“If
only art could accomplish the magic act of its own disappearance! But
it continues to make believe it is disappearing when it is already
gone.” Baudrillard.
In
celebration of her 100th exhibition, Vanilla
Beer launches a series of audio
C.D.’s at The Horse Hospital, London,
on Monday the 8th
December 2003
Having
exhibited internationally through sculpture and
painting over the past twenty-five years, Vanilla Beer’s 100
show finds her shifting focus from visual artist to the medium of
sound.
Holding a
recorder to major works of art at renowned galleries in New York,
Washington, Toronto, Ontario, Arizona and London, Vanilla Beer
produces thriteen recordings through a dozen spaces, creating a
topography/topology of the prescence of the act of seeing; the sound
of people looking at art.
Just as
topology frees mathematics from being a subject of measurement, Beer
frees subject / object position in relation to the viewing / hearing
of the artwork; taking the gallery as psychogeographical text to
produce a derive of sound, Beer records the emotions and absence of
emotion behind the fine art object and the space.
In studying
the effects of geographical setting, Beer not only questions her own
role, motivation and significance as an artist but creates a study of
continuity referencing the work of Cage’s “Four,
thiry-three”, The Hafler Trio’s ‘Kuklos’,
the theories of Kurt Schwitter, Debussy and Kandinsky,
simultaneously commenting, combatting and multiplying the effects of
curation and site-specifity to challenge the independence of objects;
a zen of seeing the intermedia of sound.
Launch: December
8th 2003, doors 7.30 pm;
Installation and
Sonic Art performance at Gallery 291, date to be announced.
www.thehorsehospital.com
www.291gallery.com
www.vanillabeer.com
popculture@thehorsehospital.com
The limited
edition of recordings are drawn on, signed and numbered and are
available at £10 each; the complete set of 12 CD’s comes
with the 13th CD of the Saatchi gallery, featuring the
ringing refidgerator alarm of Mark Quinn’s SELF.
Galleries recorded:
The National Gallery,
Washington (time 31:10)
The Met, New York
(31:26)
MOMA, New York
(29:00)
Hirshorn, (Arte
Povera) Washington (22:48)
Hirshorn, Washington
(07:27)
McMicheal Collection,
Women Artists in Perspective, Canada (46:33)
National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington (26:27)
ROM, Toronto (70:45)
Art Gallery of
Toronto, contemporary collection (45:37)
Museum of Northern
Arizona (Hopi, Navajo and Anglo art) (31:43)
Royal Academy of
Arts, London (34:04)
National Gallery,
London (32:01)
For further information,
please contact
James B.L. Hollands
at
The Horse Hospital*,
Colonnade,
Bloomsbury, London WC1 1HX
(020)
78 33 36 44
*“The
National Gallery of Underground Art”
(Francesca
Gavin, Dazed and Confused, June 2002)
“London’s
premiere underground and avant-guarde centre”
(luxnewswire,
May 2003)
“The
current home of London’s avant-guarde”
(Iain
Aitch, London Evening Standard, 2002)
“Where
you find fresh expectations reaching for the sublime”
(The
Guardian website, Feb 2002)
“The
showcase for the finest minds of its generation”
(Res
Magazine, Toronto, 2003)
