Visual Art
INTERVIEW
Alexandre Perrigot talks to Rosie Lesso about Elvis, chance and his installation at Glasgow’s Tramway
Rosie Lesso For this exhibition in Glasgow you will be creating a full- scale replica of Elvis' house. Graceland. Why did you choose to recreate his house in particular? Alexandre Perrigot The first time I came to Glasgow by plane I landed in Prestwick, the first European airport where Elvis Presley landed before going to Germany. Elvis' house is also the most visited house in the world. Thousand of people make a pilgrimage there. but there is nothing spectacular regarding its architecture - it’s a traditional Victorian style. But when you say it‘s Elvis' house everybody thinks differently about it. I am interested in how the cult of celebrity changes things. creates new and often poor mythologies.
RL There will also by a musical performance by Glasgow-based choir The Parsonage within Elvis‘ house.
AP Yes. Elvis' house is travelling, like a rock tour — we build the same empty house in each city and invite local bands to perform inside. The collaboration with the choir is based on contemporary attitudes like appropriation. humour and distance. The choice of the Elvis
PHOTOGRAPHY
THE JERVIIOOD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 15 Jul 00
With the Jerwood Photography Awards partnership with Portfolio Magazine. it seems only right that the touring exhibition of the four 2006 winners should come to Edinburgh. Paul Winch-Furness' series of photographs of Milton Keynes are named after the town's very own 'Master Document' — blurring and sharpening vague distinctions between manmade and nature. In Peter Oetzmann's images. we the viewer look upon the back of another viewer. who in turn is contemplating a rather gaudin painted English landscape.
An English landscape of sorts is also seen in Zoe Hatziyannaki's photography of everyday London City streets. By picking out an innocent (or maybe not so innocent) passer-by from one of these shots. and then juxtaposing a pixelated CCTV style close up of them next to the original image. a definite comment of life post 7 July bombings is made. lndre Serpytyte's works (pictured) are also political — although her narrative is told in a completely different way. she pushing you to see how we are often happier to accept the sticky gloss of contemporary culture than the harsh reality of what is going on out there. The judges seem to have picked works through which a thread of comparability definiter runs. And
tight little group indeed.
DRAWING. SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION TENDER SCENE: GROUP SHOW Changing Room Gallery, Stirling, until Sat 11 Aug
After a successful exhibition at Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice as part of the third leg of his 2005 Venice Biennale contribution, Alex Pollard exhibits his work again, taking over as curator at Stirling’s Changing Room Gallery, exhibiting with Fiona Jardine, Clare Stephenson, and Gregor Wright. All of the artists (excluding Wright) are represented by Sorcha Dallas, so this is a
although the images are individually quite appealing (some more than others). you can't help feeling that trying to keep things in the same vein may have eliminated stronger photography. (Claire Mitchell)
But rather than presenting the work in the form of a group show, the artist’s work will be exhibited as a collaboration, with elements by all four being mixed together. Jardine’s work usually responds to the architectural dimensions and fixtures of the space, covering walls in prints, raising areas of the floor and installing faux doorways (her recent exhibition at Sorcha Dallas gallery also included photographs and sculptural elements). Pollard’s work also responds to, and interacts with, the gallery space, with wall drawings encircling more traditionally realised sculptures, paintings, and drawings. Drawing is also central to the practices of Stephenson and Wright - both artists’ works presenting two distinct stylistic trends: a serious examination of two-dimensional artistic reality and a surreal attack on the fragmented figure, respectively. Stephenson’s work contains representational elements, set in impossible spatial configurations, while Wright draws expressive part-objects, questioning the expressive power of the line he utilises.
This exhibition will act as a mini-retrospective of some of the aesthetic preoccupations and considerations that many Glasgow-based artists are tackling, and will bring the work of some rarely exhibited artists to the fore. (Alexander Kennedy)
song ‘If I Can Dream“ is also linked with the famous Martin Luther King speech 'I have a dream'.
RL You will also be showing the installation, ‘Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose'.
AP This is specially created for Tramway. It’s a sound piece with an object traveling at high speed through a series of plastic pipes which spells out a sentence - the audience draws the sentence in sound. if you like. with many meanings. Your understanding becomes like a game of chance; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The installation will reflect the many meanings of this sentence. so I've asked 50 artists from Glasgow and all around the world to respond by sending me visuals and texts fora book that will be shown alongside this piece
INSTALLATION AND DIGITAL IRATIONAL.ORG CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 21 Jul 00
in the gallery. I Pipedream, Tramway, Glasgow, Sun 8 Jul-Sun 5 Aug.
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82 THE LIST 5- H) Jul 2007
'PrOject art' and 'web-based art“ sound like something hippies with palm-pads get up to of an evening after a shisha pipe and a banana beer. This anti-aesthetic guerrilla-esque expression appeals to computer geeks, the eternally young ithirtysomethingSI and hippies. But the exhibition by the irrationalorg collective at the CCA seeks to challenge our preconceptions. Does it succeed? No. Logo art has its place in late 20th century art. of course. but the urge to turn a recogniseable trademarked catchphrase or icon into a big joke isn't that funny anymore. or interesting. The gallery foyer is filled with mugs. T-shirts and assorted accessories that would not look out of place in a student tat shop. If this is an attack on what is thought of as art it is Successful. As an intelligent intervention it fails.
The work in the main gallery space is slightly more appealing, with large prOjections filling up most of the wall space. work that deals in wit rather than tacky didacticism. Heath Bunting’s 'Public Sculpture Climbing' is a successful slideshow where images of enormous. brooding sculptures are re-claimed by the peOple they were made for. who now scramble all over their ugly bodies. Kayle Brandon and Bunting's ‘D'fence Cuts' (photographs and wire cutters) also present a naughty. anti-Big Brother urge. to skilfully remove the barriers that run physically and symbolically through our society. (Alexander Kennedy)
Lu x" RY
MURDER
REQUIRED