mima launches new exhibitions season March-July 2012
For its new season of exhibitions, mima has been inspired by AV Festival 12’s theme of ‘slowness’. From March to July 2012, gallery visitors will be actively encouraged to slow down, take their time, look closely at the works on show, relax and take a deep breath. Entry to exhibitions at mima is free.
The AV Festival at mima mima is again one of the venues for this year’s North East-wide AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible, an international festival of art, technology, music and film taking place March 1-31. As part of the festival, mima will show the works of two internationally renowned artists, John Gerrard and Cyprien Gaillard.
Exhibitions and events in conjunction with AV Festival
John Gerrard | March 1 - July 1, 2012
This, the first UK exhibition of two recent works by John Gerrard, consolidates the artist’s reputation as one of the most innovative artists working today. Cuban School (Community of 5th October) 2010 and Cuban School (Sancti Spiritu) 2011 are computer-generated projections of schools situated in the Cuban countryside, once 1960s revolutionary social experiments and now crumbling symbols of the failure and decay of the political vision and the technology from which they were built. The schools are still used, but are portrayed as ‘functional ruins’.
Gerrard has used extensive site photographs and satellite data to create two meticulous virtual worlds, over which the artist has complete control. He presents a slow 360-degree camera audit of the landscape, based on human walking pace. What we experience in the gallery is the real time of day in Cuba; however, in this virtual world the landscape is not exposed to seasonal variations. There is a single human presence in each work; in both cases this is an actor playing a fictional female caretaker.
John Gerrard lives and works between Vienna and Dublin. He has recently shown his work at Venice Biennale 2009, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC and Thomas Dane Gallery, London.
Curated by AV Festival in partnership with mima.
Cyprien Gaillard | March 1 - July 1, 2012
In his largest UK exhibition to date, award-winning artist Gaillard presents two major film installations. These works show contemporary architecture as modern ruins on the verge of being taken over by nature. Real Remnants of Fictive Wars (Part V) is a mesmerising 35mm film depicting a cloud of thick white smoke engulfing a romantic landscape, as a violent and beautiful act. Cities of Gold and Mirrors is a 16mm film consisting of scenes in and around the Mexican city of Cancún, which was founded in 1970. The scenes are set to a soundtrack taken from the 1980s cartoon series about Spanish conquistadors, Mysterious Cities of Gold.
Cyprien Gaillard was born in 1980 in Paris. He has participated in numerous international group shows and biennials. In 2010 he won the prestigious Marcel Duchamp prize, and in 2011 exhibited in the German National Gallery Prize for Young Art.
Curated by AV Festival in partnership with mima.
John Gerrard Lecture | Wednesday, February 28, 5.30-7pm.
Organised by Teesside University. Book with Jane Hutchinson at Teesside University. Tel 01642 738233.
Ian Sinclair: Middlesbrough Talk | Thursday, March 15, 6-7.30pm
Ian Sinclair is a leading writer, film-maker, poet and psychogeographer. He will undertake a new walk in Middlesbrough, to be the focus of a public talk at mima. Free. Book at www.avfestival.co.uk
Chris Watson, Teesside Sound Walk | Saturday, March 24, 1-4pm
Chris Watson, one of the world’s greatest sound recordists whose career has included capturing the natural world with Sir David Attenborough, will lead a walk at Seal Sands Reserve. Participants will be encouraged to listen and record the sounds they hear. Free. Book at www.avfestival.co.uk
Photography workshops and photo walks | Sundays, May 13, 27, June 10, 12.30-3.30pm
These sessions will look at the architecture around Middlesbrough. No experience necessary, just bring a camera. Come to one, two or all three sessions. £10 per session.
Book by email: mimabookings@midlesbrough.gov.uk, or phone: 01642 726720.
Additional exhibitions
Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals | March 2 – July 13, 2012
This exhibition will present drawings and paintings by Irish-born artist Sean Scully, one of the most widely acclaimed and exhibited painters in the world. For over a quarter of a century, Scully has developed and refined his own recognizable and accessible style of geometric abstraction. This exhibition features 14 drawings in acrylic, ink, graphite and masking tape from a series he made in 1974-75, as well as two large scale paintings from the same period, alongside the artist’s personal notebooks. Taken from two distinct series, the Change and Horizontals drawings highlight Scully’s concern with line and colour’s relation to place.
These works were only recently discovered after being lost for three decades, and are being presented together for the first time in over 30 years. This is the only UK showing of this exhibition outside of London.
Like John Gerrard’s and Cyprien Gaillard’s works, Sean Scully’s densely and lushly painted works benefit from close examination, and invite the viewer to spend time with them.
Sean Scully was born in Ireland, educated in London and has lived and worked in the United States since the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1972 he studied and taught at Newcastle University. Scully’s work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Tate in London, and in many other private and public collections worldwide.
Co-curated by Brett Littman and Joanna Kleinberg, The Drawing Center, New York.
Artist Talk: Sean Scully in conversation with curator Joanna Kleinberg. | Friday, March 2, noon at mima.
Free, booking essential. Book by email: mimabookings@middlesbrough.gov.uk or phone: 01642 726720.
To remind: works of memory and monument | February 24 – July 1, 2012
To remind brings together works from mima’s collection that explore memory and monumentality, themes explored in John Gerrard and Cyprien Gaillard’s current exhibitions at mima. The exhibition includes painting, drawings, ceramics, sculpture and jewellery, and features works by a wide range of established modern and contemporary artists, including Antony Gormley, Andy Goldsworthy, Grayson Perry and recent Turner Prize ‘People’s Favourite’, George Shaw.
Up the Boro | March 2 – July 8, 2012
This exhibition of football-inspired work from mima’s collection explores artists’ representations of the beautiful game. The works in the exhibition have been chosen by a Middlesbrough football club representative alongside local people. It includes photographs, ceramics, jewellery and photography, with artists such as LS Lowry represented.
In support of the Middlesbrough ’86 Project.
Download: mima latest programme
Enjoy the AV Festival launch, exhibitions by John Gerrard, Cyprien Gaillard, Sean Scully, To remind: works of memory and monument, Up the Boro, an M86 Project exhibition, artist talks, family workshops and more in mima's new programme.