A short film by Sylvia Schwenk is selected for inclusion in the 14th Flensburger Short Film Festival

Image: Schwenk, A shared space, 2012 (still from video 7 mins 5' loop)

A short film created by Artereal artist Sylvia Schwenk has this month been selected for inclusion in the 14th Flensburger Short Film Festival in Flensberg, Germany.

Entitled A shared space, the film premiered at the 9th Berlin International Director's Lounge Festival and is set within the grounds of a graveyard in a bid to offer insight into the unique happenings that surround the funeral service.

The film opens on a graveyard on a beautiful serene sunny day. Grave diggers are working in a quiet, harmonious way, with almost choreographed movements, preparing a grave for a burial. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining ... but all is not as it seems - there is a twist.

Schwenk's short films have also received accolades at international film festivals including: the ‘12th In the Palace International Short Film Festival’ Sofia, Bulgaria, The Contemporary Art Fair Ruhr (‘CAR’), Essen, Germany, and the 8th and 9th Berlin International Directors’ Lounge Festivals, Berlin Germany.

To celebrate her inclusion in the festival, we've pulled from the archives this interview we completed with Schwenk following the completion of the film.

How did you and your collaborateurs first meet?

I was working on an art commission in Europe and most days I would ride my bike past a cemetery close to where I lived. One day I got off my bike and went for a walk in the cemetery. It was such a beautiful tranquil space with green grass and blossoming flowers. I sat on a bench in the cemetery listening to the quietness of the space, watching people tending graves, watering plants and spending time with their loved ones.

I was transported while sitting there and felt I needed to do a work of art about death - so I approached the Director of the graveyard and talked about my ideas of making a short film about what happens in preparing a grave for a burial.

Why did you choose to collaborate with the Cemetery Director and Grave Diggers?

Death is such an important part of life and for many people it is a part of their everyday lives. Yet as a society we generally feel uncomfortable talking about death, funerals and grief. I thought it would be good to make a work that looked at all these things in an accessible way and so I worked with two gravediggers, filming them as they prepared a grave for a burial.

What is it about collaboration as a process that appeals to you as a contemporary artist?

Sharing experiences, ideas and time with people.

What is it that you hope to realise through this collaborative project?

I wanted to make death more accessible. However, when I filmed the gravediggers an unusual thing happened, which changed the nature of the work. I was unsure what to do with what transpired, but ended up presenting what I filmed, because this too is a part of life.

INTERVIEW // JODIE WHALEN DISSECTS THE NATURE OF AESTHETIC VALUE IN HER ASSEMBLAGES

Image: Jodie Whalen, Blue Bird, 2014, glass (yellow & clear), clay (yellow slip, matt clear glaze), rainbow beads, pearls (fresh water), dimensions variable

 

Jodie Whalen last Saturday spoke with Andrea Huang for 2ser's 'So Hot Right Now' program about her solo exhibition Paradise, currently on display at Artereal Gallery. During the interview, Whalen enlightened us on some of the wonderful dualities that exist in her playful assemblages, her thoughts on the value system of aesthetics and how her background in performance has influenced her new artworks.

 

You can listen to the entire interview here and see below an excerpt of Whalen dissecting her assemblages, piece by piece.

Huang: With the use of pearls and crystals alongside the beautifully imperfect ceramic work you've created, it brings together many surfaces and textures. What does that interplay mean for you?

 

Whalen: "I have used freshwater pearls and then I have these plastic rainbow beads. The pearl is from nature. The way a pearl is produced is quite barbaric and so in terms of the materials, I feel the pearl should be treated as a precious item within the assemblages because a creature made them. And yet, the rainbow beads are just incredibly beautiful to look at. They're these incredibly fine, rainbow, pearlescent beads. And they have a similar magic to the pearl but, what creature would make those? The value of the pearl and the bead, for me, aesthetically, is the same. But in reality, their value is very different. That is the language that I'm speaking of within the value system in these assemblages. The glass was, at one point, bought for celebration, so it was quite possibly very expensive. Though as the years have gone by, it's fallen out of fashion and no longer has that value. So it ends up in an op shop and you end up with pieces rather than whole sets. So then, by nature, if the pieces are getting broken, they become more rare, more expensive, so you've got the duality there. Then there's my hand-made ceramic pieces that respond to the colours and forms of the glass, and then physically, to the shapes of the glass pieces. They're hand made and so they're considered 'objects of the artist's hand', so where does that value play within the assemblage?
 

Where do we attribute that value and what do we place value in? Is it conceptual value? is it the making? is it the magic? What is it?

And I hope that's what the viewer gets an essence of. I hope the assemblages and their materials allow the viewer to be transported somewhere."

SYLVIA SCHWENK @ MELBOURNE ART FAIR

Sylvia Schwenk has been invited to perform as part of the Melbourne Art Fair performance program. Sylvia will be presenting a participatory performance entitled World Domination, as part of the Melbourne Art Fair, on Thursday 14 August.

World Domination is a fun and playful work of art that encourages laughter, whilst parodying evil, greed  and the desire to control the world. It is a nonsense. It is a silly and carefree project that is happy and evil, playful and scary all at the same time. World Domination aims to inspire happiness and laughter.

Sylvia's performance will take place on the City Circle Tram (route 35) which runs around Melbourne. Interested participants are encouraged to meet at the tram stop outside the MAF: Carlton Gardens’ Royal Exhibition Building at 5.15pm on the 14 August.

The performance will run from 6-9pm. Interested members of the public are welcome to participate in the work the whole time or for just the first hour.

For further information please contact mail@sylviaschwenk.com

QUEST / MELBOURNE ART FAIR

NOULA DIAMANTOPOULOS TO PERFORM QUEST @ MELBOURNE ART FAIR

Artereal Gallery is excited to announce that Sydney based artist noula diamantopoulos will be performing Quest at the upcoming Melbourne Art Fair. 

Noula will be performing an endurance QUEST

Everyday of the Art Fair from

13 - 17 August 2014

At the Royal Exhibition Building

Melbourne, Victoria

The invitation to perform at Melbourne Art Fair marks Quest’s very first performance in Melbourne, and comes following its success and warm reception at last year’s inaugural Sydney Contemporary 13, where it was included as part of Sydney Contemporary Director’s Choice.

Quest is an experimental performance work, in which the artist & participant engage in a silent conversation of questions (no answers) with each other.

Quest is an intimate and personal experience, in which the participant enters a shared space with the artist, and is called interact with the artist in an unconventional form of engagement.

Every Quest is unique, and participants are challenged to be curious, and shift the way they think. Quest highlights the powerful nature of questions, and calls us to question whether the answers we seek could actually be revealed within the questions we ask.

During QUEST, participants are invited to hold a short written conversation of questions with the artist, where no talking is permitted. Participants begin by writing a question and in response, the artist reflects on the question before replying with another question. 

The challenging Q&Q format of the performance is in direct contradiction to the answer-driven society in which we live today. 

“By deliberately focusing on the question rather than the answer, the performance forces participants to stop, pause and reflect – a process which, in many instances, leads individuals to the realization that the initial question they began with was not the real question that lies at the heart of the matter,” she said. 

As part of the endurance performance at Sydney Contemporary, noula sat on meditation pillows in QUEST’s calming pink lit surrounds for 28 hours over 3.5 days, foregoing food, drinks and bathroom breaks throughout the Fair’s opening hours. 

Noula will continue her endurance-like approach to Quest at Melbourne Art Fair, where she will sit for 40 hours over five days. 

LIAM BENSON PERFORMANCE TO CELEBRATE MCA'S 2 MILLIONTH VISITOR

To celebrate 2 million visitors since the Museum of Contemporary Art reopened in March 2012, the MCA celebrated by commissioning Sydney performance artist Liam Benson to mark the 2 millionth arrival in a suitably artistic way.

Entitled 'Me & You', the performance involved tonnes of gold glitter and Liam dressed in extraordinary gold regalia, for two very lucky visitors who came in at just the right moment. Liam took his inspiration from the final scene of 'STAR WARS IV: A New Hope', and delivered a moment of 'splendour and sense of unified achievement', as evident in featured video above.

To learn more about Liam Benson, click here.

NOLA DIAMANTOPOLOUS / QUEST

You are invited to participate in a short written conversation with Sydney based artist nola diamantopoulos, where complete silence will be observed. Participants will begin by writing a question on a piece of paper. In response, the artist will reflect on this question before replying with a question of her own. And so the performance will continue… 

Artereal Gallery invites you to participate in QUEST 

- The opening night of the exhibition will be held on Friday 15 November from 6-8pm, with nola performing for the duration of the evening. 

- nola will also be hosting an artist talk on the Saturday 16 November from 3pm.

- On Tuesday 19 November from 6.30-8.30pm watch nola perform QUEST live via Skype with Dogus  University (Istanbul) at Artereal Gallery

QUEST will be also be performed daily at Artereal Gallery from:

Wednesday - Saturday 

11am - 5pm 

15 - 30 November 2013 

"come. sit. quest. what is your question. what is my question. be silent."

QUEST was recently performed as part of the Director's Cut program at Sydney Contemporary Art Fair as curated by Barry Keldoulis. The artist will also be performing in conjunction with Dogus University in Istanbul via a two hour Skype session with participation from students and faculty members.

For further information on QUEST (including an interview with nola diamantopoulos) please click here or watch a video of nola performing at Sydney Contemporary here.

SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY DIRECTOR'S CHOICE / NOLA DIAMANTOPOULOS

Nola Diamantopoulos' Quest performance at Sydney Contemporary

Director's Choice is a curated performance program selected by Fair Director, Barry Keldoulis, that was showcased at Sydney Contemporary 13.

Interested members of the public were invited to participate in a short written conversation of questions with the artist, where no talking was permitted. Participants began by writing a question on a piece of paper. In response, the artist, nola, reflected on the question before replying with another question of her own.

The challenging format of this performance belies the answer driven society in which live today. By deliberately focusing on the question rather than the answer, the performance forces participants to stop, pause and reflect – a process which in many instances leads individuals to the realization that the initial question with which they began, is not in fact, the real question which lies at the heart of the matter after all.

As a performance, Quest is essentially an interactive and collaborative social project or experiment focused on community involvement and engagement. Drawing on the ideas behind relational aesthetics, the outcome of Nola’s performance is the creation of a social environment which brings people together to participate in a shared activity (or quest). The artwork is not about an encounter between the viewer and a static art object, but is instead an encounter between the artist and audience.

Subverting the commonly held concept that the stories or answers behind an artwork can be found within the work itself, the focus here is fixated on the performance and the participant. Rather than claiming to hold all the answers, the artist concentrates instead on the idea that the answers to all of our questions lie within ourselves. We are the source of our own answers.

Marked by its open-endedness, the performance becomes about providing participants with new ways of thinking, and in particular, a new way of viewing the questions that arise in our life. In this sense, through the exchange of information, the artist gives the audience access to powerful tools which provide them with the means by which to change their world.

To see more photos from Nola's performance, click here.
 

SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY DIRECTOR'S CHOICE / LIAM BENSON

Liam Benson's Santa performance at Sydney Contemporary

Director's Choice is a curated performance program selected by Fair Director, Barry Keldoulis, that was showcased at Sydney Contemporary 13.

As part of the Director's Choice performance program, Liam Benson presented a new performance specifically commissioned for Sydney Contemporary. Expanding upon a recent photographic work entitled Santa, Benson will adopt and embody the persona of Santa in a performance which explores the complexity of national identity, cultural identity and gender.

"Santa depicts the iconic Father Christmas as a patriotic symbol who, haloed by two circles of stars, holds aloft a shimmering Southern Cross sceptre. The portrait suggests that the cultural figure characterizes more than just a festive season, but also contributes to the notion of a national identity within Australian culture.

Santa is part of a series of works that explores masculinity and male role models and iconic figures. The unofficial title of the series is “Noble Savage”. When I make work about men and masculinity, I am approaching the subject with a sense of empathy. I feel as though men need their own deconstruction of their gender culture, much like feminism.

In the works about men I am looking for the emotionally complex side of men which is often mixed in with a deep culture of obligation, duty and codes of conduct.

With Santa, I wanted to celebrate the wondrous mythological father figure. I liked the idea of Santa being the role model of nurturing generosity. I also wanted to draw the comparisons between depictions of ‘God’ and other spiritual depictions of father figures. I found it interesting that they usually have the same hair styles, white long beard and hair. I also liked that they were beautifully groomed and styled, in an almost feminine way.

I am also interested in the cultural significance of Christmas within national identity, specifically n Australia. I see the similarity between America and Australia’s depiction of Santa as a white father figure. I wanted to explore the under tone of Santa as an icon which reaffirms a white Christian ideology within a broader National identity."

(Liam Benson, Artist Statement, 2013)

To see more photos from Liam's performance, click here.

COLLABORATEURS: NINE EXHIBITION OPENINGS. NINE DAYS. NINE COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS...

Bridie Connell_Free Fall performance shot_2012

Nine artists. Nine collaborative projects. Nine days. Nine consecutive exhibition openings... 

For nine consecutive days from the 3-11 July, within the confines of a 3 metre x 3 metre white cube contained within the gallery space, Artereal Gallery will present a series of collaborations as a platform for initiating new ideas and objects, sometimes unpredictable encounters, and for developing critical social and artistic relationships. 

Acknowledging that collaboration has moved into the mainstream of visual arts practice in the past decade, Collaborateurs offers an insight into the variety of ways in which artists collaborate with others: be it their peers, family, mentors, a musician, dancer, film-maker, with machines and technology, or simply with their audience.

FEATURING:  ELLA BARCLAY, LIAM BENSON, DAVID CAPRA, BRIDIE CONNELL, TULLY ARNOT & CHARLES DENNINGTON, NOLA DIAMANTOPOULOS, LEAHLANI JOHNSON, SYLVIA SCHWENK AND KARINA WIKAMTO 

The personal and professional ties that bind artist and artist, artist and mentors, friends, colleagues and collectors will be expressed and interpreted as intervention, as performance or installation, or serendipitous outcome; others may simply present a collaborative work produced before or on the day. 

The diverse program opens with an installation of David Capra’s Wizard of Oz Intercession series of ceramic sculptures he produced in association with his constant muse the 1939 film ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The marquettes are re-imagined sets from his recent performance pieces for the Workout program at The Museum of Contemporary Art. Sylvia Schwenk presents 'A shared space' recording an unexpected encounter for two grave diggers at work in a German cemetery. Michael and Karina Wikamto, a brother and sister pair from a family whose father’s given name and cultural identity were outlawed by the militant Suharto regime, create simultaneous versions of their family tree; Michael’s is computer generated while Katrina’s sculptural collage integrates objects and images to symbolize family members. 

Dance is an element common to several collaborations. Liam Benson in association with choreographer Nick Atkins develops, rehearses and presents a dance routine, Pas de deux for a noble savage exploring gender and masculinity. Bridie Connell’s St Theresa Swoon creates an image and immersive environment of religious ecstasy through repetitive dance moves that are curiously based on a seductive classic burlesque fan dance performed to a mediative single drum tone sound-scape by American musician Brian Chase (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). 

Long term artistic duo Tully Arnot & Charles Dennington will collaborate with each other and instructions found on the internet for Adam “Myth Buster” Savage’s instructions for DIY personal hovercrafts. They will employ their idiosyncratic sensibilities and skills to produce two ‘Hoverchairs’, which in the end become portraits of their collaborative peculiarities. Artist Nola Diamantopoulos will conclude the program with Quest, an endurance performance of a continuous questions only dialogue with a succession of psychotherapy students ‘in search of the soul’.

Exhibition Program:

LIAM BENSON EXHIBITING AND PERFORMING IN NEW YORK

Liam Benson_VB Sticker_Garis & Hahn Promotional Flyer

From May 8th - June 15th 2013, Garis & Hahn will be exhibiting 'Peripheral Visions', a group show showcasing contemporary art from Australia.

Curated by Marissa Bateman, the exhibition features Vernon Ah Kee, Joel Beerden, Liam Benson, Stephen Bird, Nicholas Folland, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Dan McKewen, Amanda Marburg, and Phoebe Rathmell.

"Peripheral Visions carries multiple meanings and resonances. Most immediately, it refers to Australia's peripheral positioning within the international art market, of which New York is the epicenter. With London's art powerhouses Saatchi Gallery and the Royal Academy both staging surveys of Australian art in the next eighteen months, it seemed fitting to start this international engagement with the exceptional artistic talent emerging from Australia, in the partly Australian-run New York Gallery, Garis & Hahn." - Marissa Bateman, Curator

Liam Benson will be exhibiting two photographic works in the show - The Opal Queen (2012) as well as a new work, Santa (2013). 

Liam has also been invited to exhibit a performance on the opening night of the show. Specifically created for Peripheral Visions, Liam will be performing 'Iridescent' (2013). The artist will be seated on a chair with a table that holds a bowl of silver iridescent glitter and adhesive. Over an hour, he will gradually cover his face and body with the glitter, pausing briefly to look up at viewers and make eye contact.

Liam will also be performing at Cutlog New York Art Fair on May 8 at 7:30pm for the Fair's Vernissage and on May 9 at 6:30pm.

After four successful years in Paris, cutlog art fair will be launching its first New York edition from May 9-13, 2013. Approximately 45 galleries and curators will present art, installations, performances, talks, and films in a creative architecturally designed environment allowing each art project to have its own identity and a unique art interaction with the public.

cutlog NY will focus on showing cutting-edge and established galleries that promote the work of contemporary artists. The fair will foster new relationships between galleries, collectors and art institutions to form a collaborative platform for building new perspectives on contemporary art. cutlog NY aims to be a creative laboratory, showcasing works by artists from all over the world and offering them the opportunity to gain global visibility.

The five day event will take place in one of Manhattan’s most vibrant and creative area, the Lower East Side. Over the past years, the neighborhood has become a new hub for emerging and innovative galleries and cutlog NY will be a part of this growing community to become the downtown art fair. Occupying The Dutch Neo-Gothic building, a former public school (PS 160), cutlog NY will be hosted by the Clemente Soto Vélez Center at 107 Suffolk Street, between Rivington and Delancey Streets.

Each of the roughly 45 participants will present an original project featuring one or more works by artists selected by a jury of professionals. A selection of sculptures and installations will be displayed in the Clemente building and courtyard.

A film festival will be held during cutlog NY, with a series of performances and talks which are announced in our program section.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS: CONTEMPORARY ART FROM AUSTRALIA

Opening night: May 7th, 2013 6pm - 8pm

May 8th - June 14th 2013

263 Bowery

New York, NY 10002

Gallery hours: Tue - Sat 11-7

www.garisandhahn.com

CUTLOG NEW YORK
May 9th – 13th 2013
107 Suffolk Street
New York NY 10002
www.cutlogny.org/en/

SYLVIA SCHWENK / GOING GAGA WITH DADA

Sylvia Schwenk is directing a new work of performance art called 'Dada- When Up Is Down'. In the work, a group of everyday people will perform a Dadaist inspired piece during the opening of the 'Going Gaga with Dada' exhibition on Saturday 25th August at Brenda May Gallery.

Going Gaga with Dada: A Dedication to Spontaneity, Chaos, Innovation and Nonsense, is an exhibition that will seek to define the undefinable - with prints, collages, artists' books, zines, posters, typography and more. The exhibition will run from Tuesday 21st August to Saturday 8th September.

SYLVIA SCHWENK / ALONG WHITE LINES

 

 Sylvia Schwenk_Along White Lines III_ 2011

 Sylvia Schwenk_Along White Lines I_ 2011

Artereal Artist Sylvia Schwenk will be exhibiting her recent body of work Along white lines at Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects, Melbourne from 16 June to 21 July.

A book of the same title celebrating the project will be launched at the opening. The book includes an essay by Andrew Frost.

Along white lines by Sylvia Schwenk is a project that joins art with sport and community. This work was performed during half time at the NTFA Grand Final at Aurora Football Stadium, Launceston, Australia in September 2011. 

During the performance over 400 spectators, around 15% of the audience at the football event spontaneously participated in this work of performance art, completely covering the lines marking the centre square of the AFL football field. At the start of the performance when people dressed in white overalls jogged onto the field in a single file and started to become the white lines on the ground, the goalposts, the goal square and boundary line, the spectators were somewhat unsure of the work. Some of the audience joined in, but many more watched. 

There were even moments when some of the children on the field tried to kick balls at the performers. Then when the performers moved to become the 50 metre line and the boundary line, many more spectators joined in. The work culminated in the last movement, which saw a transformation – spectators embraced the work lying Along white lines completely covering the lines of the centre square. 

The performance Along white lines is re-presented as a single channel video with sound, a series of photographs, and an artist book which includes an essay by art critic and television broadcaster Andrew Frost.

Sylvia Schwenk will also be exhibiting in the Artereal Gallery Project Space from 4-28 July, 2012.

LIAM BENSON / FREE FALL

Liam Benson_VB sticker

Liam Benson will be performing as part of the Free Fall line up at Oxford Art Factory over two nights on Friday 29th and Sat 30th June.

"Introduced in 2011, Free Fall transformed the glass cube of Oxford Art Factory into a series of live art installations. These installations, performed between the glass of the multi-roomed live music venue, interacted with the gig-goers and audience members, incorporating the use of colour, endurance, movement and other experimental processes.

Free Fall's founding curator and performer John A. Douglas is now ready to announce the launch of his 2012 program. Commencing Saturday June 9, Free Fall will return with some of the stand out and most talked about artists from 2011. 

All of the artists featured in this year's Free Fall have maintained a strong exhibition presence throughout the Australian contemporary art world since their debut, so this year expect to see some extraordinary work performed in the cube.

A myriad of themes and concepts - Greek mythology, the everyday, iconography, cultural identity, the carnvalesque, death and the body - will be explored through visual transformation and actions, often demanding unwavering physical endurance. Each performance will be documented on video and uploaded to the Free Fall Youtube  channel.

The Free Fall concept is a fresh approach to art making using spontaneity and imagination to connect with  audiences outside of the generic gallery space and into the bustling night time environment of the Oxford Art Factory." (Free Fall exhibition catalogue)

SYLVIA SCHWENK: BIRDS AND CLOUDS FROM ONE LIFE TO ANOTHER...

Sylvia Schwenk, birds and clouds from one life to another, 2011

Sylvia Schwenk is currently exhibiting work from her recent series birds and clouds from one life to another at Dyname Expo Gallery in Enschede, Holland and at Perron 1 / Het Loket Gallery in Delden, Holland until 25 May, 2012. 

A book of the same title celebrating the project, published by Euregio-Programm Grenswerte, was also  recently launched at the opening. The book includes an essay by Florian Waldvogel, the Director of the Hamburg Kunstverein, Germany. This project was commissioned by the European Union.

FRANCIS THORBURN AT THE BWA WROCLAW, POLAND

 Francis Thorburn performance, Wroclaw, Poland 2012.

 Francis Thorburn performance, Wroclaw, Poland 2012.

Francis Thorburn's work, Fiat 126 MK DRP1800 18202764, recently took place as a performance and procession in Wroclaw, Poland as part of an artist in residency position and subsequent solo exhibition at the BWA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Wroclaw.

The performance began by leaving from a Tram Depot on Kwiska street on a Tuesday afternoon. Concieved to coincide with Poland's "work day" - the piece involves the transformation of a classic FIAT 126p car into a man powered vehicle. The performance involved twelve men pushing the sculpture through Wroclaw city center ending at the Awangarda gallery. The work is in part inspired by what the artist decribes as "bohimian chad".

Francis' work is also included in an exhibition entitled Les Fleurs du Mal - New Art From London - an exhibition which has been organised as part of OUT OF STH vol 3. at the BWA. OUT OF STH vol. 3 is yet another stage of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning projects: External Artists. Out of Sth (2008) and OUT OF STH Presents (2010), carried out in BWA Wroclaw and city space. The former showed world urban art in the context of gallery approaches to contemporary art, the latter presented the most original examples of artists interfering in city space. This time the project includes exhibitions, realizations and activities concentrating on the issue of the City in its social and political dimension, City as a source of counter-cultural and alternative aspects of street activism, whose idea annexes new spheres of culture.

OUT OF STH vol. 3 is a multi-layered interactive event aiming to change the perception and co-existence of art in city space, within the trends of contemporary visual art, through the presentation of a spectrum of aesthetics, techniques and media, as well as its permeation into mass design. It is a broad presentation of the work of artists tackling urban themes, a new definition and function of the city, common public space, urban design, complimented by music events, performances, meetings, workshops and lectures, during which the artists will be sharing their visions of the city and its unique aesthetics. This art has gone beyond the gallery space and has drawn the attention of much of the wider world, far beyond counter culture. 

OUT OF STH vol. 3 is comprised of two exhibitions in Awangarda Gallery BWA Wroclaw (

Les Fleurs du Mal – New Art From London and Free Ride Art Space)

as well as realizations and international activities within the framework of the project’s experimental city space. Exhibiting artists include: kennardphillipps, John Russell, Tod Hanson, Max Reeves, Laura Oldfield Ford, Francis Thorburn, Edwin Burdis, Clunie Reid, The People Speak /Talkaoke, Emily McMehen, Kieron Livingston and Ian Allison. Curated by Cedar Lewisohn.

Francis Thorburn was born in 1985 in Wolverhampton, UK. He studied Sculpture at the Camberwell College of Arts, London. Thorburn has exhibited in numerous exhibitions throughout Europe, most notably as a guest at the Folstone Triennial in 2011. His works have been commissioned by both the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries and has recently undertaken an artist in residency position and subsequent solo exhibition at the BWA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Wroclaw, Poland.

Artist sketches and video works by Francis Thorburn including Free Ride, Raft, Vehicle Number 2 (tricycle) and Plank can be viewed in the Artereal stockroom.