Bonington Gallery is delighted to present Andrew Logan The Joy of Sculpture, a solo exhibition spanning 50 years of practice from one of Britain’s most iconic artists. Andrew – sculptor, painter, and jewellery artist – is known for challenging convention, mixing media and playing with artistic values.
The Joy of Sculpture presents a collection of Andrew Logan’s work – from large-scale sculptures, mirror portraits and jewellery, and archive displays from his infamous Alternative Miss World competitions. Including new creations and those never shown before, this exhibition brings together all areas of Logan’s practice in a single place.
Andrew’s artwork reflects his unrelenting, and infectious, passion, joy and energy. Smashed glass and found objects are transformed, becoming flamboyant, colourful and glittering objects, in all shapes and sizes.
Key works within the The Joy of Sculpture include:
Andrew’s work doesn’t offer that much to the would-be catalogue mystifier. If you start saying anything too pretentious about it, it sort of laughs in your face. It’s hard to place, because it doesn’t really quite belong anywhere, guilelessly straddling a number of heavily contested boundaries – such as those between art and craft, between art and decoration, between pop and fine, between the profane and sacred.
Brian Eno
Our Bonington Vitrines will house archive material from Andrew’s celebrated Alternative Miss World competition. The infamous pageant, inspired by the Crufts dog show, was started in 1972 and hosted by Logan – who acts as both host and hostess. Contestants and judges over the years have included David Hockney, Ruby Wax, Leigh Bowery, Grayson Perry, and Zandra Rhodes.
Accompanying The Joy of Sculpture will be a programme of public events, as well as a commissioned essay by Lynda Morris, curator, writer and Andrew’s acquaintance.
Header image credit: Andrew Logan as Host and Hostess for Alternative Miss World 1973 by Mick Rock.
Curated by Joshua Lockwood-Moran
With support from Tom Godfrey and Brianna Frazier Selph
Joshua would like to extend his special thanks to Andrew Logan, the team at Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture and to Thomas Lockwood-Moran. Other artists featured within the exhibition are: Dick Jewell, Brian Shuel and Jane Thorburn.
Technicians: Harry Freestone, Sam Famula, Sorcha Mayes, Mark Flanagan, Jennifer Savage and Ryan Young.
Lending Institutions: Arts Council Collection, National Portrait Gallery, Andrew Logan Museum of Sculpture, De Montfort University Special Collections.
Private Lenders: Piers Atkinson, Marc Balet, Amanda Barrie, Lila Bryan, Michael Davis, Brita Forsstrom, Angelika Grohmann, Maggi Hambling, Lynn Hanke, Emma Kane, Rebecca Hoffberger, Jane Linklater, Daniel Lismore, Richard & Polly Logan, Diane & Peter Logan, Philipa & James Logan, Kate Malone, Anthea Norman-Taylor, Baroness Patricia Rawlings, Zandra Rhodes, Lynn Seymour, Juliana Sissons, Keir Malam & Paddy Whitaker, Janet Slee and those who wish not to be named.
Due to the current lockdown restrictions, the Reactor exhibition will be in residence at Bonington Gallery from 7 April – 29 May 2021. This will be punctuated by live events streamed from the gallery. The exhibition will open to the public from 17 May 2021.
[COSMIC SOUP – RECORDED MESSAGE STARTS AGAIN]
Can you hear me?
Yes we can hear you quite clearly now.
It’s good to speak with you again.
What is it like there?
Here, there are endlessly repeating cosmic planes.
Visions of the past and future are accessible.
That’s how we remember it anyway.
So, we’re projecting now.
You’ll need to read between the lines.
Piece together the glimpses. The pieces.
You’re about to arrive.
[INTERFERENCE – LINE CUTS OFF – IMMENSE, BUBBLING, COLOURFUL PATTERNS]
The Gold Ones have existed across time, and now reside in the Cosmic Care Home (CCH). On this particular cosmic plane they are cut off from a wider community, and lead a bureaucratically controlled existence, cared for by elusive Helping Hands. What can be seen here, is an increasingly incessant transmission from within the Home. As the Gold Ones move through cycles of activity – rest, care, affirmation, breakfast, exercise, games, and treatment – we get to know each of them, their relations and woo-woo beliefs.
This performance-fiction is an evolving narrative, using video, performance, games and installation to explore an imagined present-future-past inhabited by characters collectively known as the Gold Ones. When Max Gold’s first video broadcast came through, he designated himself as ‘one of the Gold Ones’. An undetermined cohort of higher spiritual beings, or so they claim. After tracking Max for a period, we began to watch them intensely, to uncover them one by one. Initially remaining in the back spaces of the CCH, looking through the transparent walls, or listening in on voices from the other side. Here now, if and when we’re ready, you can join the Gold Ones in the main gathering room.
Saturday 1 May, 5 pm – 8 pm
Remote viewing provides access to the Gold Ones’ Dummies.
What can be seen here is an increasingly incessant transmission from within the Cosmic Care Home. As the Gold Ones move through cycles of activity – rest, care, affirmation, exercise, games, and treatment – we get to know each of them, their relations and woo-woo beliefs.
This event is part of the residency and new video-installation by the art collective Reactor currently on show at Bonington Gallery, which documents the lives of a cohort of higher spiritual beings known as The Gold Ones.
Thursday 13 May, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
A live performance roll-thru of the Ivan Poe video game, as this cuboid character keeps truckin’ on through the Cosmic Soup.
The Ivan Poe game has been developed in collaboration by Reactor, Bruce Asbestos and Jez Noond. For this event they will be joined by Kitty Clark, Mark Jackson and Jamie Sutcliffe to discuss video games, performance streaming and the myriad overlaps.
This event is part of the residency and new video-installation by the art collective Reactor currently on show at Bonington Gallery, which documents the lives of a cohort of higher spiritual beings known as The Gold Ones.
Monday 10 May, 5pm – Saturday 29 May, 3pm
What’s happening in the Cosmic Care Home today? Tune into the CCH 24hr TV transmission. Scrolling through the numerous cameras in the Home, the Helping Hands choose what you can see, around the clock. These cycles of slow-rest, care, break-fast, and well … what you can see now, is that time for the Gold Ones travels differently.
Thursday 15 July, 7pm – 8.30pm
Reactor and Plastique Fantastique have been talking about producing a performance fiction for some time.
We/they (Reactor/Plastique Fantastique) said that there would be a get-together to discuss this performance friction at some point in the future.
We (Reactor) called them and said now might be the time.
They (Plastique Fantastique) agreed and said: one hot summer long ago – 21 June 1998 – after travelling back to a pleasure park and forecasting what would later be said to have been called forth (our, Reactor’s, performance fiction), they (Plastique Fantastique) had created a set of protocols (a recording) for our (Reactor’s) performance.
They (Plastique Fantastique) claim an enunciation, or a type of performance diction/dictation was cast, for us (Reactor) to follow – an enunciation derived from tarot reading and looping sessions.
We (Reactor) listened in at the other end of the line, but wouldn’t quite hear correctly, and so the performance prediction didn’t happen (they, Plastique Fantastique, said it did and it was followed by us, Reactor, precisely).
So, we/they (Reactor/Plastique Fantastique) thought best to make that known beforehand. Are you (you) OK with that? You (you) are OK with that, so thanks for your attendance.
Reactor is an art collective, comprising Susie Henderson, Niki Russell and an undisclosed number of secret members. Recent and forthcoming projects include: ‘Ivan Poe’ (online), Kunstraum (London), Southwark Park Galleries (London), Quad (Derby) and Hexham Arts Centre, ‘The Gold Ones’, Radar (Loughborough), Plymouth Art Weekender, Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), Gallery North (Newcastle) and xero, kline & coma (London), ‘Log!c ?stem’, Flux Factory (New York), ‘Dummy Button’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin).
Bonington Gallery is pleased to present The Near Room (2020), a new moving-image work by the artist Sophie Cundale (b.1987).
The Near Room is a supernatural melodrama about loss that follows the journey of a professional boxer after a near-fatal knockout. The boxer’s disorientations become entangled with the story of a queen living with Cotard delusion, a rare neurological condition inducing the belief in and sensation of death.
The film’s title is taken from the boxer Muhammad Ali’s description of a vivid, hallucinatory space he would enter when in the depths of a fight – “A door swung half open [into a room of] neon, orange and green lights blinking, bats blowing trumpets and alligators playing trombones, snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors’ clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to his own destruction.” – George Plimpton, Shadow Box (1977).
The boxing scenes were filmed at long established south London boxing club, Lynn AC in Camberwell. The cast includes professional boxer John Harding Jnr., artist Penny Goring, and actor Chris New.
The Near Room is commissioned and produced by Film and Video Umbrella with support from Arts Council England, South London Gallery, Bonington Gallery, Curator Space and The Gane Trust. The film premiered at South London Gallery in April 2020 and due to COVID-19 was extended until September 2020.
Sophie Cundale (b.1987) lives and works in London. Her work has previously been commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries and the South London Gallery; screened at Temporary Gallery, Cologne; Spike Island, Bristol; Govett-Brewster Gallery, New Zealand; Catalyst Arts and Amini festival, Belfast; VCD festival, Beijing and Innsbruck Biennale, Austria; and hosted on vdrome.org. Cundale’s latest film The Near Room opened at South London Gallery in April 2020 and travels to Bonington Gallery, Nottingham in October 2020.
Running time: 32 mins.
Please be aware that this film includes moments of violence and blood, as well as sexual references which some viewers may find offensive and unsuitable for children.
The Near Room will also be available to view online every Sunday during the exhibition.
Listen to Dutch curator Anselm Franke speak about his career to date in this free public talk. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
Anselm Franke has been Head of Visual Arts and Film at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) since 2013. There, he initiated and curated the exhibitions Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War (2017/18), 2 or 3 Tigers (2017), Nervous Systems (2016), Ape Culture (2015), Forensis (2014), The Whole Earth and After Year Zero (both 2013).
He previously worked as a curator at KW Berlin and as director of the Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. In 2005 he and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus founded the Forum Expanded for the Berlin International Film Festival of which he has been co-curator since. He was the chief curator of the Taipei Biennial in 2012 and of the Shanghai Biennale in 2014.
His exhibition project Animism was shown from 2009 until 2014 in collaboration with various partners in Antwerp, Berne, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Shenzhen, Seoul and Beirut. Franke received his doctorate from Goldsmiths College, London.
CAMPUS is a year-long and city-wide independent study programme in curatorial, visual and cultural studies, based on collaborative knowledge production and innovative research practices. It is a free-to-attend programme of monthly closed-door gatherings and free public talks.
Taking place in different locations in Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Bonington Gallery, Backlit), CAMPUS welcomes participants from different backgrounds who wish to engage in conversations about contemporary debates and further explore interdisciplinary practices. CAMPUS is a space of encounter between researchers, practitioners, activists, scholars, institutions and organisations.
For the tenth iteration of Bonington Film Nights, we’re pleased to present four films by Annette Kennerley, Ian Giles, Stephen Isaac-Wilson and Charlotte Prodger to coincide with LGBT+ History Month.
Each of the artists explore queer space through film, focusing on differing geographies, from the club to landscapes, documenting the erasure and reclaiming of queer spaces. The artists utilise numerous techniques such as voice overs and verbatim theatre to explore both personal and collective subjectivity. Collectively the films explore queer desire, (in)visibility, relationships, resistance, collective action, and the body’s relationship to space and technology.
If you would like to attend this event, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
After the Break (1998)
Annette Kennerley
13 minutes
Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag (2019)
Ian Giles
25 minutes
Fleshback: Queer Raving in Manchester’s Twilight Zone (2018)
Stephen Isaac-Wilson
17 minutes
SaF05 (2019)
Charlotte Prodger
39 minutes
Ian Giles completed his MFA in 2012 at the Slade School of Fine Art. He was a LUX Associate Artist 2012/13. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: Outhouse, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Studio Four, OUTPOST, Norwich; Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag, presented by Gasworks at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London (all 2019); After BUTT, NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, New York; Video Club: Sex Talks, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; After BUTT, Chelsea Space, London (all 2018). Ian was an inaugural winner of the Shannon Michael Cane Award in 2018. He was a New Geographies commissioned artist 2018-20 and is currently a recipient of the Jerwood New Work Fund.
Annette Kennerley is a writer and filmmaker based in London. She was born in Cheshire and started making films in the 1980s. She was awarded a BA in Fine Art (Film & Video) at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London in 1991 and has worked mainly with Super 8 and 16mm film, experimenting with optical printing techniques and with the support of production awards from the Arts Council. Her work has exhibited at cinemas and film festivals nationally and internationally.
Annette’s films explore themes of childhood, motherhood, love, loss and sexuality. She draws on personal experiences in many of her films, though she has also made experimental documentaries with transgender people and directed a Transgender Film Festival at the LuxCinema for several years in the 1990s. She is also a writer and a teacher/mentor to young people.
Stephen Isaac-Wilson is a black queer London-based director who has directed films for Channel 4, i-D, Victoria Miro and the Tate, and worked with artists including Jorja Smith, Isaac Julien and Klein. Stephen grew up in southeast London, and in 2013 was accepted onto the BBC’s prestigious production trainee scheme, where he began his filmmaking career. In 2015/16, he worked across the Emmy award-nominated series about LGBT rights, Gaycation, presented by Elliot Page.
Last year he was commissioned to direct a portrait film for the Tate’s Queer British Art exhibit and also produced a 40-minute Mykki Blanco documentary about black queer alternative culture in Johannesburg. Stephen combines both his journalistic background with his visual art sensibilities, to tell beautifully emotive and thought-provoking stories.
His work has been screened at the ICA, Tate and the Barbican, as well as a film festivals including Outfest and Iris Prize.
Charlotte Prodger lives in Glasgow and is represented by Hollybush Gardens and Koppe Astner. Last year she represented Scotland at Venice Biennale and won the Turner prize in 2018. Solo shows include Subtotal, Sculpture Center, New York (2017); BRIDGIT, Hollybush Gardens, London (2016); Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2016); 8004-8019, Spike Island, Bristol (2015); Nephatiti, Glasgow International (2014); Markets with The Block, Chelsea Space, London (2014) and Percussion Biface 1-13, Studio Voltaire (2012), London. Group shows and screenings include Lichtspiele, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2017); British Art Show 8 (2016); Weight of Data, Tate Britain, London (2015); The Secret Life, Murray Guy, New York (2015); An Interior that Remains an Exterior, Künstlerhaus Graz (2015); Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists’ Film and Video in Britain, Tate Britain (2014), Holes in the Wall, Kunsthalle Freiburg (2013) and Frozen Lakes, Artists Space, New York (2013). Performances include Orange Helvetica Title Sequence, NY Book Art Fair, MOMA PS1 with Bookworks (2014).
Sensing Systems is now available to stream online. For the remaining Sensing Systems exhibition dates (until Saturday 28 March), Matt Woodham has re-situated all of the moving image works from his exhibition onto the streaming platform Twitch – allowing for full interactivity. After a quick registration and scan of the instructions, you can type in commands and values via the ‘stream chat’ to adjust the visual effects within the works.
Note: Depending on streaming speeds, there can be a four to five second delay.
Matt Woodham’s debut solo exhibition Sensing Systems will fill the gallery with a composition of connected installations, positioning visitors within a system of light, sound and motion. Visual and kinetic events will be sequenced by a central processing unit which distributes signals around the room. You can interact with the system, which, alongside random data sources and a sensitivity to initial conditions, creates a unique experience for each viewer.
“… It’s all live and being generated in real time… you can control it and you can influence it.”
Artist Matt Woodham speaks about his exhibition, Sensing Systems.
Alongside the exhibition, a number of offsite events have been developed:
Video courtesy of Matt Woodham and Reece Straw.
Matt Woodham is an artist, designer and technologist whose practice evades disciplinary definition. After specialising in visual neuroscience during his degree, he channelled his skills and interests into generating auditory and visual experiences – including music videos, live visuals for club nights, light installations, and experimental websites.
In recent years, Woodham’s research into the complex systems of the brain has evolved into a broader interdisciplinary practice. Inspired by the emergent, irreducible states of perception, he utilises experimental techniques such as feedback loops, generative algorithms and randomness. He employs code and electronic circuits to exploit the liminal space between order and disorder. These processes reflect the common non-linear dynamics which are shared between systems of various scales – from quantum mechanics to the economy. He feels that harnessing nature’s mechanisms has the power to delight an audience.
Listen to visual and performance artist Quinsy Gario speak about his career to date in this free public talk. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
Quinsy Gario is a visual and performance artist from the Dutch Caribbean. His most well-known work, Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012), critiqued the general knowledge surrounding the racist Dutch figure and practice of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), later bringing into the open the governmental institutional support that keeps the figure alive in the Netherlands.
He has an academic background in gender studies and postcolonial studies and is a graduate of the Master Artistic Research program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. In 2017, he received a Humanity in Action Detroit Fellowship.
Gario is a board member of De Appel, Keti Koti Table, and The One Minutes, a member of the pan-African artist collective State of L3, and is a recurring participant of the Black Europe Body Politics biannual conference series.
CAMPUS is a year-long and city-wide independent study programme in curatorial, visual and cultural studies, based on collaborative knowledge production and innovative research practices. It is a free-to-attend programme of monthly closed-door gatherings and free public talks.
Taking place in different locations in Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Bonington Gallery, Backlit), CAMPUS welcomes participants from different backgrounds who wish to engage in conversations about contemporary debates and further explore interdisciplinary practices. CAMPUS is a space of encounter between researchers, practitioners, activists, scholars, institutions and organisations.
Warping worlds, clashing colours and floating shapes are central to Bruce Asbestos’ Spring/Summer 2020 collection, imagining a world where you can have a new wild look each and every minute of the day.
Inspired by the Motif exhibition, his collection utilises video game technology to generate ready-to-wear looks. Unlikely accessories, objects, shapes and motifs are combined into assemblages of creative possibilities and impossibilities.
The collection will be presented via a multi-video/audio experience, accompanied by a specially produced soundtrack – all situated within the Motif exhibition at Bonington Gallery.
Conceived by Bruce Asbestos using the Unreal Games Engine.
Join us in exploring a 15-year history of the application and appropriation of motif across a wide range of design cultures, and play a part in reinterpreting the future relationship between image and message.
Bonington Gallery is delighted to present Motif, an exhibition and experience that brings together 15 years of research conducted by Nottingham Trent University’s Tim Rundle, Principal Lecturer in BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion.
Motifs have become the cultural hieroglyphics of our times, charting a new labyrinthine set of semiotics that reflect shifts in social identity and consumer behaviour. As the new cryptologic visual shorthand, motifs have become a dominant form of communication, from tote to tattoo, replacing text with emoji, logo with image, city name with icon. Adopted as both badges of belonging and icons of individuality, motifs can be understood as markers of creative conformity or aesthetic innovation.
After 30 years of aggressive shifts in design, our relationship to retail, consumption, personal and lifestyle narratives are unrecognisable. One of the key markers of these global changes is our adoption of motifs.
Exhibition Graphic Design by Joff + Ollie Studio
Exhibition Animations by Simone Elverum-Hunt
Between Monday 16 December and Friday 10 January we are delighted to welcome Nick Chaffe & Bruce Asbestos as our Motif Artists in Residence. Working within the gallery, both practitioners will create work in response to the premise of the exhibition that will then be manifested through a public display. Bruce Asbestos will work towards a presentation of his S/S 2020 Fashion Collection, and Nick will work towards a currently undetermined outcome. Follow our digital channels for updates.
Bruce Asbestos lives and works in Nottingham, UK. His broad work encompasses performance, painting, clothing, social media, computer games, and a multitude of collaborations. Recent projects and exhibitions include: Bruce Asbestos x Juliana Sissons 2019 Collection, A/W 2018 Collection Nottingham Contemporary and Kunstraum, London, an Arts Council International Fund project to NYC and Philadelphia, Bruce Asbestos A-B Testing, Concrete, Hayward Gallery, London. MTN DEW, Commission by EM15 for ‘Sunscreen’, Venice Biennale. Ivan Poe, Plymouth Art Weekender (Main commission as ‘Reactor’).
Nick Chaffe is a graphic artist, illustrator and brand designer based in Manchester. He has worked with Amnesty International, The Oscars, Time Out, London Jazz Festival, Manchester International Festival and more locally Nottingham Contemporary and 200 Degrees Coffee.
A decade and a half of research into the use of motifs in design and culture has resulted in the creation of two new workshops that will run in January 2020 here at NTU. The sessions, designed for both teachers and designers, will offer a series of new tools to change your approaches to the use of brand, design, motif, and image.
Find out more and reserve your place now:
Join A Common Craft for a Day of Ritual to end the Waking the Witch: Old Ways, New Rites exhibition at Bonington Gallery. Through a series of workshops and aural experiences, we will share techniques in grounding, healing, and everyday magical practices. No experience or prior knowledge is necessary. The day will be split into two sessions, each involving two rituals, as outlined below.
Please note that booking is essential for each session, as we have limited places available.
I – Join celebrant Keli Tomlin to explore the creation of sacred space and the practice of grounding, both for ritual and in daily life. We will work alone and as a group to examine different methods of grounding in the moment and in your environment, as well as considering the protective and inspirational qualities of a space made sacred.
II – Elemental incantations: An immersive sound healing ritual with Freya Barlow, Blue Firth, and Isabel Jones, using the voice as a tool for communal healing, relaxation, and comfort. Please bring something cushioning, like a blanket or mat for your comfort on the floor.
Book your place for Day of Ritual: Part One (11 am – 12.30 pm)
III – A live ritual performed by Hawthonn. A transcendental aural experience calling in potential alternatives for our political climate through magic, sacred feminine archetypes, and relationships with the landscape.
IV – A closing ritual with Fourthland to commemorate and give thanks.
Book your place for Day of Ritual: Part Two (1.30 pm – 3 pm)
A Common Craft is a series of podcasts about the archetype of the witch, witchcraft and magic and how these subjects may affect our daily lives – sometimes without us even noticing. Through interviews and storytelling, each episode will present a journey through occult ideas, feminism, healthcare, gender, and popular culture. A Common Craft was made by Blue Firth commissioned on behalf of Waking the Witch: Old Ways, New Rites, a touring exhibition which looks to the importance of craft, ritual and land on the practice of the ever-shifting figure of the witch.
