Ambience of Play @ THE GREENROOM.

Image copyright Katie Louise Dixon


Ambience of Play

Liz West, Katie Louise Dixon & David Morris

28 October - 18 December 2010, greenroom, Manchester

"From the award winning to the untrained, Blank Media Collective are pioneering the best creative talents from across the Pennines. Ambience of Play showcases three contemporary practitioners who are helping to keep the art scene in the North-West fresh and exciting. What makes these artists innovative is their playful approach to art practice as they set their own challenges to create their work.

The year 2010 continues to be a creative hotbed for original talent and this is definitely the case in reference to Liz West, Katie Louise Dixon and David Morris. From supermarkets to abandoned theme parks, these artists are constantly investigating social and urban practices, whilst retaining elements of fun and intrigue. Ambience of Play is an exhibition highlighting the mundanity that we see and often ignore."CONTINUED HERE.

Kevin Van Aelst.

Image copyright Kevin Van Aeslt

If Andy Goldsworthy was suddenly taken out of the beautiful natural landscape of rock and mosses and delicate icicles and lovely leaves, and was transported into the world that many of us have to live in, a world of plastic crap and cars, ketchup and old cups of coffee could he still make interesting sculptural work out of found objects ? Kevin Van Aelst can.

Rock n Roll, and Folk.

This coming Saturday I've got some photo's being shown down at THE WHITWORTH as part of a night of music and projected photography. It's to tie in with the current exhibition
‘Land Between Us: power, place and dislocation’. Local Manchester bands playing include Samson & Delilah - http://www.thesamsonanddelilahshow.co.uk/ and We Are Willow – Part 2 - http://www.myspace.com/wawillow to name but two. It's free starts at 6:30 and is first come first serve. Details HERE. This is the closest I will probably ever get to being a 'muso' so I'm looking forward to it.

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Are 'getting it on' to bring us this years MANCHESTER ARTISTS BOOK FAIR this coming Saturday. Details of Cafe Royal Books HERE.

THE BUY ART FAIR.

I bought some art today. I went to THE BUY ART FAIR and bought the above plate, a couple of little collectors books and a T.Shirt by Tracey Emin. I like Tracey Emin she uses the word 'cunt' even more than me......

Anyway running alongside THE BUY ART FAIR which mainly consists of an awful lot of shit ( think bad graffiti and air brushed naked ladies,think 1980's heavy metal album covers or pictures of confused looking cows painted in a naive stylie on hills that look like boobies) is THE MANCHESTER CONTEMPORARY which is not shit, and is getting bigger and more interesting each year and is where I got my bits and bobs from. I know perhaps I should have bought stuff by an 'emerging Artist' rather than by Tracey, but to be honest Tracey's stuff, although maybe not as limited was cheaper!

Image copyright Mark Page

Malcolm Craig Gilbert and the latest SOURCE.

Image copyright Malcolm Craig Gilbert.

For me the juries still out on Malcolm Craig Gilbert's series
'Post Traumatic Exorcism' Still there's plenty of other great stuff to look at and for those cleverer types amongst you, things to read in the latest edition of SOURCE. It's got a bit of a sinister feel this time, a slight Halloween accent perhaps ?

Bah humbug 2 months early......

Image copyright Mark Page

What is it with Halloween ? load of of bollocks that's what it is. Another load of shit swallowed by a nation (us) losing it's identity and filling the void with Americana. Come round to my house trick or treating and you'll get 'short bloody shift' ya little bastards...

Gregory Isaacs 1951-2010.

Gordon Clark & Leon Botha.

Images copyright Gordon Clark

Made me question my motives for posting these photo's by South African photographer Gordon Clark. I was drawn to them and I know why. Shock value and base instincts that no matter how sophisticated I try to be, keep rising back to the surface. What saved me from being a cheap voyeur and what lifts this work way above Shock Art and into the realms of Bloody Good Art, is the collaboration of the subject in the pictures by fellow artist Leon Botha. Clark & Botha's joint project 'LEON'

Snap.

Image copyright Mark Page.

Me and Ian Brown's video director on last years track 'Stellify' had the same location idea. It's the bit when he starts singing, and it's my route to work every morning. Can anyone name said location ?

Stephen Tourlentes.

Image copyright Stephen Tourlentes

From Stephen's statement about his project 'OF LENGTH AND MEASURES: Prison and the American landscape'

"Over the last several years I have been photographing the institution of incarceration in American. The presence and location of these institutions of exile paradoxically reflect back upon the society that builds them. Prisons are highly complex systems designed to contain, and punish the burgeoning population presently incarcerated in the United States. Since 1980 the number of prisons in the U.S. has quadrupled. A 2008 report from the Pew Center on the States reports census totals for the American prison system at over 2.3 million incarcerated in state and federal systems. The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. More than one in 100 adults in the US is in prison or jail" CONTINUED

found via Prison photography including an interview by Pete HERE. So it got me thinking I've not really seen much British prison photography. I know about Donovan Wylie's MAZE work, and I've seen portrait work done in association with prisoners/education departments, but for instance I've never seen landscape work done about them. We've 140 of them in Britain, in all kinds of environments so you think someone would have had a stab. Sorry that's a bad choice of words......

And not a plastic tit in sight........

From 1938.

BILLY & ROONEY, PENDLETON, 2010.

Image copyright Mark Page

I bet THIS 'Rooney' doesn't need a couple of hundred grand a week to guarantee his loyalty.

Martin Usborne

Image copyright Martin Usborne

Broke my bloody heart Martin Usborne's series 'MUTE: The Silence of dogs in cars' But then I saw his other series 'LIFE AS A DOG IN THE RECESSION' and 'DEAD FOX' and they cheered me right up again!

Found via foto8

BROKEN MANUAL..

Image copyright Alec Soth

News of Alec Soth's latest book BROKEN MANUAL has been floating around the blogs for a while now. A large chunk, 53 images, have recently been uploaded to Soth's new website. So for those of us who haven't got a spare $800 to buy this Special limited edition version, and I really wish I had, you can get get a good idea of what will be in the $75 version due out at a later date.
This work marks a pretty significant change in style. Alongside Soth's usual large format colour work we also find B/W, still lives and even what appear to be some kind of scan or perhaps Internet grabs. It all makes for a really intriguing set of images which gives a strange unsettling feel to the sequence. Of course the big question now is what are all the legions of Soth imitators going to do?

Career Advice.

Take off that Red shirt, hang it on a hook in the changing room and fuck off............

BEARD-EEE BUGGERS.

Apparently Beards are all the RAGE at the moment with Manchester Northern Quarter/Chorlton Types (mainly with the men although not exclusively) putting this pu-biccy form of attention seeking to good use, some of the most ridiculous Dedicated followers of facial hair, have parked up their 'FIXIES' donned some tweed and posed for Manchester photographer Gill Moore so as to produce a calender all in the name of charity. The photographs can be seen at COMMON BAR with a launch of the calender this Thursday. Go see Gill's Pictures even if this much face fuzz makes you end up with a little bit of sick in your mouth....... More details below.



The launch of the "Beards of Manchester" calendar will be at Common Bar this Thursday 21st October from 6pm.

It's a hairy initiative to find the best beards in Manchester and all in the name of charity. The brainchild of Sam (b & n magazine) and Chris (Oh Digital), I was delighted to be asked to work on this project and played my part by taking all the photographs featured in the calendar in and around Manchester over the last few weeks. The sun came out once and not even torrential rain stopped us.
All images featured in the calendar will be exhibited in Common Bar, Northern Quarter, Manchester aswell as a huge framed compilation of all the hairy entries which didn't make the cut.

The charity calendar will be on sale on the night and at venues around the city after that.

There may be beer. Could well be cupcakes.
Would love it if you can join me. Thanks for reading and hope to see you Thursday.

Gill x

Colleen Plumb.

Animals both alive and dead and pretend feature heavily in the work of Colleen Plumb.

P.S. Hello to everyone who was at THE ALTERNATVE CAMERA CLUB this past Saturday. It was great to meet more of you.....