Bonington Film Nights are the latest addition to the Gallery calendar that will punctuate the existing exhibition programme 5 – 6 times a year.
Taking inspiration from the legendary film events that occurred nearly 40 years ago in the Gallery, these screenings will showcase artist films of historical and contemporary importance, frequently collaborating with organisations and individuals from outside the University.
The first season of screenings has been curated by Nottingham-based artist and curator Joshua Lockwood, with the first event focusing on experimental artist films from the 1960s and 1970s.
This event has been organised in association with LUX, London and will feature, Beverly and Tony Conrad, John Latham, Len Lye, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Guy Sherwin and Paul Sharits.
The majority of these films will be shown in 16 mm.
Event view. Steina & Woody Vasulka, Solo for Three, 1974.
Header image taken from Beverly and Tony Conrad’s Straight and Narrow, 1970. Courtesy of Beverly and Tony Conrad and LUX, London.
During the exhibition, students at Nottingham Trent University and visitors of the exhibition were invited to design their very own personalised monogram to be in with a chance of winning a limited edition print from the Alan Kitching Collection. The rules were simple; the monogram had to:
1) include your own initials 2) use one letter from the typefaces used in the Alan Kitching Collection. The subsequent letters could come from anywhere: another typeface, hand-drawn, a found letter… 3) be rendered in a way that it tells us something about the designer.
Entries were then uploaded with the hashtag #NTUmonogram to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
To find out more, read the full competition details.
Inscription: The Almshouse Tempera Project presented the work of four contemporary artists who have investigated the historical but still very active form of social housing known as the almshouse, through the early painting medium of egg tempera.
The artists Derek Hampson,Deborah Harty,Atsuhide Ito, and Peter Suchin also included actual material fragments from almshouses within the exhibition, inscribing both the image and the physical presence of the almshouse into the gallery.
Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
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Celebrating five pioneers of the poster
This exhibition celebrated the collaboration between two typographic forces: Alan Kitching, a leading practitioner in letterpress, typography and design; and Monotype, global trailblazers in type and home to some of the world’s most popular typefaces.
The show revealed the process behind the making of the Collection; following Alan’s journey from research and sketches, through the Monotype archive, to Alan’s workshop and the finished printed pieces.
#NTUAlanKitching #Monotype
Design Your Own NTU Monogram
During the exhibition, students at Nottingham Trent University and visitors of the exhibition were invited to design their very own personalised monogram to be in with a chance of winning a limited edition print from the Alan Kitching Collection. The rules were simple; the monogram had to:
1) include your own initials 2) use one letter from the typefaces used in the Alan Kitching Collection. The subsequent letters could come from anywhere: another typeface, hand-drawn, a found letter… 3) be rendered in a way that it tells us something about the designer.
Entries were then uploaded with the hashtag #NTUmonogram to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Image has no captionInstallation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
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Johan Sandborg, Pro Rector, Bergen Academy of Art and Design Norway; newly appointed Visiting Professor at Nottingham Trent University.
Duncan Higgins, Professor of Visual Art, Nottingham Trent University; Academic Chair, Bonington Gallery; Professor in Fine Art, Bergen Academy of Art and Design Norway.
To coincide with the opening of the Returns exhibition, we’re delighted to host the UK premier book launch of three new publications – In a Place Like This. Their focus, an on-going artistic research project, exploring both personal and historical traditions concerned with a relationship to the representation of violence.
In a Place Like This explores the echoes of places, people and the impact of terrible histories. The central question to the research is the difficulty we face when we try to communicate our most intimate experiences to others.
Sandborg and Higgins have focused on the language of imagery, what it may represent and how to make ideas and emotions visible. This exploration is neither an explanation nor a mystification; rather it attempts to propose visual discussions.
In a Place Like This is assembled as a montage, an interwoven idea, in an attempt to review a narrative within the spaces in which it is inscribed.
A joint exhibition by photographer Chris Barrett and researcher Gianluca Spezza
Under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, North Korea has made a conscious decision to be more proactive in the media world. In 2013 we saw the very first live tweeted image of the North Korean leader, from mainstream Western media.
Icons of Rhetoric (IoR) offered a different approach to documenting North Korea, merging established news media practices with more contemporary ones, drawing particular attention to social media.
“While researching an article about an Instagram account claiming to be the official outlet of North Korean news, I started to think about the visual representation of North Korea.
The idea of the project became a reflection on our engagement with modern media techniques, our consumption of images and our knowledge of this ‘most closed off country in the world’ that is the DPRK, all this interwoven with the notion of democratized propaganda.”
Chris Barrett, photographer and curator
By reinterpreting images that already exist in the public domain, Icons of Rhetoric played on an aesthetic of authenticity.
Read more about the Icons of Rhetoric research project.
Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
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The title Soft Painting aims to draw our attention to the actual physical qualities of a painting rather than acting as an introduction to an image or to suggest a narrative. Simon Callery creates paintings that communicate on a physical level. A painting can be soft or hard as much as it can be red or green.
From Monday 13 – Wednesday 29 April Simon worked in the gallery space with a selected group of Nottingham Trent BA (Hons) Fine Art students and Nottingham-based artists, to produce three large-scale works. Rolls of canvas were washed and prepared for saturation in pigmented distempers – a process where the industrial starch is removed from the canvas and the dense and highly coloured medium is washed into the softened fabric at high temperature. These worked canvasses were then hung off frames to dry before being cut up, sorted and sewn into the formal configurations of soft paintings.
From Thursday 30 April – Friday 15 May the Gallery took the form of a contemporary gallery space, where the outcomes of the making process were realised in a final staged exhibition.
We caught up with Simon at his London-based studio for a behind the scenes look at his collection and to view his work in progress:
For the duration of this exhibition the Gallery became a space for learning where the connections between the making, installing and exhibition of artwork were exposed. The public were invited to witness and engage with the entire process.
Participants shared their images on Instagram using the hashtag #SoftPainting, you can read more about how the project evolved on our Latest News page.
Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Simon Callery, Wiltshire Modulor Double Void, 2010 – 2015; Red Floor Pit Painting, 2015; Wallspine, 2015. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Exhibition opening. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Exhibition opening. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Simon Callery, Wiltshire Modulor Double Void, 2010 – 2015; Red Floor Pit Painting, 2015; Wallspine, 2015. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Exhibition opening. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Exhibition opening. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
Taking place in Nottingham Trent University’s Old Chemistry Theatre, the space is reduced to a minimal setting of a table and chair, a notebook laptop and the human body. The performance aims to create an intimacy with the viewer whilst allowing the interplay between what is real and the virtual world.
Notebook Series is collaboration between a choreographer, Colette Sadler and set-designer, Philine Rinnert. The reference to a notebook in the title reflects shared ongoing process and research. The notebook is both a holding structure and platform for the collaborative process in so far as it allows the laying out and organisation of images, texts and choreographic notes or studies differently from those suggested by real time and space.
In a situation reminiscent of a lecture or public speech, the performance questions the identity of the performer. Moving between the real and the fictional in a clinical deconstruction and disassociation of the human body and its senses, the performance asks “What are you” and “Who are you” in an investigation of the human capacity for transformation and the possibility of living beyond the self.
Notebook Series is part of the Nottdance Festival 2015. The festival runs from the 5 – 15 March with over 40 performances taking place over 11 days, across more than 20 venues and public spaces.
Made in Wood was a collaborative exhibition and research event between staff and Architecture students from Nottingham Trent University and Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway (KHiB).
Taking inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the students addressed how global cities seem to challenge the laws of gravity, with soaring skyscrapers that compete to reach imposing heights.
Watch the video above to see the city of wood take form in the Gallery.
The Gallery was split into three distinctive districts overlooked by a bridge; each district depicted a different interpretation of a city scape.
The Bridge
Built to overlook the city, the bridge provided a focal point from all areas. An atmosphere of power and superiority was portrayed, contrasting with the ghetto below.
The Ghetto
Situated to the left of the bridge, this district represented the need for housing in built-up areas; how nationalities come together to build communities out of whatever can be found. A tight, enclosed atmosphere was created by the narrow spaces and multiple routes through the district.
Industry
As you looked to the right of the bridge this area was built to represent the historical industrial background of both Nottingham and Bergen and many cities around the world. It portrayed a ‘gritty’ atmosphere that was present before modern technology took over.
Lights of the Modern City
Placed at the rear of the Gallery, this district represented the growth of the modern city and how lighting from it can impact on surrounding areas. It drew particular attention to how imposing modern structures can be. The lighting creates a spiritual atmosphere and futuristic feel, acting as a beacon for all in the city.
Download a copy of the Made in Wood student brief
The wood used in this exhibition was kindly donated by John A. Stephens of Lady Bay, Nottingham.
Instagram Takeover #MADEINWOOD
For the duration of the Made in Wood exhibition we handed over our Instagram account to the students from Bergen and NTU, for them to create a visual diary of their experience. Check out their story on the Bonington Gallery Instagram feed.
Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Work in progress. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Building the installation. Photo: Mike Kane.Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.Image has no captionImage has no captionImage has no captionInstallation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Mike Kane.
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Returns formed part of an on-going collaboration between Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). Established in 2012, it developed out of an International Research Project titled Topographies of the Obsolete, set up by Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway; and focused on the disused ceramics factory in Stoke-on-Trent, Spode Works.
The aim of the research was to deepen and develop our understanding of the post-industrial landscape with specific reference to the industrial ruin. Through a series of residencies and workshops, a cross-disciplinary group of artists and researchers from a range of international art institutions set out to explore the socio-economic histories, industrial architecture and production remains of the former Spode Works. The results of the research were exhibited and published during the British Ceramics Biennial in September 2013 and Seconds, in the Lace Market Gallery in March 2014.
The exhibition at Bonington Gallery was the first showing of the newly generated outcomes, with a subsequent exhibition taking place at Sheffield Hallam SIA Gallery in Winter 2016. Each exhibition showed a new development from the work previously exhibited, demonstrating the progression of the research.
The exhibition brought together artistic research from NTU: Andrew Brown, Joanne Lee, Danica Maier, Debra Swann, and Chloë Brown from SHU.
Recent fine art graduates who participated in the original Spode project were in residence during the exhibition, from NTU: Ciaran Harrington, and Christine Stevens.
Discussion Workshops
Throughout the Returns exhibition, researchers from the project led a series of discussion workshops. Each session was intended for a small group of invited speakers and participants who considered a specific area emerging from the concerns uncovered in Returns’ research through practice.
The discussions took the form of presentations, group conversations and practical activities. Their aim was to bring together professionals and practitioners to reflect upon three particular points of focus:
Digging through Dirt: Archaeology past, present, precious and unwanted Wednesday 11 February, 1 pm – 2.15 pm
Artists will have your Ruin: Regeneration through the arts Wednesday 18 February, 1 pm – 2.15 pm
Ruins of Craft: Lost art of making Wednesday 25 February, 1 pm – 2.15 pm
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