Fresh Out of the Box 14 October 2008 — 14 October 2009
Exhibition guide
Fresh Out of the Box uses contemporary works from the gallery’s Permanent Collection to make interventions within the Garman Ryan Collection’s themed rooms. This enables us to view the contemporary works alongside similarly themed historic artworks and allows us to make connections between old art and new art.
The Garman Ryan Collection was given to Walsall in 1972 by Kathleen Garman and is on display in the gallery in a series of themed rooms. The Permanent Collection is kept mostly in storage and was started by Walsall Council in 1892 as part of their vision to give the town access to culture. This collection continues to develop today. For more information about the collections visit the Art Library or our website artatwalsall.org.uk The New Art Gallery Walsall Gallery Square Walsall WS2 8LG 01922 654400 artatwalsall.org.uk
Floor 1 Tim Maguire Refraction IV, 2007 Digital pigment ink on paper
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These studies are entitled Refraction because of the way light waves pass through water, creating rainbows. Maguire’s psychedelic prints are created through individual photographs of a canal in Birmingham printed separately into different colours and then combined digitally. The result is an extraordinary and dazzling combination of intense colours.
Hew Locke Jungle Queen II, 2003 Mixed media on wood frame.
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Locke’s work often explores ideas of power, culture, wealth and identity, and frequently references royalty. Using combinations of objects to create dramatic and sometimes humorous sculptures, Locke describes his use of objects as: “... piles of tacky cake decorations, gaudy trimmings, cheap toys and plastic flowers... cheap, poor materials... treading this fine line between kitsch and something quite serious.”
Richard Hamilton Finn MacCool, 1983 (detail)
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Heliogravure, lift ground and open bite aquatint, engraving and burnisher.
Finn MacCool was a hunter and warrior in Irish mythology. This etching was based on images of Raymond McCartney shown on television whilst in prison on hunger strike. Hamilton was in contact with IRA member McCartney, who became Officer Commanding of the IRA prisoners in H Blocks at Long Kesh Prison, Northern Ireland. Hamilton was inspired by the “visual affinity” McCartney had with the Finn MacCool legend.
Andrew Jackson Black Woman, Khayelitscha, 2006 Washing Line, Gugletu, 2006 Digital C Type Print
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“For the first time, the city is the meeting place for all of its citizens and the theatre where its anxieties are enacted and lived.” These photographs are part of a series of work about Cape Town, South Africa, in particular, the construction of a “new South Africa.” Jackson’s unusual photographic portraits show daily life for some of the people that live in rapidly expanding urban areas.
George Shaw 2 works from 12 Short Walks portfolio, 2005 Etchings
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George Shaw’s works often have a nostalgic feel and are concerned with his past and his memories of his childhood home in Coventry. “They are not the places I remember; they are the places in which I forgot things.” The artworks feel like personal journeys, there is also the sense that you half recognise the places, as they feel familiar to us.
Martin Creed 6 Work No. 264 Two Protrusions from a Wall, 2001 Aluminium, plaster and paint “Meanings are made in people’s heads. I can’t control them.” Creed numbers his work, as a way of treating all his works equally. The two protrusions in Work No. 264 are humorous and suggestive; they appear to have grown out of the wall and form a seamless part of it. The work is an intervention into the gallery space and blurs the lines between architecture, sculpture and painting.
Eduardo Paolozzi Untitled (Jane Drew Prize for Architecture), 1998 Cast resin and acrylic sheet
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This sculpture is the Jane Drew Prize for Architecture, awarded to The New Art Gallery Walsall in 2000. Separate compartments hold dislocated heads, hands and feet, alongside fragmented architectural features. The piece reveals the artist’s love of assembling objects and images and his interest in children’s model kits. Paolozzi was associated with Pop Art and was also influenced by Cubism, Dada and Surrealism.
Figure Studies
Archive Room
Trees
Portraits Animals & Birds
Main Hall
LIFTS
STAIRS
ENTRANCE
STAIRS TO 4th FLOOR
STAIRS
Landscape & Townscape
David Ward Homage to Matisse, 1980 Colour photograph
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The title of this photograph references the scissor cut images of Henri Matisse who cut simplistic forms from coloured paper to create striking collage works. Ward alludes to this idea with his photograph which is reminiscent of silhouette or stencil shapes, similar to those pieces by Matisse. Ward reduces the human body to a simplified form which borders on abstraction.
Christopher Le Brun Composition with Circles, 2007 Bronze Fifty Etchings no 5, 2005 Etching
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Le Brun’s work is at once both abstract and figurative, contemporary and nostalgic. It is influenced by mythology, literature and symbolism and the horse is a frequently recurring motif. However, his work is as much about process and the act of making as it is about imagery. Le Brun works in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing, building up layers of meaning and narrative, as well as physical layers.
Sarah Lucas The Perceval Mobile, 2007 Cardboard, wire and cotton
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This mobile was commissioned by Momart in 2007 and is a replica of a life sized painted bronze sculpture the artist exhibited outdoors in New York and Venice. The sculpture is a replica of a mantelpiece figurine of a shire horse blown up to the size of a real horse, pulling a cart containing two concrete marrows. This mobile version of Perceval is a miniaturised 2D paper version of the large sculpture. Both the sculpture and the mobile depict very English subject matter and the title Perceval also references one of the Knights of the Round Table from Arthurian legend. 11 Richard Wentworth Dear Peter, 1996 Coloured photographs and text Richard Wentworth helped to design The New Art Gallery Square and the photographs focus on shadows, painted lines, patterns and textures on the ground. This work reveals his thoughts behind the design for the square, through text and questions written to the former director of the gallery, Peter Jenkinson: “When we say ‘landscape,’ what ever do we mean? ... How do light and shade change what we think?”
Matt and Ross Cloud Study, 2007 Giclee print
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Matt and Ross are collaborative artists who live and work in London. This photograph of Hadleigh, Essex makes reference to an oil painting by John Constable of a dramatic and beautiful skyscape in the same location. By blowing up their photograph to the dimensions of the original painting, Cloud Study becomes an “unflattering homage” to Constable’s painting. The use of photography seeks to undermine Constable’s carefully constructed romantic landscape through one click of their camera.
Floor 2 13 Gordon Cheung The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 2007 Stock listings, acrylic, gel and spray paint on canvas. Cheung’s painting is inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the fall of the angel, Satan from heaven. Cheung’s interest in utopia/dystopia is his personal reaction to a chaotic world. He uses a “virtual palette” of found internet images which he digitally manipulates, collages and paints to create complex visual layers, using stock market pages from the Financial Times as a base. He is interested in reflecting the “techno sublime, where information overwhelms the individual,” and where, “heaven, earth and the underworld [are] all mixed up.”
Catherine Yass Town-Walsall, 1999 DVD
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This film was commissioned by The New Art Gallery Walsall when it first opened and was projected in the window box space at the front of the building. It was designed to be the ‘introduction’ to the gallery from the High Street. Yass’ film provides a different view of the town to create a “portrait” of Walsall itself.
Peter Callesen Dead Angels, 2007 Paper and oak frame
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Callesen has meticulously created figures of angels cut from a single sheet of paper. He has then used these cut out pieces to create the angels’ skeletal counterparts below. Much of Callesen’s work is concerned with ideas of space and volume, and illusion and fantasy. As with many fairytales, there is an undercurrent of sadness or tragedy in his work. The apparent fragility of the paper makes the piece compelling, as if it is about to collapse.
Ceal Floyer Etching (at 45rpm), 2000 Offset lithograph
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Floyer’s work is often deceptively simplistic, “frequently subtle to the point of virtual invisibility.” Her work is reduced to its minimum components and this work follows a similar idea. It was made by the artist drawing overlapping circles directly on to the etching plate with an etching tool. Floyer drew 45 circles in 1 minute, mimicking the movement of a record player at 45 rpm (revolutions per minute), and also the physical size of a record.
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Günther Herbst New Oxford Street, 2007 Acrylic on paper
New Oxford Street is one of a series of paintings based on the “dilapidated corners of our cities where the homeless make temporary shelters.” Herbst hopes to, “confront the viewer, provoking them into looking at something we normally tend to ignore.” He uses historical references within his work (including the De Stijl painter Mondrian) and this locates it within a broader. Herbst subverts his own use of traditional oil paint on canvas to emphasise this uncomfortable subject. 18
Gillian Ayres Ictis, 1998 Screenprint with hand coloured additions
Although Ayres’ work tends to be abstract, it is possible to make out the natural forms that have inspired Ictis and other works like this. Her vibrant prints and paintings show a fascination with colour and form and whilst they appear spontaneous, have actually been built up through many layers of paint. Her work is gestural and is a reaction to the Abstract Expressionist period of painting in America when Ayres was a young artist in the 1950s.
Flowers & Still Life
Religious Art
Illustration & Symbolism
Work & Leisure
Main Hall Children
LIFTS
Marc Quinn Untitled, from Winter Garden series, 2004 Digital pigment ink on paper
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“These flowers growing through snow are real flowers but put together by me in a way that would be impossible in nature. They are a combination of the real and the imagination, they are the real configured by desire, and they are precisely what I love to look at.” Quinn works in a range of media to explore themes including nature, beauty, science and death. He frequently uses natural materials to make powerful work including flowers and even his own blood.
John Wood and Paul Harrison 20 Boat 2, 2000 DVD Wood and Harrison are collaborative filmmakers. Their work is seemingly experimental and simplistic but is actually carefully choreographed. Frequently on a loop they perform absurdist acts with deadpan expressions in a playful manner, utilising a kind of physical comedy concerned with movement, trust and timing. The work is almost slapstick but there is often a darker undercurrent of survival and danger to the work. It references the beginnings of video and performance art in the 1960s. 21 Cildo Meireles Insertions into Ideological Circuits, 1970 2: Banknote project: To register critical information and opinions on banknotes and to return them to circulation. Banknotes with printed ink stamp Brazilian artist Meireles alters everyday objects in small ways but with a powerful impact. The artist’s ideas are frequently political and subversive, drawing on ideas of consumerism and capitalism. In this work, Meireles’ interventions are real banknotes stamped by the artist with the above message. His stamped banknotes were returned to circulation when he bought groceries or paid his rent. These artworks use the established distribution mechanisms of society in order to make us question the status quo. (Project recreated for Vivencias exhibition at The New Art Gallery).
Artists Anonymous Peace is War’s Son, 2007 Digital print
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Artists Anonymous are a group of artists who live in Berlin. They work collaboratively, reworking and editing an image in layers through painting and photography. The work addresses social and political problems such as war, pollution, drugs and hunger, using people as “apocalyptic warriors” in the images. They say, “This is about our life, about our group, about Berlin and how we live and work and interact.”
Gavin Turk Bin Bag 9, 2001 Painted bronze
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This work appears to be a bin bag full of rubbish but is actually a sculpture cast in bronze and painted to resemble the original object. Bronze is a traditional sculptural medium, suggestive of permanence and value but it is used to depict an object seen as worthless. Turk often highlights such overlooked aspects of life such as the bronze sculpture he made of a figure hidden inside a dirty sleeping bag called Nomad (Green).