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Aug
2004 : Qesqui (research project)
Tony
knox, Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney, George Lund, Gary Sollars,
Andrew Taylor, Barry Finch, Mike Badger, Claire Freeman, Christopher
Turrell, Ben Youdan.
Poem Below by Andrew Taylor
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An art initiative
brought forward by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney in collaboration with the
artists and affiliated to the research programme of transVoyeur,
an Anlgo American Cultural Initiative with the Whores of Babylon
and Egg Space. gesquOi Part 2 is a cultural initiative founded on
the research and development of the contemporary arts and the urban
space of the city by objectifying the object in the civic and the
commoditication.
A group of artists have explored the city in terms of the civic
and commodification. Residues of artefacts and experiences of human
activity collected and contextualised through artistic conceptualisation,
dissection and modification. From mark makers, poets, performers,
painters and others, the objects and encounters becomes one of objectification,
as it continues a journey of shared existence from one referenced
by the conventiality of the origin and commodity to become a conception
of resurgence.
The
Artists
Tony Knox
(Photographer)
Discarded and vandalized table. A table burned to charcoal by vandalism,
its form now one aesthetic curiosity in the dark undertones of the
charred surface. The aesthetic functionality of the wood blistered,
the texture warped, bubbled and blackened. The table is photographed
and introduced to the IKEA web based catalogue. A contemporary supplier
of idealised living.
Mike Badger
(Sculpture/Multi Media Artist)
Everyday objects of symbolic commodification reformed into sculptures
of contemporary and popular culture and life. Articles of found
and throw away objects rearranged to become aesthetic configurations.
Each unique structure obscures the conventional with the abstract
of purpose and form.
Barry Finch
(Writer/Poet)
A short passage inscribed, experiences of the urban space. These
words are embodied in a found shoe and slab of pavement. The slab
of pavement cleaned, now clinical and santised, while the shoes
is covered in chewing gum mixed with the saliva of the artist and
presented to the audience to add more residue of spit and masticated
strings of gum.
Claire Freeman
(Sculptor)
Discarded clothing, a leather jacket, faded green and fissures in
the grain. The jacket dissected, seams removed, to be reformed into
abstraction of sense and experience. Cones, cuboids, disjointed
formations relative by the green hue and textuality of the source,
deconstructed then reconstructed to form textual abstract forms.
George Lund
(Painter)
Cardboard packaging and an old blind rescued from a skip. The card
board is shaped into icons of Liverpool, John Lennon and one of
his muses in his lyrics, Eleanor Rigby. They are painted in effervescent
tones and placed in front of scene of Liverpool skyline to show
the architectural and iconic references of the skyline of the city
of these characters.
Gary Sollars
(Painter)
A page from the local tabloid, the Liverpool Echo, reporting on
the popular culture of football and the deification of Wayne Rooney,
a contemporary prodigy and player. The single sheet of the newspaper
reconstructed to form a child hood game to select G’s adoration
for the deity W.
Gaynor Evelyn
Sweeney (Performance Artist)
The frame of a fold away bed discovered by the civic center in the
city of Liverpool. The interventionism of spontaneous slumber amongst
the commuting pedestrians.
Christopher
Turrell (Sculptor)
The perceptible delineation of an iron formed in transparent plastic.
Void of purpose but founded on aesthetic functionality, as transparent
as the blind familiarity of this object.
Ben Youdan
(Painter)
A collage of images from iconic and popular culture. Magazines and
newspapers discarded and littering the streets, sections collected
to form an array of reference in contemporary society and fused
with an explosion of colour.
Research
and Development: Saturday 10 July 2004, 12.00 pm onwards.
The artists exprlores the civic part of the city for artifacts of
human activity and experience.
Exhibition: Sunday 18 July 2004 – Saturday 02 August 2004
Andrew Taylor (Poet)
Momentary experiences and encounters captured in prose, fractured
in term and verse in a cascade of paper covering the wall and ceiling.
This barrier of text engulfs the viewer visual field and compels
them to reform the chaos of text to realize the other of the space.
GesqOui
(Part II) Poem by Andrew Taylor (an installation image bottom left)
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
top hatted traders Exchange Flags to micro skirts Old Hall Street
hotels and Littlewoods Sculpture
cast to the elements a view obscured by development
Who
shares these routes? Who has climbed the steps?
Sleek in black cast aside
as a forgotten dream
pigeons clap on take off
circle above seeking
scattered crumbs
Abercromby
Square where Billy sat drunk after graduation Senate House
where
I saw Les Murray read and where once a Church stood
into the Gallery small packed for a Georgian Townhouse with
Freud
Aitcheson and Turner for company history surrounding
a calming influence the violet hour essence of art and pleasure
Grass
amongst the cracks in old concrete city centre
parking spaces feeding grounds for city sparrows
The
city is not only a form of modern life; it is the physical embodiment
of a decisive modern consciousness – Raymond Williams
walk
up the hill to Jordan Street through Bold Street’s bustle
onto Berry Street past the Parking Space Gallery where Jane
had
her exhibition opening the night before Billy and Karl went
to Amsterdam
Bluecoat
Courtyard creation whitewashed
cables feed through trees and drainpipes
Drawn
together artists using same tools 70
years on temporary versus permanent
installations for Liverpool’s state of mind
Words
etched onto sidewalk. Late summer’s heat
unable to soften. Buddleia columns run parallel.
‘So
afraid dew breaks a screen dissolve’
‘Established
1784 Ships Chandlers Engineers
Merchants Sailmakers and Flagmakers.’
Horizon spire of Welsh Presbyterian
40 Prince's Road corner of Upper Hill Street,
Liverpool, 1868; closed and derelict
Yorkshire stone with yellow sandstone
Audsley’s
design ‘T’ Shape 200ft spire
details carefully thought out light fittings
all part an architect’s brief
Reinstated
September 2002 electricity pumps
water and sound roses begin to wilt and die
a girl wrapped in white feels precinct cold crowds
drawn by radiance
a
gold heart lies behind a mobile telephone screen
What lies beyond these streets? What has gone before?
©
Andrew Taylor
http://www.andrewtaylorpoetry.com/
Email : andy@andrewtaylorpoetry.com
No images to be copyed or
used without permission:
Tony Knox (Curator)
EggSpace, 16-18 Newington Buildings, Newington, Liverpool, L1 4ED,
England.
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