stuff going off in places round here right now.