Suns Neither Rise Nor Set

An exhibition curated by the first year MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, Stevens Building, Jay Mews, SW7 2EU, Opening Wednesday 9 December 2009, 6.30 — 8.30pm, exhibition continues 10 — 18 December 2009

Suns Neither Rise Nor Set brought together work by Vanessa Billy, Richard Hughes, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, Richard Rigg, and Kim Rugg. Using everyday objects, archival materials and collage techniques, these works call into question the processes through which reality and illusion are constructed in visual communication and perception.

Vanessa Billy’s Suns neither rise nor set (2008), from which the exhibition took its title, alludes to the fact that everyday events such as the rising and setting of the sun, are not objective truths but part of a subjective system of symbols and narratives that supports our understanding of reality and perceived position in it. Whereas Billy looks to expose such fictions, The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, claim new ones. Their renegotiations of contested historical memory take the form of presentations of archival documents of Lebanon's recent past, which are themselves of questionable authenticity.

Nina Beier & Marie Lund also engage with notions of the archive. In The Archives (2008), the content of second-hand peace posters is buried beneath the weight of a fold, denying the original authors their protest and quashing past, unrealised hopes for the future. Along with Kim Rugg’s A Single Balloon Drifting Skywards (2008), an evocative reconfiguration of the language and graphic conventions of a daily newspaper, Beier and Lund’s series points towards the hierarchies in place in the distribution of information and how these can affect our interpretation of events.

The reworking of everyday objects is also apparent in the playful and illusory propositions of Richard Hughes and Richard Rigg. Rigg has made a precise but flawed replica of his own desk, whereas Richard Hughes presents us with a shattered clock face, which provocatively questions the authority of time.

In different ways, each of the artists in this exhibition interrogate or deconstruct weighty or complex notions. In doing so, they bring to light the uncertainties that pervade the production and reception of knowledge, helping us to visualise the oscillating line between fact and fiction.

Where do we go from here? Salon Discussion

WDWGFH3  by  Barbara-rm

Where do we go from here? | A Salon Discussion

Wednesday 27 January from 6.30pm Senior Common Room, Darwin Building Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU Free Admission. Booking is essential. Places are limited.

RSVP to Barbara Muñoz b.rodriguez-munoz@network.rca.ac.uk

Organised by first year MA Curating Contemporary Art students at the Royal College of Art, London.

A salon discussion exploring the current and possible future effects of the economic downturn on the production and presentation of contemporary art.

Speakers include:

Anne-Sophie Dinant, Associate Curator, South London Gallery
Lina Dzuverovic, Co-founder and Director of Electra
Candida Gertler, Co-Director and Trustee of Outset Contemporary Art Fund
Julie Lomax, Head of Visual Arts, Arts Council England
Christian Mooney, Director, Arcade Fine Arts Gallery
Elizabeth Neilson, Curator and Head of Collection for 176 Zabludowicz Collection
Lawrence Ohana, Strategic Advisor to the Arts
Francesco Pedraglio, Caterina Riva, Pieternel Vermoortel , Directors, FormContent
Soraya Rodriguez, Founding Director, Zoo Art Enterprises
Sally Tallant, Head of Programmes, Serpentine Gallery


Where do we go from here? brings together prominent art professionals to explore alternative strategies and modes of negotiating the place of contemporary art in the future. Departing from the exploration of the mechanisms behind the exponential growth that the UK art scene experienced over the last decade, the discussion will be an open-ended attempt to outline the potential models of art organisations operating in an uncertain financial climate.

Over the last ten years, the UK art scene has undergone exceptional changes, rapidly becoming one of the most influential centres for contemporary art. The relationship between the public and private sectors has been a pivotal factor in this development. Through this discussion we would like to explore to what extent the current financial climate will change the contemporary art landscape in the UK. At what level will the public and private sectors have to interact in order to ensure the vitality of the art scene? And what might be the possible organisational, financial and curatorial strategies that will configure the art scene of the future?

A film screening curated by the first year MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art

Thursday 14 January 2010 at 6pm, running time 83 minutes
Lecture Theatre 1, Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2EU

Free Admission

Hollis Frampton, Lemon (for Robert Huot), 1969

Marine Hugonnier, The Secretary of the Invisible, 2007
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, 2009
Filipa César, Allee der Kosmonauten, 2007
Beatrice Gibson, A Necessary Music, 2008

Fictional Geographies brings together five international artists and filmmakers who use film to explore alternative modes of engaging with space and place. The programme‘s starting point is Hollis Frampton's 1969 film Lemon, a meditation on the extraordinary that resides within the everyday. Recent films by Marine Hugonnier, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Filipa César and Beatrice Gibson further investigate the interplay between physical landscapes and their imaginary interpretation.

In The Secretary of the Invisible, Marine Hugonnier draws a parallel between cinema and an animist ritual of transformation. Shot on the River Niger, the film pays homage to the seminal French anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch (1917-2004) whose work famously challenged observational documentary. In her evocative film, Hugonnier suggests that the mythical constructs of a place are as real as its physical presence. The capacity of cinema to reveal the invisible also characterises Apichatpong Weerasethakul's A Letter to Uncle Boonmee. The film is set in Nabua, a sleepy village in northeast Thailand that was occupied by the national army from the 60s to the early 80s. Rather than presenting the violent memories of those who remember the military oppression, the film uncovers the layers of history sedimented in the landscape.

Adopting another set of strategies, Filipa César’s Allee der Kosmonauten also reveals a desire to give cinematic form to history. Shot on the ‘Street of the Cosmonauts’ in the former German Democratic Republic, César takes the viewer on a seemingly fantastical journey through the mundane. As the camera glides through this former East Berlin street, the utopian intentions informing its architecture are allowed to materialise one last time. In a similar way, Beatrice Gibson’s A Necessary Music puts forward an imaginary representation of modernist social housing on Roosevelt Island off Manhattan. Unfolding through received accounts, the film evokes an image of the island in the voices of its inhabitants.

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UPCOMING FIRST YEAR MA CURATING CONTEMPORARY ART EVENTS

Where do we go from here?

Salon discussion, 27 January 2010, 6.30pm

Royal College of Art, Café

A salon discussion exploring the current and possible future strategies for navigating a recessional cultural landscape.