Russian club presents Wonderland

11.07.2013 - 30.08.2013 | Private View 6 - 8pm 11.07.2013 | Mo - Fr 10-6 Sat 11-5

RUSSIAN CLUB presents

WONDERLAND Rupert Ackroyd / Simon Cunningham / Matt Golden / Natsue Ikeda Richard Paul / Juneau Projects / Clare Rojas / Yuko Shiraishi / Roy Voss

Annely Juda Fine Art 23 Dering Street, W1S 1AW

+44 207 629 7578 +44 207 491 2139

ajfa@annelyjudafineart.co.uk www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk

WONDERLAND: PROGRAMME NOTES PROLOGUE [Enter T. S. ELIOT, HAMLET, the GRYPHON, MOCK TURTLE and ALICE. A curtain drapes across an uncertain theatrical space. ELIOT and HAMLET stride boldly ahead, discussing the lofty ideals of art. Behind them traipse ALICE and her companions – like reluctant children, they pay little attention to the adults. ALICE is hopelessly trying to recall the words to a song she has just heard.]

HAMLET (conjecturing): The purpose of playing, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.

T. S. ELIOT: But the artist is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.

GRYPHON (half-listening to ELIOT): It's all about as curious as it can be.

MOCK TURTLE (to GRYPHON): It all came different! I should like to hear her try and repeat something now... (he turns to ALICE.) What is the use of repeating all that stuff if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!

GRYPHON (to both, gravely): Yes, I think you'd better leave off.

(ALICE nods in agreement, only too glad to do so.)

Exeunt.

Like Alice, we might well be curious – and confused. All is not as it seems in the enigmatic geography of this Wonderland.

Puzzled by the realization that nothing repeated can stay the same, that perfect recall, or replication, is an impossible dream, Alice learns on her adventures through the looking glass that it's not just words which are fickle. Even mirror images are duplicitous; marked both by inversion, and the label of 'reflection' or 'copy', they too come different.

What, then, might we hope to find in art's mirror? The question is complex; we might be tempted to join Alice in sitting it out. But the crux of the matter lies in another duality – 'reflection' denotes both the image and intellectual provocation great art provides. The fantastical lands of Alice's adventures initially

appear worlds away from the domestic spheres she leaves behind.

Ultimately, however, their unsettling familiarity offers a new perspective, altering our experience of 'reality' beyond the page.

It is alongside this formulation of each reflection or repetition as at once same and inherently other that T. S. Eliot argues an artist must operate. Art's mirror can only reflect (upon) what is before it, both temporally and spatially. It captures the present, but also inevitably, the past; traditions necessarily altered and evolved, through repetition down the years, into statements of acute contemporaneity.

This exhibition actively acts out these concerns with inheritance and contemporaneity, grappling, like the Mock Turtle and Eliot, with rehearsals, repetitions, references, retellings, revisitations.

ACT ONE IN WHICH we Tumble Down the Rabbit Hole.

[Enter ALICE, talking to herself.]

ALICE (delighted): It's a great huge game of chess that's being played - all over the world - if this is the world at all, you know.

A curtain draws back, setting this stage – and we seem to be on it. Roy Voss's canvas is at once backdrop and drape, framing the window and 'real' world which lie beyond. Establishing the gallery as stage, the exhibition becomes a site for play and imagination, each work assuming a mirror function. The dazzling, unnerving and full array of these is foregrounded as clearly as in a hall of mirrors in the depictions of ancient cave paintings which populate the filmic future world of Juneau Projects, with every frame a different child's drawing. Evoking Plato's cave, a shadow-puppet like simulacra of 'truth', the very nature of our perception of the world around us is challenged. These works, demonstrably allusive and simultaneously elusive, prepare us for a spectacle which will combine the 'real' and the found with transformative, fictional or somehow 'unreal' elements in order to invoke ontologically perplexing realms.

ACT TWO IN WHICH we consider the Several Dichotomies of Old and New, Traditional and Original, Authentic and Fake.

[A wall crosses the stage. Upon it sits HUMPTY DUMPTY. ALICE stands beneath, craning her neck up at him. She stands with her hands out, ready to catch him, expecting him to fall any moment.]

ALICE (speaking to herself): And how exactly like an egg he is!

HUMPTY DUMPTY (after a long silence, indignantly): It's very provoking, to be called an egg - very!

Can any piece lay claim to being a genuine article? Offering no structural support, we are confronted by a construction both wall and not-wall, deprived of its most essential function, yet dressed for the part with a costume of artworks. Rupert Ackroyd's structure copies and contains an antique 'seventeenth-century original' panelled segment, itself a Victorian forgery. We are not alone in finding ourselves destabilized. The shared concerns of Natsue Ikeda and Claire Rojas are both literally and metaphorically balancing on this wall. Engaged in the same puckish experimentation as Yuko Shiraishi, their work is infused with a subversion of older aesthetics and methods, generating distinctly contemporary twists. A peculiar uncanniness registers as cultures collide across ages; the soft blur of a tree's movement recalls the wooden stiltedness of early photo sitters, oil paints challenge the peculiarly literal naming of traditional Japanese pigments, and modernity is rendered in the na誰ve, primitive style of mythical representation. Playfully reappropriating tradition, these works shift the focus onto similitude, its uses, and the complexities of time: what belongs to the here and now? Can we separate our present from our past? And from the present can we change it?

ACT THREE IN WHICH we face Diverse Questions of Character.

[ALICE enters stage left. She pinches herself and stares at her hands as though she has never seen them before.]

ALICE: How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night?

Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!

A surreal cast of characters is constructed from the shady grey areas which lie between fact and fiction in the works of Richard Paul and Matt Golden, and Simon Cunningham. A concerted lack of exposition leaves the images as vulnerable prey to our imaginations, as we try in turn to draw out of the shadows seedy photo club members, a mysterious, nomadic troubadour whose travels are captured fleetingly in photographic, pseudo-documentary 'Field Recordings', and a disconcertingly still man, affectingly cradling his leg in a homage or upheaval of the Pieta. Inviting us to bring our judgements, imaginations and analyses to the tableaux, we are invited to project upon them reflections of ourselves.

EPILOGUE IN WHICH we (Don't) go Back to the Beginning [Enter ALICE, talking to herself.]

ALICE: I could tell you my adventures - beginning from this morning, but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

In this Wonderland, a series of repetitions – visual, technical, and historical – abound with uncanny familiarity, in a complex collision of worlds both real and imagined, authentic and acted.

Posing riddle after riddle, they have led us down the rabbit hole to a series of reflections curious and curiouser. Emerging into the harsh light of 'reality', there is one thing they have made abundantly clear: the illusory methods by which we frame our own living.

Sarah Cawthorne

Extracts impudently adapted and abstracted from Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through The Looking Glass (1871); William Shakespeare, Hamlet; and T.S. Eliot, 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' from Sacred Wood (1921).

Rupert Ackroyd 1978 1999 - 2003 2003 - 2005

born in Oxford, UK BA Sculpture, Winchester School of Art, Winchester, UK. MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art, London, UK.

Lives and works in London

Selected One-Person Exhibitions 2012

INNINNINN, Marsden Woo Gallery Project Space, London

2010

Large Assemblage, Dicksmith Gallery, London

2009

Moon Under Water, Malta Contemporary Art, Malta

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013

Its a Beautiful World, Rhubaba Gallery, Edinburgh.

The World is 6000 Years Old, The Collection - Art & Archaeology in Lincolnshire, Lincoln.

2012

T Rooms (in collaboration with Matthew Darbyshire), 176, Zabludowicz Collection, London.

PcoRC at Discerning Eye, Mall Gallery, London.

6 Chairs, Art House Foundation, London.

T Rooms (in collaboration with Matthew Darbyshire), Tramway, Glasgow.

2011

Your Garden Is Looking A Mess Could You Please Tidy It Up, Payne Shurvell, London Romeo, Rupert Ackroyd/Owen Bullett, Art House Foundation, London Fries Material, Weltraum, Munich Rupert Ackroyd/Alison Turnbull, Russian Club Gallery, London Garage Project, Rupert Ackroyd/Daniel Pasteiner, Rod Barton Gallery, London.

2010

Recent British Sculpture, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam.

Boom, Hotel, London.

Untitled 2012 pine/ mdf/ galvanised steel 1000 x 200 cm

Simon Cunningham Selected Group Exhibitions 2009

New London School - Galerie Schuster Berlin, Berlin

2008

The Past is History (Part 2) - Galleria Changing Role - Move Over Gallery - Naples, Naples FRAGIL - Espai Ubú, Barcelona In our world - New photography in Britain - Galleria Civica di Modena, Modena ARTfutures 2008 - Bloomberg Space, London

2007

The BiG Store - Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin The Future Can Wait 2007 - The Future Can Wait, London The Region of Unlikeness - - Bank, Los Angeles, CA Objects of Art - Matthew Bown Gallery - Berlin, Berlin Objects of Art - Matthew Bown Gallery, London

2006

Lovely Shanghai Music - Himalayas Art Museum (the former Zendai Museum of Modern Art), Shanghai Sublime Spaces - Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton

Mollymuddle 2007 DVD

Matt Golden 2005

MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art, London

Lives and works in London Selected Solo Exhibitions 2012 2011

2008 2007

An Economy of Means. SGFA, Selengor, Malaysia House of Nguyen, Limoncello, London 'FIELD RECORDINGS', Kyoto More Bit Parts In Little Theatres, BISCHOFF/WEISS, London Sensitivity To The Impermanence Of Being, Art House Foundation, London The New Bomonti Club, Wohnung Felix Rehfeld, Bremen Somehow, Someday, Somewhere. BISCHOFF/WEISS, London Two Drops a Cloud Makes. Autonomous Series, Campbell Works, London

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013

2012

2011

2008 2007

Une Exposition Sans Texte, Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne, Fance A Spoken Word Exhibition, Musee du Jeu de Paume, Paris There Are No Lines Here...Only The Slow Curve Of The Horizon, APT, London Stereopsis, The Drawing Room, London We Love You, Limoncello, London AHF Temporary Residence In The Unconcious, V22, London Matt Golden & Richard Paul, The Russian Club, London Young British Art II, Dienstgebaeude, Zurich, CH Keeping Up Appearances, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden No Jury, No Prizes, Gibs Mir, Zurich Cruce, Worktop, Madrid, ESP Young British Art, Limoncello, London Please Drive Slowly Through Our Village, Fold Gallery, London Freies Material, Weltraum, Munich Player, Player, Player, Poppy Sebire Gallery, London Kyoto Art Walk, Nijo Castle, Kyoto Plus, Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden

Awards 2011 2006

Yoma Sasburg Award for Sculpture Vordemberge-Gildewart Scholarship

FIELD RECORDINGS, KYOTO Wonderland Magazine Spring 2013 Framed magazines

Natsue Ikeda 1976 Born in Hiroshima, Japan 2008 2005 2002 1996

-

2010 2008 2005 2000

Fellow at The Royal Academy Schools Royal Academy Schools BA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design BA Japanese Painting, Musashino Art University, Tokyo

Selected Exhibitions 2013 2012 2011

2010 2009 2008

2007

Creekside Open 2013 selected by Paul Noble AHF Temporary residency in the Unconscious, V22, London We Love You, Limoncello, London The Eternal Truth, Art House Foundation, London (solo) Field Recordings, Kyoto (Juan Carlode project with Matt Golden) Sameness and Difference, The Russian Club Gallery, London Member's Show, The Club Room, London Inaugural Member's Show, The Club Room, London New Works, Gallery FAFA, Helsinki The New Bomonti Club, Bremen, Germany (Juan Carlode Project with Matt Golden) Campbell Works, London (Juan Carlode Project with Matt Golden) Stiftung Insel Hombroich, Germany (solo) What's Second?, Royal Academy Schools' Gallery, London Twelve 2 One, One Canada Square, London Ness, Elspeth Kyle Gallery, London

Awards 2005

Hiroshima Scholarship, Hiroshima Cultural Foundation, Japan

Study For Portrait 3 2013 Framed Lambda print on Fibre paper 28 x 31 cm

Richard Paul 1965 born in Paisley, Scotland 2005 - 2007 1997 - 1999 1983 – 1988

MA Aesthetics & Art Theory, Middlesex University, London MA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins, London BA Fine Art & PG Diploma Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee

Lives and works in London Selected Solo Exhibitions 2013 2011 2009 2008 2003

You Might Find Yourself, Theodore Art, New York Compound Noun, Theodore Art, New York I Was A Teenage Handmodel Too, Seventeen Gallery, London Together, Studio Output, London I Was A Teenage Handmodel, Hoxton Distillery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008

2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

An Arrangement in White, XO Gallery, Leeds There are no lines here...only the slow curve of the horizon, APT Gallery, London (curator) Diagrammatic Form, Banner Repeater, London Matt Golden/Richard Paul, Russian Club, London Perception, Attention, Trade Gallery, Nottingham (with David Sherry) Keep Floors and Passageways Clear, White Columns, New York Make, Believe, Blank Gallery, Portslade, Brighton Cabin Fever, On Gallery, Oslo, Norway In Substantiality, Theodore Art, New York Indoor Life, Walden Affairs, Den Haag, Netherlands Rotate, MOOT Gallery at The Contemporary Arts Society, London Keep Floors and Passageways Clear, One Thoresby Street, Nottingham Illuminators, Koltsovo, Russia Through the Lens, Royal West of England Society, Bristol The Parallax View, Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent MOOT, MOOT Gallery, Nottingham Clouds of Witness, Islington Museum, London not as we know it, Kontainer Gallery, Los Angeles The Last Supper, Hoxton Distillery, London

The World of Measure 2013 3D video on Bluray disc

Juneau Projects Juneau Projects was formed in 2001 by Philip Duckworth and Ben Sadler.

Selected Solo Exhibitions 2013

I am the Warrior, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton The Infocalypse Stack, Ceri Hand Gallery, London

2012

The Colour Bright, Site Gallery, Sheffield

2011

I am the Warrior', Pumphouse Gallery, London 3 Megabytes of Hot RAM, Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool

2010

The Wooden Way, Satellite Gallery, Newcastle

2009

Don’t Stop Believing, Quad, Derby Wellcome Midsummer Picnic' (project), Wellcome Trust & General Public Agency, London

2008

The Principalities, Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, Kingston Trappenkamp', Tate Britain I Went to Woods, New Art Gallery Walsall

Selected Group Exhibitions 2012

Tatton Park Biennial, Cheshire

2011

Satellite Project, Space, London

2010

Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London The Witching Hour, Birmingham Art Gallery

2008

Experimenta Folklore, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt

2005

British Art Show 6, Hayward Touring: Baltic, Gateshead, International 3, Manchester, Bonnington, Nottingham, BCMA, Bristol

The Colour Bright 2012 DVD

Clare Rojas 1976 Born: Columbus, OH 1998 B.F.A., Printmaking, Rhode Island School of Design 2002 M.F.A., School of the Art Institute of Chicago 2003 Awarded one year Project Space Residency program and Tournesol Award from Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA Reiceived Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant 2004 Eureka Fellowship Award 2005 Artadia Award Lives and works in San Francisco Selected Solo Exhibitions 2013 Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen 2012 Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago Prism, Los Angeles 2010 IKON Gallery, Birmingham Pinnacle Gallery, Savannah College of Art And Design Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco 2009 Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago 2008 Riverside Art Museum, CA 2007 Museum Het Domein, The Netherlands Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León Lizabeth Oliveiria Gallery, Los Angeles Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham 2006 Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen 2005 Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago Modern Art, London

Knoxville Museum of Art 2004 Deitch Projects, New York 2002 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Lizabeth Oliveria, San Francisco New Image Art, Los Angeles Selected Recent Group Exhibitions 2012 10 Revolutions Around the Sun, Headlands Art Center, Sausalito 2010 Orde di segnatori, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milan Paper!Awesome, Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, San Francisco 2TheWall, New Image Art Gallery, West Hollywood 2009 Constellations: Paintings from the MCA Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) Instruments, SolwayJones, Los Angeles American Realities, New Image Art Gallery, West Hollywood 2008 Prospect.1 New Orleans The Wizard of Oz, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco Journey to the End of the Night, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin Eureka!, ICA, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art Harry Smith Anthology Remixed, Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Glasgow Untitled (Waves), Primo Marella Gallery, Beijing The Big Sad: Barry McGee & Clare Rojas, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside Size Matters: XS, Recent Small-Scale Painting, Knoxville Museum of Art

Untitled 2010 goauche on paper 23.4 x 29.5 cm

Yuko Shiraishi 1956 Born Tokyo 1974–76 1978–81 1981–82 1994

Lived in Vancouver, Canada Chelsea School of Art, BA Chelsea School of Art, MA Jerwood Painting Prize, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland & Royal Academy of Arts, London

Lives and works in London Selected Solo Exhibitions 2012 Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2011 Shigeru Yokota Gallery, TPH, Tokyo 2010 Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel The Russian Club Gallery, London (with Phil Coy) 2009 Annely Juda Fine Art, London 2008 Peer, London 2007-08 Kunstverein Ludwigshafen and Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (with Birgitta Weimer) 2007 Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz 2006 Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung, Bonn (with Katsuhito Nishikawa) Galerie Friedrich Müller, Frankfurt, Germany (with Katsuhito Nishikawa) 2005 Annely Juda Fine Art, London 2003 Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork Waygood Gallery, Newcastle 2002 Museum Wiesbaden Leeds City Art Gallery; Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick,

Coventry 2001 Annely Juda Fine Art, London 1999 Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York Tate Gallery St Ives 1998 Ernst Múzeum, Budapest(with Soós Tamás) 1997 Annely Juda Fine Art, London Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Projects 2001 FIH: Field Institute Hombroich (with Tadashi Kawamata, Katsuhito Nishikawa) Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Neuss 2001-04 BBC White City Project (with Allies & Morrison), London 2005 Jiundou Hospital, Tokyo, Japan (2005-2008) (with architect: Nissouken) Swimmingpool (with Mie Miyamoto, Jonathan Moore Coldcut) Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Neuss 2006 Moorfields Eye Hospital Children's Centre, London 2008 ‘Canal Walk’ – a permanent wall painting commission at Regent’s Canal Kyoto Art Walk (Curated by Yuko Shiraishi) Njojo Castle, Kiyomizudera Temple, Tofukuji Temple, Kyoto 2010 Parallel Remix, curated by Yuko Shiraishi, Leonard Hutton Gallery, New York 2011 Specimen, square record

Sooty Bomboo Colour oil on linen 60 x 60 cm

2006

Roy Voss 1990-92 1980-83

Goldsmiths College, University of London Maidstone College of Art

Lives and works in London Selected Solo Exhibitions 2013 Andor Gallery, London 2012 Matt’s Gallery & Dilston Grove, London 2010 Fordham Gallery, London The Russian Club Gallery, London 2008 Matt’s Gallery, London 2006 Beacon Art Projects, Lincolnshire 3˚W Gallery, The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere 2002 Percy Miller Gallery, London 2000 Percy Miller Gallery, London 1998 Richard Salmon Gallery, London Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 Drawing 2013, The Drawing Room, London Matt’s Gallery artists at Deutsche Bank, London In Residence, Lancaster University Gallery 2012 After Hours Drop Box, Andor Gallery, London The London Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London Switch, Baltic 39 Newcastleupon-Tyne Ps and Qs, Joshua Baskin Gallery, Glasgow 2011 Friendship of the People, Simon Oldfield Gallery, London Fordham Gallery at Maddox Arts, Maddox Arts, London Drawing 2011, The Drawing Room, London 2010 Modern Love, Simon Oldfield Gallery, London The Crystal Palace Destroyed Works Projects, Bristol Sameness and Difference, The Russian Club Gallery, London

2009 Rotate, Contemporary Arts Society, London Shunt, Cluster Gallery, Berlin Drawing 2009, The Drawing Room, London Collaborators Room, London 2008 The Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre Farmer’s Market, Handel Street Projects, London Art Futures, Bloomberg Space, London 2007 Michael Dean and Roy Voss Scenery, The Pit, London ETC, Amergerfælledvej Art Project, Copenhagen 2006 Picnic Area Dumb Interior, Room, Bristol 2005 Painting: London, Holly Snapp Gallery, 51st Venice Biennale, Venice 2003 Side Track, Percy Miller Gallery, London Scenery, Nouva Icona at Santa Maria del Soccorso, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice Scenery, Richard Salmon Gallery, London 2001 Bitter Sweet, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London Tom Chamberlain, Mandy Ure, Udo Noger, Roy Voss, Galerie Hollenbach, Stuttgart 2000 Recent Paintings, Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall Paintings, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham 1999 Reciprocity, The Sun and Doves Gallery, London 1998 In a meeting, Grayson House, London Craft, Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Vardy Gallery, Sunderland; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge Plastic, Walsall Museum and Art Gallery, Walsall; Arnolfini, Bristol Remaking Reality, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

View 2013 ink on canvas 600 x 350 cm