Thursday
Books In Limbo...
Tank just collected first load of books today for Books in Limbo installation opening on the 1st of June. Very Exciting!
There is something so comforting about being amongst all those books. Its not surprising that they are a never ending source of inspiration for artists.
Their very fabric along with the content is an intoxicating combination open to exponential creative possibilities. Which is probably why this exhibition will have so many facets ...readings, discussions, performances, interactions, recordings, ....and more.
I was meant to keep focused on loading and unloading but kept getting distracted by cool book covers and interesting subjects.
The Use and Abuse of Statistics caught my eye. Something I have always been interested in....I used to go to the library (in the days before the internet) and pour of the Annual National Statistic Reports, comparing, checking and putting things into perspective.
An original Jane Fonda work out, The Geographia A1 atlas of London with no date that I can see yet..probably from the 40's or 50's, a set of encyclopedias, ancient DIY books, cook books, dictionaries. Some beautifully covered some with their cover torn off. I just have to try not to keep them all!
20 artists, poets & writers have been invited to choose a book to change, adapt, destroy, reinvent, or simply read. Artists including Judy Brown, Claire Stanhope, Stella Duncan Petley & Renata Kudlacek to name a few. The books in their new form will be added to the installation.
These are our building blocks, our source...what we do with it remains to be seen....we will work together to construct and deconstruct within the the space, but also the content. What are these books and what do they mean to us? Piles and piles of information, some highly specialised such as engineering study manuals and some just at the dawn of learning with kids counting books.
I want to swim in them all, bury myself in all that knowledge! I have to admit I couldn't resist rolling around on top of them in the back of the van! Haha!
More details about the exhibition and all the events to follow!
Books in Limbo, 28th May-19th July 2010
PV Tuesday 1st June 2010 6-9pm -DJ set by guest artist from 9pm.
text and photos by Aoife van Linden Tol
Tank just collected first load of books today for Books in Limbo installation opening on the 1st of June. Very Exciting!
There is something so comforting about being amongst all those books. Its not surprising that they are a never ending source of inspiration for artists.
Their very fabric along with the content is an intoxicating combination open to exponential creative possibilities. Which is probably why this exhibition will have so many facets ...readings, discussions, performances, interactions, recordings, ....and more.
I was meant to keep focused on loading and unloading but kept getting distracted by cool book covers and interesting subjects.The Use and Abuse of Statistics caught my eye. Something I have always been interested in....I used to go to the library (in the days before the internet) and pour of the Annual National Statistic Reports, comparing, checking and putting things into perspective.
An original Jane Fonda work out, The Geographia A1 atlas of London with no date that I can see yet..probably from the 40's or 50's, a set of encyclopedias, ancient DIY books, cook books, dictionaries. Some beautifully covered some with their cover torn off. I just have to try not to keep them all!
20 artists, poets & writers have been invited to choose a book to change, adapt, destroy, reinvent, or simply read. Artists including Judy Brown, Claire Stanhope, Stella Duncan Petley & Renata Kudlacek to name a few. The books in their new form will be added to the installation.
These are our building blocks, our source...what we do with it remains to be seen....we will work together to construct and deconstruct within the the space, but also the content. What are these books and what do they mean to us? Piles and piles of information, some highly specialised such as engineering study manuals and some just at the dawn of learning with kids counting books.I want to swim in them all, bury myself in all that knowledge! I have to admit I couldn't resist rolling around on top of them in the back of the van! Haha!
More details about the exhibition and all the events to follow!
Books in Limbo, 28th May-19th July 2010
PV Tuesday 1st June 2010 6-9pm -DJ set by guest artist from 9pm.
text and photos by Aoife van Linden Tol
Tuesday
TANK: On the Road
The TANK girls also had their first official excursion last weekend; a kind of Thelma and Louise meets 24 Hour Party People. We took off on our weekend roadtrip in a battered red Mercedes Vito arriving in the middle of the night at the village of Aldermaston, just outside Reading. The party was held in a huge tent on the forest-like grounds of an out-of-the-way private estate. Great djs and a contagious funky vibe meant we pitched up our tents and, after some costume changes, partied like it was '99 all over again. Hopefully, we'll report back to you from more of these 'field-trips'!
Ma
Art in the Trenches?
By Ma Rainey: triangle player and daydreamer extraordinaire.
The new threads exhibition has gotten off to a roaring start, if the opening night was anything to go by. We had spoken word from Jason Shelley's The Romance; several accomplished performance poets; we had a live Dr. Seuss reading by the Cat in the Hat (my very favourite performance of the night!); and my own contribution blowing bubbles for the children in the audience, who promptly arranged a coup of sorts and took over. There was definitely a very relaxed, welcoming atmosphere at the gallery even as 'hoi polloi' rubbed shoulders with the great and good of the artworld, which promoted some controversial whispers. "I can't believe this is Ladywell," a merry guest or two thought aloud, "this feels like the East End." And in a sense, perhaps even a very large one, they were right.
There are a plethora of art galleries and spaces in East London full of Bright Young Things, with an active and involved audience for the work that they produce. It would be absurd to claim that South-East London is devoid of such talent (artists do not grow only in the concrete jungles of Shoreditch), nor, I feel justified in writing, would anybody stand behind such a claim. But it appears that we are felt to be on the fringes. Migration for those who are serious about being taken seriously is standard practice. The downside, however, to being closer to the bright lights of the big city is often that 'art-makers' become disposable fodder for a great Machine; discovery and success resting more on who you know and the luck of the draw, as opposed to the art piece speaking for itself.
I think it is this point that our guests were intrigued by. Art south of the Thames is as brash and challenging and, well, inspired as anything in the East. It only comes without the ribbons and bows of pretension; the South-East manages to successfully combine style and substance in equal measure, where Shoreditch, Hoxton and other trendy hubs of creative activity often become overly enamoured of the former, to the detriment of the latter. At the threads opening, everyone crowded into the downstairs space to watch, hear and be moved - lions sat down with lambs and shared discourses on postautonomy and the many faces of Vincent van Scoff... TANK Gallery and places like it are the life-blood of underground scenes, offering valuable exposure to artists who can't or won't take their art out of context. Art is an inevitable by-product of living; and those who live hardest feel most.
Monday
Ladywell Tavern wins Best Pub In Lewisham Award!
The Ladywell Tavern, to which we belong has won the Best Pub in Lewisham Award. This is a reflection of all the work put into both the pub and the gallery as well as the contribution it has been making to the Lewisham, and especially the Ladywell, community.
Its a lovely cozy pub with an open fire and a piano. The food is also really good so you should combine a visit tothe gallery with Sunday lunch or nice dinner one evening.
Check out the pub website: http://www.ladywelltavern.co.uk/
Well done team!
xx
Aoife
Sunday
FROM MUD TO MORTAR
ZIGGY GRUDZINSKAS
ALEX WELENSKY
EXHIBITION: 12th March
PRIVATE VIEW: THURSDAY 11.03.2010
DJ SET BY
From Mud To Mortar presents four photographers attempting to capture individual viewpoints of the
Taken with a 1950's camera, Ziggy Grudzinskas' stunningly soft and ghostly landscapes are technical experiments, exploring the uses and the place of the more traditional manual camera in the context of modern digital photography. The photographs were created using a multiple exposure technique, as well as being scanned and composed later, which adds a depth and a history of sorts to rival the more 'polished' results gained from current digital techniques.
Adrian Hays' highly manipulated works have an almost CGI quality. These 'video game versions' of
Alex Welensky's deliciously gritty images are somehow simultaneously very pure and very simple. Focusing on the texture of the landscape around the
It is not surprising to find that as a photographer whose practice has its roots in reportage, Sheridan Flynn's photographs are the only ones with human bodies amongst the bricks.
Despite, or maybe because of this, there is a distinct lack of personal engagement in most of the images. No eye contact and often no faces at all. He negotiates these bodies as though they were pieces of street furniture, just more obstacles to walk around, and leaves the questions they silently pose unanswered. At times blending with the architecture, they are subtly lost in the advertising of the shops surrounding them.
What is so arresting about these collections of works is that they are hardly inhabited at all.
Image: The Layup by Ziggy Grudzinskas
Saturday
KH JERON - Mode2 KP TALK & PRESENTATION
SUNDAY 31.01.20106:30PM - 8:30PM
8:30PM - 11:30PM: MUSIC AND DRINKS
Tank is excited to introduce a presentation by well respected international artist and curator Karl-Heinz Jeron. His interest in shifting popular social perceptions involves using publicly available data, statistics, mathematics, web based media and cheap materials to create works that challenge the traditional ideas of production, value and ownership of the art world.
Mode2 KP deals with how our society transforms information into knowledge. It is about reflection and perception, about the competition between two languages mediating complexity. One is the language of science. The other one is the language of art which has to understand science but doesn't want to become it. The idea of what good science is or should be, the images of science and scientificity, are difficult to grasp but no less significant for it.
The presentation will be followed by Q&A and discussion session.
Karl-Heinz Jeron lives in Berlin. He studied Philosophy of Science and Logic and is the Lecturer for Multimedia Art at the University of Arts Berlin.
Find out more at www.khjeron.de
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