Bonington Gallery was pleased to present the fifth in the series of Bonington Film Nights. This screening was the last in the season curated by Joshua Lockwood.
This film screening took place amidst the Publishing Rooms exhibition.
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Curated by Joshua Lockwood
In association with LUX.
For the fourth screening of this season, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present four films by: Ursula Mayer, Laure Prouvost, Rachel Reupke, and Matthew Richardson.
The selected films explore formal exchange within relationships – whether these are between actors in the films – or directed at us, the viewer.
In Mayer’s film, the ambiguous melodrama continually addresses an ambivalent ‘you’. The indirect narrative adopted by Mayer leaves the viewer left unclear as to who is being addressed; are they referring to each other? Could they be addressing us as the viewer? Perhaps they are talking to themselves?
Comparatively, the ‘you’ in Prouvost’s film seduces the viewer. Offering inviting and pleasant images, which we are shown only briefly. The images are interspersed with a sharp intake of breath, contributing to the creation of a sensory and seductive viewing experience.
In Reupke’s film, a man and woman meet for a drink in several nondescript locations, the same actors playing differing characters. The scenes are drawn out, creating the illusion that we are looking at a 2D image. The lack of action and dialogue within the film is used by Reupke to create a void; into which other emotions can be projected.
Throughout Richardson’s High Definition video, a male protagonist is observed, followed and conversed with, across a variety of quotidian London locations. The video picks up and loses narrative threads amidst an accidental, junk-experience, this is made further ambiguous by the video’s lack of sound. The blurry, yet intimate portrait, begets social documentary or a make-believe fashion shoot, in an illusory location. It could be understood as as a product that unilaterally emerges from fictions of: a social subgroup, a highly self-aware friendship, or a city in its own right.
Image: MATTHEW RICHARDSON, Untitled, 2015, digital still, HD video. Courtesy of the artist.
Curated by Joshua Lockwood
For the third in its series of popular screening events, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present four films by: Benedict Drew, Jacob Dwyer, Matthew Noel-Tod, and Heather Phillipson.
Each of the artists approach the process of filmmaking in differing ways but there are clear and common threads that run between each of the selected films. Each of the artists have used text to deliver and highlight the narrative within their film. Differing speeds of sequences in each film allows intonations of the text; or none in the case of Dwyer’s relentless text – using Spritz technology, which allows viewers to read up to 1,000 words per minute.
The works presented have real and constructed references, actual and virtual landscapes, the overlaying of manufactured imagery, and the production of digital realms – each has a relationship with the developments of technology.
Based in London, his recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Quad Derby (part of the Grand Tour) and at Matt’s Gallery, London. He has shown work in group exhibitions at Island Gallery, Brussels and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
Based in Amsterdam, he recently completed a residency at De Ateliers. He currently has an exhibition at C&H Art Space, Amsterdam and has completed a residency with Delta Works in New Orleans.
Based in London, Matthew is currently course leader of Moving Image at University of Brighton. From 2010 – 2015 he was a recipient of the ACME Studios Fire Station Work/Live Programme. He also took-up artist-in-residence in Victoria Park, London with Chisenhale Gallery in 2012.
Based in London, Heathers recent exhibitions include a solo installation at Performa, New York and at Istanbul Biennnial, Turkey. She also has an upcoming exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Curated by Joshua Lockwood
For the second in its series of screening events, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present Time Together by Mark Aerial Waller – a feature length artist film originally commissioned by the Baltic Triennial in 2012.
Time Together, a film in 14 episodes, is set against the luscious backdrop of summertime Lithuania, where a lost woman (Smiltė Bagdžiūnė) is befriended by a stranger (Monika Bičiunaitė) and led through a series of ritual exercises towards the formation of a cult or political cell. The story is deeply mysterious, yet the strangely compelling scenarios, each with a cliffhanger, leave the mind racing. What-if’s on a cosmological scale.
Mark Aerial Waller’s unique films almost come from another dimension, from a position shared with the science fiction and mystery writing of Adolfo Bioy Casares or Philip K Dick.
Time Together was commissioned by the Centre For Contemporary Art Vilnius as part of Midaugas Triennial, The 11th Baltic Triennial Of International Arts with additional funding from The Elephant Trust.
This event has been organised in association with LUX, London.
FILM LENGTH: 72 minutes.
IMAGE:
The original Time Together poster from 2013.
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.
Header image taken from Beverly and Tony Conrad’s Straight and Narrow, 1970.
Courtesy of Beverly and Tony Conrad and LUX, London.
Join award winning filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman for a screening of Art Class (2020, 49 minutes) followed by a Q&A with Andrea, led by members of the NMG associate cohort, supported by LUX Nottingham.
Art Class is a filmed performance lecture playing on, and exploring, the perennial tension between the two key words in its title. It uses the tropes of scholarly presentation and personal confession alongside extracts from the artist’s work, guest interventions, martial arts and meditation exercises and evidentiary found material. The sequence tests the limits of access that working-class artists have to cultural production and to the relevant institutions circulating these outcomes. Alternately playful and provocative, serious and satirical, Art Class favors wit over weaponizing and reflection over rhetoric but does not pull its punches when it comes to the real obstructions to working class creative progress, or to the strategies necessary to overcome such outmoded hindrances.
Watch on the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel.
Access: There is full level leading to access and seating space in the auditorium. Art Class will be screened with subtitles. The screening and Q&A will take place in person and a recording will be made available online after the event.
Andrea Luka Zimmerman is a Jarman Award winning artist, filmmaker and cultural activist whose work focuses on aspects of working class experience, and that of people living on the margins of society, that are seldom seen or discussed.
Films include the Artangel-produced Here for Life (2019), which received its world premiere in the Cineasti Del Presente international competition of the Locarno Film Festival (winning a Special Mention), Erase and Forget (2017), premiering at the Berlin Film Festival (nominated for the Original Documentary Award), Estate, a Reverie (2015) (nominated for Best Newcomer at the Grierson awards) and Taskafa, Stories of the Street (2013), written and voiced by the late John Berger.
Selected exhibitions include ‘Art Class’ at METAL and LUX, ‘Shelter in Place’ at Estuary Festival, ‘Civil Rites’, the London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, ‘Common Ground’ at Spike Island, Bristol and ‘Real Estates’ at Peer Gallery. Andrea co-founded the cultural collectives Fugitive Images and Vision Machine (collaborators on Academy Award® nominated feature documentary ‘The Look of Silence’).
This event is part of the NMG Development Programme (2021 – 2022). The project will include an expansive programme of free discussions, workshops and activities centred around NMG associates and available to the general public. This event has been supported by Bonington Gallery.
Take a look at the film credits
Bonington Gallery is very pleased to present QAI/GB-NGM by Warsaw (Poland) based artist Karol Radziszewski. This exhibition will present archival materials from Radziszewski’s Queer Archives Institute (QAI) that focusses on Central and Eastern European queer history and culture.
Consistent with previous QAI presentations, this exhibition will connect to its locality by featuring materials related to Nottingham’s own queer history and culture. This site specificity is reflected in the title of the exhibition that utilises Nottingham’s International Organization for Standardization (ISO) location code ‘GB–NGM’.
Alongside archival materials from the QAI, the exhibition will feature artworks and ongoing bodies of work by Radziszewski.
Established by Radziszewski in November 2015, the QAI is a non-profit artist-run organization dedicated to the research, collection, digitalisation, presentation, exhibition, analysis and artistic interpretation of queer archives, with a special focus on the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The QAI is a long-term project open to transnational collaboration with artists, activists and academic researchers. The Institute carries out a variety of activities and projects – from exhibitions, publications, lectures and installations to performances.
Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980) lives and works in Warsaw (Poland), where he received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He works with film, photography, installations and creates interdisciplinary projects. His archive-based methodology crosses multiple cultural, historical, religious, social and gender references. Since 2005 he has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of DIK Fagazine. He is the founder of the Queer Archives Institute (2015). His work has been presented in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; New Museum, New York; VideoBrasil, São Paulo; TOP Museum, Tokyo; Kunsthaus Graz, Austria; Cobra Museum, Amsterdam; Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow and Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz. He has participated in several international biennales including PERFORMA 13, New York; 7th Göteborg Biennial; 4th Prague Biennial; 15th WRO Media Art Biennale and recently The Baltic Triennial 14.
In 2021, The Power of Secrets dedicated to Radziszewski’s archival practice was published by Sternberg Press.
Header image credit: Karol Radziszewski, Afterimages, film still, 2018.
The exhibition has been curated by Tom Godfrey, Director of Bonington Gallery.
Supported by Joshua Lockwood-Moran, Tamsin Greaves (NTU Placement) and Rachael Mackerness (NTU Placement).
Technicians: Harry Freestone, James E Smith, Claire Davies, Emily Stollery.
Thanks to The Sparrows Nest for the generous support, advice and loan of the publications.
It is happening again.
Here, the Gold Ones were.
We’ve heard that before.
But this time it was flatter.
So, as we were saying.
It’s an original story.
No, this is an origin story.
Everyone already knows this.
Everywhen, here and there.
This is what we always said.
Mis-shaped and not in proportion.
As though seen for the first time.
This is an explainer: Following on from Reactor’s residency in 2021, they return with a new video installation that describes what came before. Digital animation, mobile sculpture and choreographed performance combine to please the ears and eyes. Gather round for the reveal, succumb to each and every tall tale told, even when this belief is unfounded.
Special thanks to Adam Sinclair (Animation), Lotti V Closs (Additional Modeling Support), Jim Brouwer (AV Consultant), Rebecca Lee, Alison Lloyd and NTU Fine Art students (Voices) for collaborating on Here, the Gold Ones flatter.
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).
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.
Chris Barrett, photographer and curator
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.”
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.
Follow #IconsofRhetoric on social media:
@IconsofRhetoric
@KazakhPilot (Gianluca Spezza)
facebook.com/IconsOfRhetoric
instagram.com/iconsofrhetoric
October 2021 – September 2022
The Formations programme is led by the Postcolonial Studies Centre in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.
In 2020-21 the series presented events focused on Black History, Literature, Art, and Critical Thinking as central to global creative and intellectual work. Events running throughout the year were prompted by the themes History, Land, Memorials, DNA, Milk, and Lace. Artists, writers and thinkers considered the structures, patterns, and materials that connect global creative and intellectual histories. Many of the events are still available to watch on Bonington Gallery’s YouTube channel.
In 2021-22 the centre will continue to explore the Inequalities by engaging with global writers, artists, and thinkers, in three themed segments: Indigeneity (October-December), Love (January – March), and Audio/Visual (May-August). In April, postgraduate researchers from the Postcolonial Studies Centre will host a conference, building on Patterns of Struggle and Solidarity, last year’s Formations conference. This year’s segments help us to develop solidarities across communities and to pose urgent questions about persistent inequalities.
Everyone is welcome to join us for free events which intend to bring together people from all over the world in important and exhilarating conversations. Events this year will include film screenings, book launches, interviews, exhibitions, conversations, and creative writing workshops and interviews delivered by prizewinning novelist Eve Makis.
The series is developed by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at NTU and directed by Dr Jenni Ramone and Dr Nicole Thiara.
Jenni Ramone is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures at NTU. Her recent book publications include Postcolonial Literatures in the Local Literary Marketplace: Located Reading, The Bloomsbury Introduction to Postcolonial Writing, Postcolonial Theories, and Salman Rushdie and Translation. Jenni Ramone specializes in global and postcolonial literatures and the literary marketplace. She is pursuing new projects on Global Literature and Gender, and on literature and maternity.
Nicole Thiara is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature(2014-16) and On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts (2020-21). She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature, and her areas of research are Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature.
October – December 2021
Formation: Indigeneity — Rights and land access, sustainability, global inequalities.
The first segment of 2021-22 pays attention to the concept of indigeneity, and to indigenous people, communities, landscapes, artists, writers, and groups. Often considered controversial and closely associated with activism and protest related to rights and land access, indigenous artists and writers are creating some of the most innovative work and asking important questions about sustainability of all forms in New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Northern Europe, and North and South America. This segment brings together creative work by indigenous writers and artists from separate locations, to forge conversations about the ways in which indigenous scholarship, activism, and creativity is central to global questions of inequality.
January – March 2022
Formation: Love — The transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love.
Destiny Ekaragha once said that Black British filmmakers were not expected to make films about ordinary family stories and everyday things – like love. This segment foregrounds the transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love in art, writing, and research, while it also helps us to think about how the concept of love is defined, understood, and restricted, if love is understood and represented in limited ways. Events in this segment consider the expression, meaning, contexts, and impact of love by exploring the work of artists, writers and thinkers, emphasising questions of gender, sexuality, race, and culture.
4-7 April 2022
Hosting a wide range of presenters from across the globe, papers explore contemporary topical issues of decolonisation and its socio-political structures. The conference is open to discussions and deconstructions of long-held dominant ideologies and narratives which function to sustain the invisibility of colonial and empirical legacies in the contemporary world.
May – August 2022
Formation: Audio/Visual — Global artists, experimental sound and the visual arts.
Audio/Visual invites conversations about the significance and impact of visual communication (art, design, imagery, media, advertising, maps) and audio communication through music, but also the impact of language choice, and conversation. Events in this segment foreground meaning conveyed by music and art, and invite attention to global artists working in experimental ways with sound and the visual arts.