Art Party
A film by Tim Newton & Bob and Roberta Smith
GB, 2014, 80 min
Join us in throwing a UK wide Art Party on Thursday 21 August, the day the
GCSE results are announced. All participating venues simply have to screen
the film and host their own party afterwards!
See below for party ideas!
Written, Produced & Directed by: Tim Newton & Bob and Roberta Smith
Executive Producer: Stuart Cameron at Crescent Arts
Music by: The Fucks, Haroon Mirza, Grubby Mitts, The Ken Ardley Playboys,
Jeanette Parris, and Flame Proof Moth
Distributor: Cornerhouse Artist Film
Image: Tony Bartholomew
www.cornerhouse.org/artparty
#ArtParty2014
How do you tell one man he's got it wrong?
Synopsis
Part documentary, part road movie and part political fantasy, Art Party
captures the spirit of the Scarborough conference held in November 2013;
championing the importance of art and its place in education and modern
politics. A kaleidoscopic mix of performance, artist interviews and imagined
scenes, Art Party is the latest in a line of collaborations between director Tim
Newton and Bob & Roberta Smith; due for release in a series of simultaneous
nationwide art parties in Summer 2014.
This unique and provocative film stars John Voce as Michael Grove MP and
Julia Rayner as his parliamentary aid, featuring work and comment by artists
as diverse as Cornelia Parker, John Smith, Haroon Mirza, Jeremy Deller and
Jessica Voorsanger. With original music by Flameproof Moth, the Ken Ardley
Playboys and The Fucks.
About the directors
Art Party is the latest in a series of collaborations between artist Bob and
Roberta Smith and filmmaker Tim Newton. Both live in Leytonstone in East
London, a community that was the subject of their first film in 2011.
Bob and Roberta Smith is the founder of the Art Party movement that seeks
to better advocate the arts to Government. He is best known for his painting
Make Art Not War in the Tate collection and was recently made a Royal
Academician.
www.cornerhouse.org/artparty
#ArtParty2014
Tim Newton has worked as an actor, writer and director in theatre, film and
television for over 20 years, regularly performing in productions by maverick
theatre director Ken Campbell. Tim's recent short film Trimming Pablo (2011)
is a fictionalised account of Picasso’s visit to the 1950 Sheffield Peace
Congress in which Bob also appears. In 2012 Tim and Bob's joint film Who is
Community? was commissioned as part of Art on the Underground's Central
Line series. The film featured Julia Rayner who now plays civil servant Hetty
Nettleship alongside John Voce (as Michael Grove MP) in Tim and Bob's first
feature length collaboration.
Official Trailer & additional teasers
You Tube (also available as DCP format)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBP0w8otMM
Promo 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZesYpUXHx0&list=UUDg6iP1nCZqs3G4
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Promo 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23F0Cg-Rb8U
Information
Available from Thursday 21 August 2014
BBFC Certificate: TBC
Format: Art Party is primarily available on DCP, Blu-ray & DVD
Cinema Terms: 35% / £100 MG plus £21 transport
Art Venue/University Terms: £100 flat fee for one screening
FILM HUB NWC COMMUNITY VENUES: £50 FLAT FEE
Available marketing materials: Poster, EPK, trailer (DCP/DVD)
Note all venues showing Art Party on Thu 21 Aug should throw a party!
Consider collaborations across independent cinemas, art galleries and artist
studios, but anything goes really… see below for ideas. #ArtParty2014
For bookings and enquiries, and to request a screener, please contact the
Cornerhouse team at artistfilm@cornerhouse.org
Cornerhouse Artist Film was set up in 2011 to investigate new methods of
production, distribution and exhibition for artist feature film, exploiting digital
technology whilst particularly making use of our unique bridge between visual
art networks, artists and independent film exhibition.
Art Party is a Tim Newton and Bob and Roberta Smith production, in
association with Crescent Arts, ACE Grants for the Arts, The Cass Faculty of
Art, Architecture & Design and distributed by Cornerhouse Artist Film.
www.cornerhouse.org/artparty
#ArtParty2014
A throw-your-own call to party!
Following your screening of Art Party on the evening of Thursday 21 August…
At the request of artist Bob and Roberta Smith, artist and co-director of Art
Party all venues participating in the simultaneous launch are asked to throw a
celebration of their own. There is no standard, one-size-fits-all approach, as
you will know what will work for your audience and sit best within your wider
programme / event series. Instead, select a scale and means of delivery that
you believe you can comfortably deliver. A party can just be a gathering of
friends, keep it as simple as you like. Sadly there are no funds available from
us, but limitations can be a starting point instead of a full-stop – we are
nothing after all if not creative in the face of austerity!
Suggestions…
Retain your audience – don’t let those attending the screening get away,
chaperone or lead them from your screening to the space you have reserved
for the party, crocodile-walk them if you must, distribute hi-vis vests if you
have them, appoint classroom assistants, keep some wet-wipes handy and
attach ‘if lost, please return to’ name badges.
Work with what you have – if there are any budding DJs (‘Spinderella cut it
up one time…’) within your team or friendship group, round ‘em up and rope
them in. This will also increase your audience, as peers tend to attract fellowminded folk, and hopefully friends will support each other in their
endeavours… if only to record each other and post the humiliations online
afterwards.
The sound of music – while live bands, singer-songwriters or acoustic acts
would be an exciting addition to any soiree, there’s nothing wrong with
queuing up a Spotify playlist or gathering some vintage vinyl and allowing the
party-goers to curate their own soundtrack. Anyone got a PlayStation? Fire up
SingStar and allow the ego-fuelled juggernaut that is karaoke to carve a path
toward midnight.
More tea, vicar? – bring a bottle (if allowed), mix up a party-punch or better
still, challenge guests to contribute to a pot luck smorgasbord or bake-off
challenge. Watch the cupcakes and banana bread stack-up until you can build
an edible igloo.
Bring on the clowns – or at least some entertainment, so consider inviting a
performance collective to curate the event. Those fun-loving (if misogynist)
Surrealists invented many parlour games – anyone for a round of exquisite
www.cornerhouse.org/artparty
#ArtParty2014
corpse? If in doubt, stick a dark wig on an inverted mop handle and announce
that Marina Abramović is present.
Michael Gove Portrait Painting
Recommended by Bob and Roberta Smith… test your imagination to the limit
by attempting to realise the likeness of a man around whom we stand
pointing, accusing, naming, rebuking! Shame, shame, everyone knows your
name! Artists and producers brave enough could also address the crowd with
short pithy provocations.
We’re sure that with so many artists, producers, curators and makers
gravitating to each venue, that you won’t be short of ideas of your own. Why
not ask some local artists to host a quiz or a competition of some kind?
Here at Cornerhouse in Manchester, we already have some plans in the
works… here’s one of them to get your own juices flowing:
Dirty Protest (2014)
A participatory live art commission on the occasion of Bob and Roberta
Smith’s Art Party and celebration, inviting a no-holds barred response from
adventurous volunteers. Taking place within an initially sterile room with white
walls and papered floor, a viewing window will be installed along one fascia
for those who choose to peer in from the outside. Racks of disposable
overalls will be available for those wishing to enter, where pots of paints,
pens, brushes, tape, charcoal, crayons, pastels, ink, mud, slime and
foodstuffs are provided.
The instruction-intention is simple. ‘Stage your own dirty protest‘, but only
upon first signing a disclaimer taking responsibility for your own dry-cleaning
reparations. Why not create your own portrait of Michael Gove himself, or an
abstract interpretation of shame? Before, during and after photographs will
document the process for posterity. Probably from within a polythene
sandwich bag, for fear of the anticipated rainbow spray of goop, giggles and
creative ‘adult’ play!
www.cornerhouse.org/artparty
#ArtParty2014