Temporary Art Show
Temporary Art Show is the inaugural exhibition at Temporary Art Space in Halifax, following on from the hugely successful exhibition of the same name in neighbouring Huddersfield. Fifteen artists will exhibit painting, drawing, print, video, sculpture and installation works, responding to the broad theme of "temporary."
Opening: Friday 6th March 2009, 5-8pm
Then: Thursday - Saturday 10am - 4pm and Sundays 11am - 4pm
Until: Friday 27th March 2009
On this page:
Temporary Art Show Reviews
Temporary Art Show Photos
Temporary Diary by Kevin Boniface
Temporary Art Show Artists' details
Temporary Art Show Reviews
Temporary Art Show Review in a-n May 2009 by Rachel Lois Clapham. Extract:
Temporary Art Space knowingly lays its DIY ethic bare. It is unashamedly thrifty, here today, gone tomorrow, and initiated by a group of friends who just want to show their work. It is also upfront about the lack of clear (monetary) benefits for the artists involved. these economics seem significant to temporary Art Space: the project packs a huge amount of art into an empty - economically unviable - retail outlet. It remains open in the periods between shows in the form of a 'changeover programme' of artistic interventions; hence making what is usually exhibition down time 'productive'. It is also a wry attempt to simulate an artistic gift economy based upon Yorkshire tea.
These matters - or values - of exchange are present, but they don't overshadow the work that, in-keeping with the temporary theme, is variously fresh and delicate. Natalie Kay's The Way People Look is a series of sparsely and quickly sketched figures twinned with titles that highlight the poignancy of the fleeting and everyday moments depicted. Karl Jeron's Sim Gishel is a battery operated drawing machine whose automatic drawings represent the immaterial labour of an eight-hour working day in the gallery. Francis Elliott's One Measure is a clock with the hour and minute hands removed, the stroke of the remaining hand performs each second as time to be treasured, or wasted. Georgina Boniface's whimsical canvases and bunting - featuring badges, butterflies, rosettes and British pop icons - combine an unapologetically leisurely feel with a war-time era 'make do and mend' ethos.
Read the full article here: a-n publications
Huddersfield Examiner Review 13th March 2009. Excerpt:
"Huddersfield artists are bringing art for art's sake to the people - without funding or any interest in selling their work. The Temporary Art Group's second show is a riot of Sellotaped sticks and tiny wheelchairs. Plenty of artists whine about not being offered lucrative exhibitions or lavish grants. Not Paddock couple Kevin and Georgia Boniface, though. They decided they weren't going to wait to be invited to show off - and didn't expect to make any money from their art, either. The pair and their pals - Alice Bradshaw, Bob Milner and Tom Senior - staged their first three-day Temporary Art Show at Bates Mill in Queen Street South, Huddersfield last May, covering costs between them. And they were so staggered by its success that they've gleefully set about doing it all over again, only this time in a six-month slot in empty units at Halifax Piece Hall - now up and running. Their credit crunch-ignoring, DIY ethic is an industrial-strength blast of fresh air for West Yorkshire's art scene."
"I came to the show on Friday. I really enjoyed it. All the work was very entertaining, which to me is the first duty of art. It was clever, inventive, skillful. The actual presentation was excellent I will definitely come to the next event and will probably revisit the current one. I am a photographer and would love to see this sense of fun and entertainment more in contemporary photography. Thank you."
Robert Norbury (08/03/09)
www.newnaturalphotography.com
If you have an opinion on Temporary Art Show and/or the Temporary Art Space project as a whole please send it to us.
Temporary Art Show Photos
Rachael Allen Tall Cot
Ian Smith Matchbox Door
Ian Smith Boots (from Playing with Fire)
Rachael Allen Untitled (Double Buggy)
Milk Two Sugars Little Fisters: Escaping the Chapman Canon
Natalie Kay The Way People Look
Imran Jogee Untitled
Edward Cotterill Festival No.2 - Alice Bradshaw Untitled - Imran Jogee Untitled
Edward Cotterill Festival No.2 (ceiling)
Alice Bradshaw Untitled
Francis Elliott One Measure
Rachael Allen Untitled (grey wheelchairs) and Untitled
Alice Bradshaw Blown Light Bulb, Brown Paper Bag Box, Untitled (branches mended with sellotape)
Georgia Boniface Untitled
Kevin Boniface Three Graces (Saved for the nation) and Pencil and Crayon, Georgia Boniface Untitled, Julia Douglas Series and Georgia Boniface Bunting (ceiling),
Julia Douglas Series
Jared Szpakowski Untitled
Jared Szpakowski Untitled
Right: Kevin Boniface Three Graces (Saved for the Nation)
Josie Faure Walker PIGGIES, Kevin Boniface Bare Knuckles Boys, Georgia Boniface Dolls, Kevin Boniface Three Graces (Saved for the Nation), Jared Szpakowski Untitled
Georgia Boniface Dolls
Jared Szpakowski Eggtakk, Kevin Boniface Bare Knuckle Boys, Georgia Boniface Dolls
Karl Jeron Sim Gishel
Jared Szpakowski Eggtakk
Josie Faure Walker PIGGIES
Temporary Diary by Kevin Boniface
Preview
We were a bit late as usual. On our way over Tom began to speak about himself in the 3rd person. He kept it up for the entire evening which was deeply amusing and, perhaps surprisingly, never wore thin.
We had to melt an entire glue stick with a lighter to get Milk, Two Sugars' pesky mannequins in place but it worked and they didn't fall over unlike Jared's egg which only made it to about half-seven thus fulfilling its temporary brief all over the gallery floor.
There were quite a few people there including - ourselves excepted - Steve, Ann, Taome, Eden, Steve, Steve, Gus, Julian, Pav, Jenny, Joey, Christoph, Molly, Edie, Liz, Bob, Jared, and some other people who's names have either escaped me or I never knew. Everyone was, of course, very nice.
I think the show looked good, I was a bit worried about how we were going to reconcile such a diverse range of stuff but I think we just about pulled it off! Several people said very complimentary things about it (which I guess they would, but hey?) I love Natalie's drawings - I think they're amazing, I think the bunting/streamer thing also worked really well. Also, in the end I think the diversity of stuff really worked in the show's favour. People initially engaged with the larger pieces but then stayed on as they kept discovering more at different levels and scales; quite a lot of people stayed for the duration. I was talking to a man in a winter coat with a furry hood who kept interrupting himself by saying things like "oh look! another one - over there, look!" and when his companion asked him the time and he noticed Francis Elliot's clock, he wigged out!
I met Jenny (one of the volunteers) who used to work as a writer for the Huddersfield Examiner and still knows some of the staff. She said she'd read Compact News so I apologised profusely but she said not to worry as she really likes it. I thought she was going to kick my head in but she didn't - in fact she seemed nice and not the type to have kicked my head in at all, so that's definitely good.
All in all I think it was quite a good do. I always get nervous at these sorts of things; I'm not comfortable talking out loud to people who might actually listen to what I've got to say. Conversing, being insightful and shedding light on things aren't my strong points. I generally prefer drinking wine and going off on one about something I probably won't give a shit about in the morning, but I think I may have actually enjoyed myself last night. And Kevin Boniface keeps laughing involuntarily when he remembers the things Tom said about himself in the 3rd person.
Invigilating Duty
After introducing myself to Jenny and Krishna I went and got some take-out coffee and a scale model of a Hawker Hurricane from the model shop downstairs. The man in the shop was very knowledgeable and told me about the pink camouflage used on Spitfires to hide them in the clouds. I thought this was interesting but Georgia says it's not and besides, she already knew.
The first three hours were very quiet. We chatted, drank coffee and I built the aeroplane.
A girl with blue hair came in and initially mistook Milk, Two Sugars piece for a Chapman's original but after reading its accompanying 'statement' giggled for the duration of her visit.
A tall man asked if he could take photos with his big camera, I said it was ok, and he did.
The last couple of hours were much busier. We had a steady stream of visitors and even had to shut up late.
A woman with her young daughter said she really liked Jared's drop-leaf table. She said she really felt for it; the way it had been captured, bound up in string and was being dragged across the floor by the egg (stunt double). "...there's nothing it can do, it can't even open, it must be very humiliating for a table."
Not long after that, a man in black denim and glasses left saying loudly "A ten year old could have done that!"
For the last hour or so we were entertained by a Mr Edwards from Almonbury and his amazing feats of paper folding. He's made 6,000 tiny origami crane birds, each from a third of a bus ticket. He gave the kids a jumping frog made from a lottery ticket - in its own presentation case made from junk mail. I couldn't decide between an eagle and its prey (also from a lottery ticket) or a peacock made from a dollar bill. In the end, despite its £3.50 price tag, I went for the peacock because it can actually fan out its tail.
I showed Mr Edwards my Airfix Hurricane but he didn't seem impressed.
Kevin Boniface, March 2009
Temporary Art Show Artists
Rachael Allen
"A bittersweet life.
A one-way journey.
Are you travelling comfortably?
Miniature model-making provides a stage for the exploration of mortal existence, where the fine-line separating birth and death highlights our vulnerable condition as human beings. The miniature vehicles emphasise the uncomfortable reality that is the brevity of life; before long, the vehicle that drives one from birth to youth is replaced by the vehicle that drives the unfortunately disabled to their inevitable death.
To be seduced by these unique miniatures is to enter a diminutive world where annihilation rubs all around; just like looking in the mirror."
Image: Untitled (pushchair)
Georgia Boniface
"Georgia Boniface's background in fashion and textiles is brought to bear on canvas. Traditional appliqué techniques combine with a powerful compositional and graphic sensibility to bring about a vivid, hand-made, ephemeral and precise explosion of military hardware, pin-badges, British flora and fauna and icons of punk rock and modern art."
Image: Untitled
Kevin Boniface
"Kevin Boniface is an artist/writer. He has exhibited irregularly at galleries around the UK. He writes a diary all about being a postman in Huddersfield which won some awards and was published by Old Street Publishing last year as Lost in the Post; The Independent said it would be "a cult classic" and a man on the Amazon website said it was "Utter Rubbish". Kevin has also made a zine called Compact News which Tom said he liked.
Chris at work once said he thought Kevin might not really be a very good artist and that he might just be out to shock people for the sake of it; Kevin told him to go f**k himself.
"Kevin— or Jonathan as he sometimes prefers to be known— is exhibiting life-size portraits in white emulsion and black marker pen entitled: Three Graces (Saved for the nation), Bare-Knuckle Boys and Pencil and Crayon.""
Image: Three Graces (Saved for the nation)
Alice Bradshaw
"I work with a wide range of media and processes involving the manipulation of everyday objects and materials. Mass-produced, anonymous objects are often rendered dysfunctional caricatures of themselves, addressing concepts of purpose and futility. I create or accentuate subtleties, blurring distinctions between the absurd and the mundane."
Image: Untitled (broken branches mended with sellotape)
Edward Cotterill
"Edward Cotterill makes work that although uses basic materials and skills operates on a sub fantastic level; striving not to be "beautiful" (creating beauty out of the mundane) but less beautiful than the individual objects/materials used. An inverse notion of the term greater than the sum of its parts occupying a world where it is lesser than the sum of its parts, which paradoxically lends the work a skewed aura of beauty. Highlighting how the world is put together."
www.theparlour.org.uk/artistspages/edwardcotterill/edwardcotterill.html
Julia Douglas
"Julia Douglas is an award winning visual artist based in Scotland. She ponders the relationship people have with the objects they put in their home and aims to tell a story about the inhabitant's life by playfully transforming these items into mixed media sculptures and prints. In her work "Series" she has used a beautiful, hand painted, ceramic Willow Pattern plate as a model and has created a series of cheap, disposable copies. Though the pattern is the same, the serial plates physical attributes are distinctly inferior; they are flimsy paper rather than tactile ceramic; to be disposed of rather than treasured; and printed, rather than hand painted. They reflect a common corruption in commercial practice today."
Image: Series
Francis Elliott
"My work is primarily aimed at trying to pinpoint vectors relating to thought processes, emotions and imaginary spaces; filling in the gaps between experience and assumptions that we all use to make sense of the world around us.
I'm not interested in creating anything new; rather, stripping back the existing world until the mechanisms of each object's implications are revealed.
From my earliest works on canvas to recent blackboard drawings, paint has always been an essential part of my working process; most of my recent work has used paint as a physical surface, to conceal or disrupt common objects, thereby forcing the viewer to question the implications of the original. I have always been fascinated by space, time and movement; the different ways to perceive time, for instance; Garden uses rust to stretch time, leading to living paintings that change imperceptibly but continuously; whilst One Measure removes the hour and minute hands of a normal watch, leaving only an infinite sea of seconds behind."
Image: Dark Globe Download form
Karl Jeron
"Phenomena in contemporary life are the focal point of KH Jeron's artistic interest. He sees his work as an investigation of popular social issues. Often he collects material from public sources like Google, Wikipedia or TV. This material is enacted by small robotic vehicles or compiled into videos. Jeron is interested in shifting the recognition by subtle interventions."
1962 born in Memmingen, Germany
lives and works in Berlin.
1985-1986 Studies painting at the Art Academy Munich
1987-1988 Philosophy of Science and Logic, University Munich
1988-1989 Philosophy of Science and Logic, Freie Universität Berlin
1993-2005 working with Joachim Blank as Blank & Jeron
1999-2006 Lecturer for Multimedia Art at the University of Arts Berlin
Image: Sim Gishel
Imran Jogee
Imran Jogee draws a lot of his inspiration from music whether it be a lyric, an instrument or the mood of a song. He likes the idea of contrasting the serious things with silly things whether it be a picture of a gangster playing tiddlywinks or an animation of an O.A.P. breakdancing. In this case he has contrasted the natural form of a wooden log with the wonky lines of an old school boom box. Unfortunately the radio doesn't work.
Natalie Kay
"My fascination with the fleeting everyday, the dynamics of observation and the anonymity of the individual in society, drives my artistic practice. Within this I explore the relationship between myself as an artist and the observer and audience in relation to those being viewed."
Milk, Two Sugars
"In a world of increasing mediocrity and as an antidote to the culture of manufactured individuality we offer the world the only viable alternative, "Milk, Two Sugars". Milk, Two Sugars is a visual notebook published every month in a limited run of one hundred copies. These are distributed to a varied group of artists, writers, galleries and potential groupies.
The visual partnership of Bob Milner and Tom Senior began in March 2006. Coming together through desperation and fear of obscurity, the notebook is the starting point for a wide selection of work in a range of media. A love of drawing and a desire to communicate the deficient wisdom and combined wit of two exceptionally unfunny people is the motivation to create an array of visually stunning and ultimately forgettable images.
We have fun. We enjoy what we do. It isn't important where we fit in to contemporary culture, in all honesty we really don't seek a place at the table. We'd be happier under the table tying shoelaces together or standing before the court of the "glitterarti-farti" with a microphone and some really horrible and pointless jokes. We'd prefer to be heckled by them than invited to dine. We don't like artists that much.
The visual notebook is the starting point for work in a range of media. We paint, we make films, we write. We have opened our own gallery. We could make all the work sound really interesting and profound or we can treat it as cheap and throwaway. We like it when someone makes their own conclusion. We aren't here to harangue or convince you that we feel pain. Art should be fun and funny and it can be both without being drained of all serious meaning."
Ian Smith
"I have a studio at Westgate Studios in Wakefield where I am currently making sculptures and films.
The boots are a part of an installation work, which also features a chair and a tyre that have been similarly altered by the addition of matches.
As a result of using so many matches I have also acquired hundreds of matchboxes which I have used as building blocks in subsequent installation pieces."
Image: Chair and Tyre from Play With Fire
Jared Szpakowski
"My work deals with themes of identity, purpose, humour & satire and currently involves working predominantly with installation, print and bookmaking. There
are certain objects that obsessively persist and recur within my practice such as boxes, ladders, eggs and voyeur holes. My use of personification is both whimsical and quirky but also has the possibility to be read in serious and personal contexts and often involves an almost sinister suggestion of catastrophe.
The formulation of ideas, direction and composition is usually dictated purely by the space itself, be it outdoors, in a derelict area or gallery and work is frequently documented and then abandoned to its fate and to its discovery."
Image: Untitled
Josie Faure Walker
"Destroying the sculptures, paintings, drawings and collages I make has become a necessary ritual. Very little survives, and I find that positive. Much art is talked about without having ever been seen in the flesh, and the direct experience of object and viewer is replaced with whimsically worded press releases or curatorial statements and poor online reproductions. I enjoy these contradictions and questioning them has become a thread connecting my studio practice. Aside from this and the desire to recycle everything that I make into new work after being photographed, the subject matter and material of my work is all over the place."
Image: Untitled