HOST

*The artists used their publicity material to host a free advert for a local company

A collaboratively curated group exhibition of new work by Linda Bevan, Venya Krutikov, Tom Newell, Daniel Simpkins, Terry Slater and Penny Whitehead at BLOC, Eyre Lane, Sheffield, April 2007.

Bloc hosts six emerging Sheffield-based artists, who in turn will host a series of activities, dialogues and events, in a collaboratively curated group exhibition aiming to explore and contest traditional relationships between gallery and artist, artist and audience.

In response to their roles as guests, hosted by Bloc, the artists will explore social and hierarchical positions, cultural networks, hospitality, responsibility, intrusion and occupation. Elements of performance, sound art, video, and other media feature alongside live, durational work that seeks to be hosted and to host.

Visitors to the exhibition will be met with an unconventional greeting by Linda Bevan. Throughout the exhibition Penny Whitehead will curate May I Introduce..., a mini-festival of performances and interventions by undergraduate art students who will be gatecrashing the gallery space. Upon leaving the gallery, visitors will be guided by Daniel Simpkins through the changing social, cultural and architectural environment surrounding Bloc to Sheffield’s peripheral creative venues. Tom Newell and Venya Krutikov will transmit a series of haikus to public phone boxes in Sheffield city centre from various cities in the USA, and the unexpected acoustics of Walkers’ Ring, an architectural phenomenon at the foot of Ecclesall Road will be explored by Terry Slater.

Opening: Friday 6 April, 7 - 9pm A number of performative and participatory events will take place during the evening.

May I Introduce...Discussion with Penny Whitehead: Saturday 14 April, 5.30 - 7pm at the Rutland Arms, Brown St. Drinks and informal discussion around issues of hierarchy, integration and community raised by the project.

Best of... Art in the Pub Gallery: Thursday 19 April from 8pm (at Bloc), £2 on the door.
A student-run evening of artists' film and video, performance, live music and DJs. Showcasing the best contributions from the series, various artists tbc.

Public Walk and Free Music Event with Daniel Simpkins: Sat 21 April, depart from Bloc at 1pm, followed by music event at destination.

http://blocspace.co.uk/

A.A.T.

A new artist led movement for emerging artists in Sheffield.

A.A.T.’s current activities include:
Hosting meetings for informal discussion between an autonomous group of invited artists. The meetings are intended to form the foundation of new social/critical support networks between emerging artists, to facilitate communication, critique and collaboration.

Inviting figures from outside the group (artists, critics, curators, theorists, relevant public figures, etc.) selected by the group or by A.A.T. to join discussions on a week-by-week basis.

Recording discussions and outlining the topics raised, ideas generated and decisions made in discussion on this online blog, available for editing and contribution by the group and its visiting members. This blog will document the activities of A.A.T., whereby the groups’ posts will function as an extension of the weekly discussions, enabling contribution from outside the group.

Developing constructive relationships with other independent initiatives nationally and internationally for the purpose of collaboration, support and exchange.

Operating alongside Sheffield’s existing organisations with the intention of expanding the city’s art scene through the use of new spaces and approaches.

A.A.T. are based at Stag Works, Sheffield.
contact them on 07905 213060 or aatsheffield@yahoo.co.uk

Over one hundred artists contributed to GIFT, a project by Daniel Simpkins and Penny Whitehead. Each artist contributed an object that they bought or found with the intention of using in an artwork, a source of inspiration or a starting point for a work that was never made. Recently exhibited in Objects in Waiting (see post below), this abundant and diverse collection of unused objects and unrealised ideas has now been given as gifts to visitors throughout the event at Museum MAN, Liverpool, 17-25 November 2006.

When gifts are given, as when goods or money exchanged, the giver places the recipient (albeit inadvertently) in his/her debt, with the initial act of giving setting in motion a series of exchanges not dissimilar to that of an exchange of goods or capital, yet the terms are less easily defined. The recipient is bound by an implicit duty to reciprocate, just as we are all aware of the social pressure to send greetings cards to those who send them to us. This process of exchange will be revealed by the encounters activated by GIFT.

Visitors were invited to request an object that they would like to keep as a gift; if accepted, they entered into a verbal contract that made explicit their duty to reciprocate the act of giving, and their responsibility for the fate of the object/idea. In return for taking home the object, the visitor is required to document their use of it, and this documentation will be given, as a gift, to the original contributing artist. The documentation will also be published in a bookwork, as a record of the collaboration and exchange between artist and visitor, mediated by the event and the object.

GIFT by Daniel Simpkins and Penny Whitehead, took place Fri 17 Nov to Sat 25 Nov 12-6pm, at Museum MAN, 25 Parliament Street, Liverpool, Adjacent to A Foundation Greenland Street Building.

View the GIFT website for further information and images
View GIFT on Art in Liverpool

Objects In Waiting

Curated by Tom Newell and Penny Whitehead

NOW CLOSED - SEE GIFT FOR THE NEXT STAGE IN THE OBJECTS' HISTORY
More than 200 artists participated at End Gallery, Psalter Lane Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S11 8UZ. 19-26 Oct 2006.

Curators' statement:
Objects in Waiting is an exhibition of objects that were found or bought with the particular thought or intention to one day use in the making of an artwork. However, days or months or even years have passed, and still no use for these objects has been found. Perhaps the objects have gained a status whereby they have become too important to combine with anything else. If this is so, consider the possibility that these objects, which have the potential to be elements of an artwork, could in fact be exhibited as works of art themselves. The objects in question may not necessarily be material; they could be a source of inspiration or a starting point for a work that was never realised.

In curating Objects in Waiting, we hope to provide an opportunity for artists to unburden themselves of something which may have taunted them from a corner of the studio for years. An extensive and diverse range of exhibits will offer a previously unseen insight into artists' practices, with students and emerging artists exhibited alongside tutors and other nationally and internationally renowned artists in a non-hierarchical setting.The content of the exhibition has been determined by the contributing artists, as the invitation to take part was circulated through local, national and international artists' networks.

http://www.objectsinwaiting.co.uk

THE END

THE END was a collaboratively curated group show of new work at End Gallery in Sheffield, May/June 2006. This blog has been devised to function as a notice board and discussion page relating to the proposed follow-up exhibition.

http://www.the-end-show.org/