1) I read the thesis of the show in the press release you sent out and it seems a little baffling – can you break down the theme of the show a little bit for me, and the kind of art people are likely to see at Phantasmagoria?

Well we want to comment on advertising using meaningful and symbolic art to sell and promote products.  The concern with this is that in order for capitalism to work, people have to keep buying new things, so commodities have to be disposable things but at the same time appeal to a society that demands meaningful objects.  When consumers discover their items to be void of authenticity they will seek something new.  Art that is a counter reaction to consumer culture is too often used by the same culture it is challenging and is usually distorted.  The art in the exhibition will be a mix of satire, the grotesque, street art, pop art and low-brow illustration.

2) Our readership are mainly graphic designers and illustrators – what do you think that audience will get out of attending?

It would hopefully raise awareness about this issue and inform graphic designers and illustrators.  Creatives working in consumer advertising, in my opinion, should consider what they are referencing more, research the cultures they are drawing from more appropriately, and not distort or abuse meaningful visual information that owes itself to history and social cultures.  Hopefully the exhibition concept and the artist’s work will inspire some interesting debate amongst creatives, it will also be a really good night of drinks and good vibes.

3) Tell us a little more about Jon Burgerman, Boicut and Shin – why did you choose to ask them to contribute and how does their work link in with the theme of Phantasmagoria? For example what sort of statements or creative methods go into their pieces so as to tie them to the rest of the artwork on show?

Each of the artists in question are great entrepreneurs as well as artists.  It is very exciting to see many artists like them evolving to the world of visual language and doing what they have to do to survive as independent creatives.  To me they are a bit like pastiches of consumer culture though and the low-brow visual world we experience each day.  Their work is really sophisticated and hand made and they use mass consumer techniques to expand their empires if you like. I think there is a lot to be understood about the state of contemporary art through how they are approaching being artists.

4) What are some of the other interesting pieces people can see?
James Unsworth’s “Most Beautiful Suicide” depicts dead 23-year old Evelyn McHale.  She jumped to her death from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building in 1947.  The picture deceives viewers by appearing to be something it is not.

Andrew James Jones’ “Crying”  is typical of his usual work.  It is disturbing, weird and also very funny.

Press Release

The title for the exhibition, Phantasmagoria will be themed around the ongoing cycles of sub-cultures and counter cultures, their art, and it’s eventual fuelling of canons of mass assimilation by fashion and media to the point of vulgarity and its serendipitous decaying of objective and social meaning in tribal and underground arts.

In 1990 a relatively unknown Canadian essayist Gail Faurschou wrote about fashion’s “ingenious strategy of expansion.”  As more artistic raw material that challenges corporate consumerism is made, the more marketable material corporations have to advertise its products.  This systematic diffusion of any opposition continues to effectively dissolve and quash any of its subject’s capacity for growth and maturity.

The demand and desire for the “New” results in a Phantasmagoria of commercial imagery.

In the 1980’s Nike launched a commercial campaign, using the Beatle’s 1960’s “Revolution,” which resulted in a legal battle to stop the corporations use of material that they once feared inspired a generation of demonstrations against it.

Andrew James, James Unsworth, Anwot, Isaac Cordal, Martin Wollerstam, Jon Burgerman, Shin Tanaka, Rebecca Strickson, David Shillinglaw, Agent Provocateur, Todd Ryan White, Roman Klonek, Otto Schade, Dave Anderson and Boicut.

by Northern & Southern Irish female artists

February and March 2012

PRESS RELEASE

Anne Quail – Elvira Santamaria Torres - Amanda Coogan – Pauline Cummins – Ann Maria Healy - Chrissie Cadman -Frances Mezzeti - Áine O’Dwyer

Áine Phillips – Helena Walsh - Michelle Browne

LABOUR is a touring exhibition of Live Art, featuring eleven leading female artists who are resident within, or native to, Northern and Southern Ireland. LABOUR offers audiences unprecedented access to a huge body of live performance work by some of the most radical and exciting women artists emerging from an Irish cultural context.

LABOUR will launch in London, on the 9^th and 10th of February, then tour to Derry/Londonderry (Feb 24^th and 25^th). The final exhibition and surrounding events will take place in Dublin on March 9^th and 10^th to coincide with International Women’s Day 2012.

LABOUR interrogates the gendered representational frameworks prevalent within an Irish cultural context, that produce, limit and devalue, various forms of female labour. In each durational exhibition participating artists will perform simultaneously for eight consecutive hours, reflecting the duration of an average working day. Set within the shadows of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries, LABOUR explores current shifts in the political and economic climate within an Irish cultural context.

LABOUR aims to develop critical and creative dialogues around the female body in an Irish cultural context and its broader geo-political significance. The live events will be accompanied by a programme of scheduled conversations with the artists (London & Derry/Londonderry), a symposium (Dublin) and the exhibition of materials and documents from Brutal Silences: Live Art and Irish Culture – a Study Room Guide comissioned by the Live Art Development Agency and authored by participating artists Ann Maria Healy and Helena Walsh (London).

‘LABOUR promises to be of great historical significance.  Issues of labour and gender are particularly critical within an Irish context, and at the same time Irish women artists or women artists based in Ireland are creating some of the most exciting and challenging performance based work of our times.’

- Lois Keidan – the Live Art Development Agency

BBC TWO has commissioned a new series of ‘Show Me the Monet’.

We would like artists from across the nation to submit their art to us – whether you have publicly displayed any of your work before or not, whether you have ever sold any of your work before or not, we want to see it!

This could be your chance to get your art seen not just by some very prominent members of the art world but also by the nation… and it could be the first step on the road to recognition and success for you.

Our Hanging Committee (see Judges & Presenter) is searching for great art from both amateurs and professionals alike. Anyone can enter as long as you submit your own personal work of art. It could be a painting, a sculpture, a photograph, a drawing, a ceramic – as long as you have created it yourself, you can enter it (see terms and conditions).

The Hanging Committee needs great art to put into a new exhibition where members of the art establishment, together with members of the public, can view and buy the work that is selected. All the work at the exhibition will have your guide price attached but will be offered for sale by sealed offers – meaning that potential buyers will not know what anyone else has offered until the sale is over!

How to enter: take a photo of the piece of work you would like to enter (see terms and conditions of entry) and a photo of yourself and download them to your computer. Visit our APPLY NOW page (please note that this page will NOT accept entries until 09.00 on Monday 12th December 2011 and that we will only accept the first 3,000 applications.)

Submission opening date: 09.00 on the 12th December 2011

Submission closing date: 23.59 on 8th January 2012 (or when 3,000 applications have been received)

The repsonse to the open submission will show the individualism of contemporary artists working in mediums from painting to light installation art.

Artists:  Gareth Iwan Jones/ Jonathan Parker/ Nadine Mahoney/ Endri Kosturi/ Nathlyn Baptiste/ Liz Rajmohani Mundle/ Jessica Bunyard/ Darren West/ Paul Norton/ Sam Scott-Hunter/ Paul Green.

P.V. featuring DJ Hector La Box.

 Download Salon II Exhibition Catalogue