September 08, 2003
Silent Spaces by Vanilla Beer
Monday the 8th December 2003 6.30pm
The Horse Hospital is honoured to present the launch of a series of audio CDs in celebration of the 100th exhibition of artist Vanilla Beer.
"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 CDs at The Horse Hospital, London, on Monday the 8th December 2003.
Having exhibited internationally through scupture and painting over the past twenty-five years, Vanilla Beer’s 100th show finds her shifting focus from visual artist to the medium of sound.
Holding a recorder to major works of art at reknowned galleries in New York, Washington, Toronto, Ontario, Arizona and London, Vanilla Beer produces 13 different recordings through a dozen spaces, creating a topography / topology of the presence behind 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 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, thirty-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 via the intermedia of sound.
The recordings are available at £10 each; the complete set of 12 CDs comes with the 13th CD of the Saatchi Gallery, featuring the ringing refridgerator 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 Poverta, Washington (22:48)
Hirshorn, Washington (0.7:27)
McMicheal Collection , Women Artists In Perspective, Canada (46:33)
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washinton (46:27)
ROM, Toronto (70:45)
Art Gallery of Toronto, contemporary collection (45:37)
Museum of Northern Arizona, Hopi, Navajo and Anglo (31:43)
Royal Academy of Arts, London (34:04)
National Gallery, London (32:01)
The resulting CD’s are available,
pre-launch price £10 or £100 for the set.
The CDs are signed and numbered by the artist.
Launch :
December 8th 2003, Doors 6.30pm
The Horse Hospital
Colonnade
Bloomsbury
London WC1n 1HX
( 020 ) 7833 3644
popculture@thehorsehospital.com
www.vanillabeer.com
posted by James on September 8, 2003 11:53 AM