VERBureau at Glasgow International 2016: Pokey Hat

Pokey Hat

Cooking Sections, Carrie Gooch, Julie Hill, Rosie O'Grady, Rachel Sharpe Curated by VERBureau for Glasgow International 2016

8-25 April 2016
New Glasgow Society, 1307 Argyle Street, Glasgow G3 8TL
Monday - Sunday 11am - 6pm, Thursdays till 8pm
Opening night: 9 April 2016, 5 - 8pm

VERBureau are delighted to present Pokey Hat at New Glasgow Society for Glasgow International 2016. The project charts elements of social history spanning immigration, queer culture, community and urban development through the history of the Italian ice cream cafés that first appeared throughout Glasgow from the 1880s to the 1930s.

Pokey hat’ is traditional Glaswegian patter for an ice cream cone. Glasgow’s connection with ice cream is paralleled in cities of the Italian diaspora worldwide, but the Scottish city retains its own distinct history. Alongside positive tales of burgeoning youth culture, tolerance and social bonding are darker stories of failed regeneration schemes, slum clearances and the gang violence of the notorious “ice cream wars” in the 1980s. Ice cream in Glasgow can be seen as a catalyst for social interactions and shifts in local culture over the last 120 years. It provides an illuminating lens through which to explore notions of community, regeneration, borders and national identity - all of which are at the forefront of current political agendas in the wake of the independence referendum, Commonwealth Games and ongoing refugee crisis.

Pokey Hat presents five new commissions from artists whose research-driven practices examine the social, political and cultural landscape of the past and present: Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe), Carrie Gooch, Julie Hill, Rosie O’Grady and Rachel Sharpe. Whilst responding to and building upon VERBureau’s continuing research on the multifaceted history of ice cream in Glasgow, the artists also address the social and cultural fabric of the city today.

Cooking Sections address territorial conflict by creating experimental ice cream flavours from plants considered invasive to the Scottish natural environment. The ‘Next “Invasive” is “Native”’ critically unpacks sensationalist representations of the ‘unknown other’ as a threat and advocates for cultural hybridisation. The new flavours, accompanied by botanical prints of invasive species, are produced in partnership with Centre for Contemporary Arts as part of the CCA Creative Lab Residency programme and in collaboration with a group of local cafés. Carrie Gooch’s Ice Cream Memories comprising video, sound, photography and text is an outcome of her research trips to Rome, the Apennines, Ellis Island and across Scotland. The presentation of research at New Glasgow Society and Queens Café explores the process of crossing borders. Encouraging intergenerational and transnational dialogue, Gooch conveys the importance of the cafés as spaces for establishing close-knit communities that transcend social, cultural and national boundaries. The video was created in collaboration with Jen Martin. Julie Hill’s narrative work, The Unexpected Guest, combines historical fact with fiction and draws on the propensity of the horror genre to encode social, political and cultural anxieties. The short story is presented in the gallery as an evolving sculpture and distributed by local cafés, leading the reader to linked locations where ice cream is revealed as a substance imbued with otherworldly qualities. Rosie O'Grady’s uncanny photographic portraits show people eating empty ice cream cones. The absence of ice cream itself obliquely reveals the captured images as orchestrated scenes in which those with sensitive teeth absurdly and incongruously find ways to occupy ice cream cafés. Rachel Sharpe’s installation examines ice cream as a cultural phenomenon through dream symbology. Alluding to the technologies of desire, Sharpe presents the café as a culturally subversive meeting place and ice cream as a symbol of sexuality, pleasure and jouissance.

New Glasgow Society in Finnieston hosts the exhibition with events and artistic interventions extending to locations across the city, including Jaconelli’s, Queens Café, Crolla’s, Nardini’s, University Café, Eusebi Deli, Project Café and Peña.

VERBureau in Brooklyn: Who Owns The Cone?

VERBureau are pleased to present our latest exhibition, Who Owns The Cone? in the new Brooklyn project space 122 Waterbury Street, NYC.

PV: 18 February 2016, from 6 pm
Open: 19-21 February 2016, 11 am - 6 pm

The participating artists Kaloyan Ivanov, Rachel Sharpe and Carrie Gooch will respond to the socio-political history of ice cream and the city’s inhabitants. These artists are concerned with the intersections of the social, political and cultural landscapes of the past and present. Sharpe and Gooch will present their research through digital works-in-progress, whilst Ivanov will create a new iteration of his participatory fabric piece Void Simulacrum, which encourages visitors to create their own spaces – both discursive and physical.

The title Who Owns the Cone? is a playful nod to the many cities that claim to have invented the ice cream cone, of which New York is one. A source of inspiration for the show was the story of Elizabeth Irwin, an openly lesbian, Brooklyn-born pioneer of progressive education who used a local ice cream parlour as a tolerant and neutral meeting space to establish the self-organised educational institution Little Red School in 1921.

At a time when society feels at its most unwelcoming, barricading borders and exacerbating a fear of the unknown, VERBureau would like to introduce the spirit of Irwin’s ice cream parlours to 122 Waterbury Street and create a space where the exchange of opinions, freedom of expression and tolerance towards different viewpoints and backgrounds is championed.

The exhibition will form part of an ambitious project curated by VERBureau, that uses the seemingly playful subject of ice cream to explore urban social history; this will culminate in the exhibition Pokey Hat in Glasgow, Scotland in April 2016 as part of visual art biennial Glasgow International.

To find out more about Glasgow International visit www.glasgowinternational.org/ 

‘THE GIFT, IF THERE IS ANY’ RECEIVES WORKWEEK PRIZE NOMINATION

The Gift, If There Is Any has been shortlisted alongside five other projects taking part in this years ART LICKS Weekend. The annual award is sponsored by Artquest and rewards the best artist-led or independent curatorial project from the festival. Read more about the prize and the nominees in the link below.

http://www.artquest.org.uk/articles/view/workweek_prize

VERBUREAU AT ART LICKS WEEKEND 2015

The Gift, If There Is Any

Annette Krauss, Travis Meinolf, Savage, Standard Thinking & HE Wiseman
curated by VERBureau

The Gift, If There Is Any is a one day participatory and performative art programme delivered as part of Art Licks Weekend in London. The programme will take place at Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday 4th October 2015 from 8am till 3pm, followed by an artist-led dinner at Kappacasein Dairy at 6pm.

The programme speculates on the possibility of the purely altruistic gift that expects no reciprocity. It considers the potential of the gift to disrupt economic and ecological exploitation, which has been presented as a necessity for stability during the ongoing financial crisis. The Gift, If There Is Any does not explain what the gift is, but rather asks if it is and how it could be brought into being. It seeks to advocate and provoke discussion on care and generosity towards others amidst global austerity measures and expanding debt.


Art Licks Weekend

The Art Licks Weekend (2 – 4 October 2015) celebrates the creative energy of the emerging art scene in East and South East London. For the three-day festival young galleries, not-for-profit projects, artist-run spaces and independent curatorial projects will be open to the public with special events and exhibitions of work by up-and-coming artists. The Art Licks Weekend is now in its third year, in previous years it has garnered significant attention from the press and high visitor numbers. 

Penumbra publication can now be ordered from VERBureau online

We would like to remind you that you can now purchase ‘Penumbra’ publication directly from VERBureau. Simply drop us an email at VERBureau@gmail.com with your details and we’ll post it to you! £8+postage!

Penumbra publication launch photos

PENUMBRA ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION: YU YU

YuYu is a South Korean artist who works with animation and explores notions of identity and communication between the self and the other.  During our preparations for VERBureau’s upcoming publication launch, we spoke with Yu Yu about his artistic practice and, in particular, his work U U, which was exhibited in Penumbra at A.P.T Gallery in May 2014.

How do you feel animation is positioned in the contemporary art world and wherein lies its potential as an artistic medium?

What animation reveals and subsequently demonstrates is that content comes first, and only then the nature and shape of the subject is revealed. Animation is, for me, an interesting medium because it is the combination of many different materials working together as one. The key difference between animation and many other artistic media is the use of time. Animation can be drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, sound or story telling but always time based. The elements working together in harmony can create movement. That is one of the reasons why I work with animation and, I guess, why people enjoy it.

You were born in South Korea and studied at the Royal College of Art in London. Do you feel that this cultural transition has played an important role in your practice?

There were a lot of sudden changes when I moved to study in London. Animation as a medium was fairly new to me as previously I had studied Visual Design. However, the language barrier was one of the most significant things that I’m sure many international students face. It could be extremely frustrating in the beginning when I couldn’t understand people perfectly, but also turned out to be an interesting and enriching experience. I had to try hard to understand what people were saying but, when I didn’t pay attention, I could just edit what I heard and create a different meaning. It became a very calming process when I had lots of people talking around me; words became meaningless noise. Since then communication, for me, is not about transmitting my idea to someone or receiving someone else’s idea perfectly and accurately. Whilst some might have been disappointed because of their inability to fully understand someone, I turned the experience into a strength and an advantage. Sometimes my friends would ask me how it was studying at the Royal College of Art and living in London. I would jokingly answer: ‘It feels as if I’m living in a temple.’

Your work U U portrays a curious scene of disorientation and distress experienced by the protagonist. Was there a singular event that inspired this work or was developing the narrative a longer process?

I was lucky to take Peter Blegvad’s writing workshop at the Royal College. One day, he gave us a lecture on the notion of a Doppelgänger. I found it interesting because I often described my name this way whilst in London. When I introduced myself to new people, they often thought that they had misheard my name or that I was making a joke. I always ended up pointing at two nearest people and saying ‘you, you’ to illustrate what I meant. At the time of the Doppelgänger workshop, I was interested in surrealist art and I also had my newly learned skill to demonstrate my name. It all seemed to click together. Nearly a half of my story for U U came from the Dopplegänger workshop but I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how the narrative would be resolved. The title of the work comes from the way I used to demonstrate my name to others but I wanted to express a dialogue with another self. Embedding my name to the title allowed me to embed my self-portrait to the animation. 

How do you feel that the choice of animation as your medium served this particular work?

For this project, animation was the most suitable medium for exploring the subject. I was able to build the story in an ordered sequence by bringing in different elements that highlighted all the possibilities with animation. I could have used a different medium to deal with the same subject but I feel the end result wouldn’t have been the same.

How do words and language feed into the pieces that you make?

I think it is like a double edged sword. Using language in the work can be interesting because people can get more clues about what’s going on. However, it can be too literal or interfere too much with the audience’s perception of the work. As my own English language skills are limited, I found language as an interesting device to use.

Is collaboration a significant part of your artistic practice?

It depends on what I’m working on. Form my perspective, collaboration is never easy but it is definitely powerful when it works well. When I made U U, I consciously decided to make something that I could undertake on my own. 

What do you think is the role of the artist in society today?

I think that artists should provide the audience with a space for thought; leaving and revealing gaps in narratives which the audience can fill themselves. This way the public can formulate their own view on the artworks or create new meanings from them. Art should not be just a one-way flow of information, true or false, nor should it ever take a patronizing educational form. Art should liberate us from the complicated normative structures under which we live and behave.    

Who are your artistic influences?

There are too many! I usually think about my wife and my long-term collaborator Nani. I admire Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, Sergei Eisenstein, Michel Gondry and Bruce Bickford. Also many great people from college and my family.

Are there any theoretical ideas - from philosophy, literature or art theory - that have had a considerable influence on your practice?

Surrealism and Soviet montage theory.

For more information on Yu Yu, please visit his website

PENUMBRA ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION: ANTON BURDAKOV

Anton is a multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin, who creates objects and site-specific installations. He explores architectural environments and their influence on human relationships and lives. His elegant comment on the passage of time with Light, Lighter was exhibited as part of Penumbra at A.P.T Gallery in May 2014. VERBureau is now producing a publication which will expand on the ideas raised in the exhibition – those of uncertainty, ambiguity and the in-between. Whilst preparing for the publication launch, we spoke with Anton about his practice.

You are generally interested in architectural environments and your describe Light, Lighter not as an object to be stared at, but as something to be forgotten about and then be reminded of when it tips over. Are considerations of place central to your pracrtice?

Of course, this extremely important in my work. But this term does not cover all of the themes that I work with. A place is a whole world, it is like saying ‘matter’ – it’s everywhere, and you have to work with it whether you want to or not. Besides the term 'place’ has become a thinking plug, a conversation stopper, because we have a mental shelf for it, especially in the art context. Maybe it’s better to say that places are my medium, which I then use to try to approach things which interest me about myself and humanity. When I think of any situation, feeling, thing or event that I want to engage with or transmit, I naturally start working with places.

How do you view the relationship between a sculpture/installation and a photographic documentation of that same work?

The impact of first-hand experiences and the impact of images can be equally strong, and we are not so good at separating them afterwards; they become extremely blurred in the mind. This is the power of images - which can be used for manipulation and to great artistic effect.

Do you see a certain degree of ritualistic aspect in Light, Lighter?

I haven’t thought of it in this way, but I guess it is possible to say it like that. Rituals involve imbuing objects and activities with meaning. This work might be said to ritualise the passage of time, imbuing a very ordinary event with significance, stretching out the moment 'on the brink’, like a burning fuse.

What is your role in the making of your sculptures, do you feel the need to handcraft them?

I don’t feel the need to handcraft my works. The key requirement is that I experience the steps in the development process, that I can scrutinise, touch and ponder different stages, as I make the next creative decision. There is an important distinction between activities where the outcome is identical regardless of who does it, e.g. cutting through a piece of wood, and where personal touch is central to the process, e.g. drawing. It can also be very helpful to see things fresh - when someone else has made a change, and then I react to it. Having said that, at the moment I am doing almost everything myself.

Your BA was in Neuroscience at Cambridge, has this affected your artistic practice?

It gave me a better understanding of what science is, and what it can and cannot do. In a strange way, this made me more accepting of the intuitive and the irrational. What is also important is the idea that psychological states are something tangible, and have measurable correlates in the brain. I may not know what they are, but it gives me a sense that I am working with real, solid things - emotions, atmospheres, premonitions.

For more information on Anton Burdakov visit his website

PENUMBRA ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION: LYDIA JULIEN

Lydia Julien is a London-based artist who explores bodily awareness and its relationship with differing environments through the medium of photography. Her work Untitled 1 (Lumber) captures the fragile moment in time when one’s body is floating above the floor and is not yet influenced by the laws of gravity. This work was exhibited as part of Penumbra at A.P.T Gallery in May 2014. VERBureau is now producing a publication which will continue to explore the ideas raised in the exhibition. In the run up to our publication launch, we spoke with Lydia about her artistic practice, ideas and inspiration.

You state that you rarely reproduce your images. This seems to be an unusual approach to photography, which closely relates to reproducibility and multiple copies. What is your philosophy behind this? Do you see your art practice as photography or do you feel that the performative aspect which leads to the photograph exceeds the importance of photographic documentation??

In producing either one single print or an extremely limited edition, the print becomes something of a process. Considering the multiplicity of images and the way in which images are consumed in contermpoary culture, it is my intention to limit that consumption. My aim is to to emphasize the inherent materiality in the process of making the image and my work.

The performative aspect is part of the process. The durational aspect of the staging the image is to capture the mutability, the passing of time and rigour of the body under it. This is contrary to the notion of the single image, the shot of the camera capturing a single moment in time. Although I do construct performance where there is no photograph, nothing to ‘document’, often for my practice the photograph is not documentation; it is the end process of the artwork made, the product.

How do you see the role of the camera in your creative process?

Very important. I am emotionally attached to the camera, especially analogue processes. From a young age I learnt to process and develop my own film and print images in the darkroom. I still do. It is extremely satisfying and terrifying in turn, because the immediate gratification of the digital isn’t there.

How does liminality, uncertainty and ambiguity come into play in your practice? Is there a place for chance or coincindence in your work?

I have always thought about a ‘third space’, as I call it; a political intention to create a lack of indexicality in order to escape any preconceived ideas. Not a position that is historical or opposing but a place that can escape the norm and present something uncertain or ambivalent.

There is certainly a place for chance, because in my process of photographing I take hundreds and hundreds of shots, using many rolls of film. It isn’t until it is developed that I can proceed with the artwork.

The way in which you works capture suspended moments is breathtaking. When you are orchestrating a photograph, are you trying to bring something together that will compell the onlooker or are you aiming to fulfil an idea that satisfies your personal vision?

I am always aware of form. I like certain elements to come together. The performances to make the work, the photograph, can be quite physical and often hurts a lot. Sometimes I am trying to challenge something or the body is used to explore certain issues. So yes, it must, above all, fulfill a personal vision I have for the work.

What is it about photography as a medium that inspires you?

Its capacity to resonate beyond its two dimensional function. I love it.

What do you think about the presence of the human body in your work?

The notion of the body has always been so loaded throughout the history of art. It is very difficult to say something new or encourage the viewer to encounter the body in a photograph in a new way.

I think I am very aware of how judgemental and critical the society has become in looking at the body.

What do you feel is the relationship between the model and the photographer? Does an oscillation between photographing yourself and photographing someone else vary in how you approach the work?

I often know the models or have met them a few times. I am actually very, very shy when taking photographs of others because I am very, very careful with the use of images of other people’s bodies.

I loathe a trend in street photography because sometimes there is no respect shown to people on the street, and if you dress or act a little differently, then you become a target for this. A lot of street photos are great and really reveal an aspect of a location that I haven’t seen before or documents human life but I worry about the ease of snapping away and posting images for the curiosity of others. It’s a tricky situation.

The long durational process helps to dissipate the tension of ‘shooting’ the image, and it transcends to something else. I remember speaking to Jürgen Teller about this and his work process is similar. The photographer has to familiarise themselves with the model/subject, and this is followed by the freedom in taking the photograph.

When photographing a human subject, is the space where this takes place important to the work?

Yes, it’s very important. I have to find a space that feels right, and that is quite instinctive. I can just see something happening a specific location, whether it’s a furnished room or a forest. It’s like I have already seen the image photographed in the space, or like I have been to the space before and feel the freedom to perform and photograph there.

How does colour feature in your works? You mostly seem to photograph in black and white.

I can control a lot of the processes when developing black and white film. Using colour also dates the image within a certain time period, so black and white has a wider capacity in this respect.

-Who are your artistic influences?

There are so many! From Mapplethorpe to David Bowie, Ben Okri, Jenny Saville, Carrie Mae Weems, Stevie Wonder, Francis Bacon… I could go on and on.

-Are there any theoretical ideas - from philosophy, literature or art theory - that have had a considerable influence on your practice?

I was always interested in Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, and Bell Hooks continues to be a strong influence with her strong theoretical works and more meditative texts. However, I find that I am moving away from framing my work in a shroud of theoretical perspectives. For me as an artist, to become so articulate about my work and the perspectives that can be applied to it, means that I cannot fully subsume myself within the motivations and processes of making. There should be a place for not knowing, the space for not explaining everything away. We should keep exploring ideas and not have everything resolved.

Art making will always be uncertain, like a musician playing, composing, jamming in ecstasy or contemplation to see what rises from it.

For more information on Lydia Julien, please visit her website