|
|
|
ARCHIVE 1998 |
| |
Family Histories Schools Exhibition
in collaboration with Rita Keegan
and London Schools
27 January to 20 February 1999 |
|
Rita Keegan
(2nd International Artist in Residence)
Family Histories
1 September to 31 October 1998
|
|
Exploring issues of identity and representation, the use of family narrative and autobiography features strongly in Rita Keegan's work. Keegan has experimented widely with a broad range of media techniques in her two-dimensional pieces and installations.
|
Susan Pui San Lok & Mayling To
Deal
27 June to 12 August 1998
|
|
Born into and growing up in the kung fu craze of early seventies Britain, Mayling To’s childhood years were often consumed with a proliferation of kung fu films equated with a personal search for the self and a quest for the Chinese hero prototype.
In an attempt to evoke the complexities of emotions and confused states of being, her works in Deal try to convey feelings of hope, joy, glee and pleasure, simultaneously coexisting with loss, sorrow, helplessness, compassion, distress and pain: the correlation of some childhood memories and the experience of the Hong Kong handover.
Using the context of the martial arts genre paradoxical notions of love and hate, good versus evil, violent and passive, cute but nasty allude to playful allegorical possibilities. The distinction between ‘real toys’ and an art object is intended to be made or become clear. What could appear to be readymades are in fact soft sculptures made by the artist. A fantasy of a cult cartoon character – Hong Kong Phooey is lovingly reconstructed in A Cute Puncture, yet the artist’s contradictory sentiment of a hero and anti-hero presents a difficult predicament equivocal of healing or torture.
By bringing together the parodic interplay between art, advertising and popular culture, the work raises questions of function, recognizability, commerciality and commodification, and looks at the relationship between reality and fiction, artist and viewer, self and desire.
|
Caribbean Artists
The Windrush Legacy
20 May to 1 June 1998
|
|
This exhibition showcased the work of Caribbean visual artists who have made a major contribution to British art since World War II and includes biographical details of their arrival in Britain.
It celebrated the diversity of more than 20 artists ranging from the great forerunner of those times, Ronald Moody to Aubrey Williams, and outstanding present day artists such as Faisal Abdu’Allah and Eugene Palmer.
Coinciding with this event, an educational exhibition designed by Lambeth Library services documenting the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush in 1948 was launched in the 198 Education Centre. The Windrush brought the first post-war settlers from the West Indies to Britain. These new arrivals spent their first few nights on British soil in the Clapham Common Deep Shelter in south London.
|
Sabera Bham
Concealed Visions, Veiled Sisters
22 April to 30 May 1998
|
|
The issue of the veil is central when images of Muslim women are portrayed in mainstream media. It is the most visible aspect, which differentiates Muslim women from the rest of the female race.
Concealed Visions - Veiled Sisters was presented as an installation, incorporating projections and a soundtrack.
Portraits of veiled women were projected onto suspended transparent fabric. The soundtrack consists of statements by women voicing their views on the veil, along with Quranic verses on the subject, with music reflecting the mood.
The women that were portrayed originate from various cultural backgrounds. Living and working in Britain, they have adopted the veil as a statement, which expresses their modesty, dignity and respect.
"I wanted to create alternative images of the veil, images that would challenge mainstream conception and allow the veil wearers to be able to express themselves. This has been achieved by photographing women that have chosen to wear the veil."
-Sabera Bham
The diversity within the Islamic faith is recognized within this work through the differences in attitudes and practices amongst its followers. There are many Muslim women who have chosen not to wear the veil, yet understand why some women have adopted it as a symbol of their personal identity.
|
Chichi Cavalcanti
New Work
18 February to 4 April 1998
|
|
This exhibition included installation and mixed media paintings. The series Untitled is a piece consisting of 36 international flags, which are subverted, through colour inversion, to demand a closer inspection from the viewer.
The flags are selected from five continents, and they include ‘ghost’ flags, for example, those of the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Others are ‘pop’ flags like the American and British.
By mixing the obscure with the easily identifiable, and the familiar with the exotic, the artist invites the viewer to reflect on how they perceive their own and other cultures.
The exhibition also included a series of collages and prints that further explore the relationship between colours and how we are affected by them.
|
Nicholas Kulkarni
Paintings
12 December 1997 to 28 January 1998
|
|
In his first solo exhibition Anglo-Asian artist Nicholas Kulkarni presented a series of abstract images on acrylic and canvas which explore the notion of creating new cultures from the displacement of many races. The artist adopts a strong use of primary colours to create a vibrant show where each image is separate but interlinked.
"Like the beginnings of a language or the tracings of paths previously unwalked, the paintings of Nicholas J. D. Kulkarni suggests the emergence of new possibilities. Through an intensity of colour, texture and a curious luminosity, Kulkarni draws us into his works - we are seduced - yet simultaneously he holds us at bay, awe-stricken, uncertain. Inviting us to find our own point of focus within each painting, the artist is intrigued by the effects the experience of colour and form play upon the senses.
"Painting here becomes the working through of a thought process, the material enactment of both questions and suggestions. [...]
"Through forms which are simultaneously coagulating and fracturing, Kulkarni's paintings echo the heterogeneity and syncretic energy of the contemporary city, where numerous cultures and languages interact and collide. There is an urgency about the work which evokes the dynamism of the streets: the taking of journeys, the travelling of many routes and paths, the making of decisions which are then rethought. A sense of dialogue is present, not only within the work, but also between each painting and the viewer: we want to touch; to enter. These paintings are not only about the confusion that arises when attempts are made to mediate different languages and cultures, but about the new insights and possibilities that emanate from such misunderstandings. From a hazy incoherence, moments of clarity occasionally emerge.
"Essentially, Kulkarni's paintings exist as emergent spaces. [...] Ultimately, these works are optimistic and demonstrate a joy in the materiality of painting. Open-ended, there is a feeling that they are somehow incomplete, and suggest numerous possible futures." (Rohini Malik, Freelance writer and critic)
|
|
|
