Invitation – Private view: Place Not Found – Thursday 10th May 6-9pm
•May 9, 2012 • Leave a Comment
Private View: Thursday 10th May 2012, 6-9pm
(Opening performance ‘Poet’s Soul 5′ by Francesca Cho at 7.30 pm)
Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery is delighted to present ‘Place Not Found’ curated by Eunjung Shin, showing work by 15 South Korean artists most of whom relocated their working places from South Korea to London. Forman’s smokehouse, Britain’s oldest salmon smokers was likewise forced to relocate by the Olympic development to its current premises, overlooking the London 2012 Olympic Park. The works represented in the gallery space embody the artists’ experiences of a search for a place that can not be found. The gallery becomes a site for storytelling, exploring both existing and imaginary places in personal, conceptual, cultural and political spheres.
Place Not Found also relates to the transition of Hackney Wick from a traditional industrial zone to a vibrant spot of creativity. This progression inspires participating artists in Place Not Found presenting their perceptions as they respond to notions of rapid change and new surroundings.
Smoked Salmon platters will be available in the gallery or round up the evening with a meal from the full à la carte menu in Formans Restaurant – advance bookings on 0208 5252 365.
For more information and for any exhibiting or sponsorship enquiries, please contact
Gallery Director William Chamberlain on 07947 175 283 or email him on smokehousegallery@formans.co.uk
Please Note: The gallery will be closed to the public on Thursday, 3rd May for a private event.
•April 28, 2012 • Leave a CommentSpring at the Smokehouse 5 April – 6 May 2012
•March 30, 2012 • 1 Comment
Click here to view a catalogue of the works.
A Mixed Media Art Exhibition of over 50 works inspired by Spring
Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery, 5 April – 6 May 2012
What better place in the world to celebrate the Season of Growth and Renewal this year than Hackney Wick and Fish Island with a direct view of the Olympic Stadium?
Spring weather. Spring flowers. Spring colours. Spring clean. Spring traditions. Spring feelings. Spring memories. Spring nests. Spring dance. Words for Spring. Doors to Spring. Marshes in Spring. Song about Spring. Spring renewal. Spring in your step…
Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery and East Village London in collaboration with Art Catcher Ltd present you with works by 50 artists from Great Britain and beyond, working in painting, printmaking, photography, collage moving image and sculpture, expressing an unusual and delightful array of interpretations.
Exhibiting artists include including Adam Graff (Images 36 ‘The best of British illustration’ competition 2012), Carne Griffiths (De Peau’s 30th anniversary exhibition, co-ordinated by Alvin Goh, Hong Kong 2012), Ilker Cinarel (Sandra Blow award 2011, UK), Louiz Kirkebjerg-Nielsen (International Printmaking Biennial of Douro, Portugal, 2012, and Qijiang International Print Festival 2011), Sumi Perera (1st Prize-Drawing for Design-Rootstein Hopkins Foundation Drawing Exhibition, London 2011), Jens Marott (Silver Prize London Photographic Awards “Let’s face it” competition 2011), Martin Mossop (John Purcell Paper Prize at the Bainbridge Open in 2011), Fabienne Teyssier-Monnot (Claude Berthault Price in Sculpture 2010, Chongqing, China), and Wuon Gean Ho (Birgit Skiold Memorial Trust Prize 2010).
Curating artist Katja Rosenberg alias Art Catcher Ltd has curated group shows about cultural and emotional identity at the V&A Museum of Childhood, the Freud Museum London, City Hall, Pushkin House, Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery, the Tea Building and many other venues in- and outside the UK.
See www.artcatcher.co.uk for an online tour of the works.
Please contact Kathryn Nicholson for further information and high res imagery:
kathryn@artcatcher.co.uk, 07736 841862
Exhibition Opening: 5 April 2012, 6.30pm
Michael Holland, Educational Director of Chelsea Physic Gardens, will officially welcome the New Season by opening the show
Smoked Salmon platters will be available in the gallery. Round up the feast for the senses with a meal from the full à la carte menu in Formans Restaurant as featured on BBC Celebrity Masterchef.
For more information and for any exhibiting or sponsorship enquiries, please contact Gallery Director William Chamberlain on 07947 175 283 or email him on smokehousegallery@formans.co.uk
Artists’ Talks : Thursday 29 March, 6.30pm
•March 27, 2012 • Leave a CommentYou are invited to join us for
Artists’ Talks
with
Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski
Clifford Sage and James Stringer
Thursday 29 March, 6.30pm
As Part of the exhibition
Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end.
- video art and site-specific installation
2nd March – 1st April 2012, Thu-Fri 5-9pm, Sat-Sun 12-5pm
Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery
Stour Road | Fish Island | Hackney Wick | E3 2NT London
The exhibition Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end. brings together artists who work with performance, staged experiments and site-specific installation that allow for an open end as well as chance and failure to play part. The artists appropriate approaches from scientists in order to gain insights, accumulate data or choose their observational vantage point. The featured works share the element of suspense, surprise and humour. By defining a framework wherein a staged event or observed action can take place, the artists test the boundaries of our earthly existence, everyday life, patterns of social behaviour and virtual reality.
The artist duo Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski will discuss their video works Normal Love – End of Love and Triptych in relation to their practice of staging participatory events.
The artists Clifford Sage and James Stringer will discuss their project conCERN – a work in progress inspired by the activities at cern, Geneva. For the show Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end. Sage/Stringer created a platform where a participant witnesses and is part of the effects of different forces associated with what we currently except as the building blocks of reality.
Biographies:
Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski (UK, London-based)
Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski have been working together since 1999. Their multi-disciplinary practice encompasses moving image, installation, performance, experimental music and photography. Their work has been shown in Berlin, Paris, Brussels and London. Since 2007, they have curated and created a number of sculptural interventions at Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall as well as presenting their One Minute Disco (2007–2011), danced on the hour, every hour, at the festival. They were shortlisted for the Converse/Dazed 2011 Emerging Artist Award with The Whitechapel Gallery. In 2012 they will participate at the group show E-Vapor-8 at 319 Scholes, New York and collaborate with Hannah Perry, for an exhibition at Rod Barton Gallery, London. Their debut solo exhibition Danse-moi vers la fin de l’amour will open at French Riviera, London in April 2012.http://levacklewandowski.com/home.html
Clifford Sage (UK, London-based)
Clifford Sage studied at the Royal College of Art in Communication Art & Design (2008/10), specializing in 3D Computer design in the field of motion image. His special interest is the use of computer game engines and how these applications become increasingly accessible and powerful in our communication through digital interfaces. As a self taught 3-D artist working in the field of motion image Sage realised the amount of creative freedom computer technology offers by its diversity, allowing us to communicate and present information in multiple ways. Sage is currently particularly interested in how the technology we use is based on knowledge of the reality that seems without an apparent sense and is constantly evolving. Sage has been making music and soundscapes over the last decade under the alias recsund and is part of two band duos Communicvoid and Deece. A lot of his visual work is in response to his musical endeavours. Sage says: “Creating sound is another way of communicating, sharing opinions and expressions. It’s kind of like a subconscious diary.” http://www.cliffordsage.co.uk/
James Stringer (UK, London-Based)
James Stringer studied Fine Art at St Martins (2004/06), where he became interested in digital media and began experimenting with video, interactivity and web based animation software. On graduation he became involved in the London experimental music scene collaborating with various industrial, noise and techno musicians and performance artists. James currently DJ’s and produces music as Brood Ma and has recently launched ‘Quantum Natives’, an audio visual clubbing experience he says is best described as “Hard dancing in Atemporality.” James has exhibited internationally and performs regularly in venues across London.http://quantum-natives.tumblr.com/ http://soundcloud.com/broodma
Artists’ Talks
•March 20, 2012 • Leave a CommentYou are invited to join us for
Artists’ Talks
Sophie Clements │ Simon Schäfer │ Santiago Ortega │ Helen Turner
Thursday 22nd March, 6.30pm
As Part of the exhibition
Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end.
- video art and site-specific installation
2nd March – 1st April 2012, Thu-Fri 5-9pm, Sat-Sun 12-5pm
Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery
Stour Road | Fish Island | Hackney Wick | E3 2NT London
The exhibition Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end. brings together artists who work with performance, staged experiments and site-specific installation that allow for an open end as well as chance and failure to play part.
They appropriate approaches from scientists in order to gain insights, accumulate data or choose their observational vantage point. The featured works share the element of suspense, surprise and humour. By defining a framework wherein a staged event or observed action can take place, the artists test the boundaries of our earthly existence, everyday life, patterns of social behaviour and virtual reality.
The artist Sophie Clements will discuss her video work How We Fall in relation to chance and control in her staged experiments with elementary means. Simon Schäfer will discuss his sculptural experiments with found objects and his approach of de-/re-construction. The artists Santiago Ortega and Helen Turner will discuss their site-specific installations that deal with the context of the Olympics. The work Watermarks, a collaboration between Ortega and Anais Tondeur, offers a glance on a hidden reality. Complete Satisfaction by Helen Turner plays with our illusions and the aspect of failure.
Biographies:
Sophie Clements (UK, London-based)
Sophie Clements is a visual artist, working specifically in relation to sound and music. She lives and works in London. She graduated from the Royal College of Art Communication department in 2005.
Clements’ work explores the use of video as a form of sculpture. She uses devices including sculptural installation and video projection to deconstruct and re-assemble time and material to question the notion of physical reality in relation to time and memory. Taking inspiration from ideas in science and experimental music, Clements manipulates time to create highly constructed objects that grow from their surroundings, producing collages that rely on chance interactions and discourse between the concrete ‘real’ and the constructed ‘unreal’.
Simon Schäfer (D, London-based)
Simon Schäfer studied Sculpture and Media Art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, Germany and Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London. He has exhibited widely across Europe including “Serpentine New Music Action” in association with The Serpentine Gallery. He lives and works in London.
Santiago Ortega, (EC, London-based)
Santiago Ortega’s work as a designer often takes into account creating new experiences around perception, communication and interaction. This is achieved by introducing elements of surprise and playfulness into the interactions. Most recently, his installations also present a mix of physicality and digital technology through the use of interactive software. His designs involve working with materials such as wood and metals, and digital tools either for early prototypes or finished pieces themselves.
Santiago Ortega studied mechanical engineering at INSA de Lyon, France (2009) and a Masters in Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art, London (2011). His practice includes exhibitions and projects in London, Paris, Quito, Lodz and Cieszyn.
Anais Tondeur (FR, Paris/London-based)
Anaïs Tondeur studied at Central Saint Martin’s School (2008) and a Masters in Mixed Media at the Royal College of Art (2010), London. Her practice has included exhibitions and residencies in Paris, London, Detroit, Germany and the Netherlands. She lives and works between Paris and London.
Playing with the techniques of the observer, Anaïs Tondeur looks for shift in the viewer’s perception of the real and explores the role of sensorial experiences in an encounter with an object of knowledge. She develops narrative structures that are considered as means to fictionalize the real in order to reflect upon it.
Helen Turner (UK, London-based)
Born in Frankfurt, Germany and raised in Brussels, Belgium Helen Turner studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, London and The Cooper Union, New York, before recently starting an MA in Psychosocial studies at Birkbeck College, London. Turner has exhibited internationally with notable solo shows in Stuttgart and London. Her work is predominantly performative and site specific, frequently demonstrating processes of an amateur scientific/technical nature, which illustrate a sense of futility and pointlessness. Turner often investigates transitory spaces, failures, illusions and inconsequential actions, which inherently parody the behavioural society we live in.
