Press Release – For immediate release
PHOTO CREDITS: You Imagine What You Desire, © Nathan Coley 2014, Illuminated text on scaffolding, photo by Keith Hunter
Nathan Coley’s new commission explores ideological
conflict alongside architectural renewal and destruction
Portraits of Dissension, new co-commission
The Regency Town House, Hove
You Imagine What You Desire
St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton
Press preview Friday 1st May by appointment
Exhibition open: 2-24 May 2015
HOUSE, Brighton and Hove’s contemporary visual arts festival, and Brighton Festival are
delighted to announce a major new co-commission: Nathan Coley’s Portraits of Dissension
a new sculptural installation exploring his interest in architecture, belief and politics.
Additionally exhibited within Brighton’s oldest surviving building, will be Coley’s illuminated
sculpture, You Imagine What You Desire (2014).
Portraits of Dissension uses Brighton’s iconic Royal Pavilion and the bombing of the Grand
Hotel, together with ready-made documents as a starting point for this exhibition presented
across three rooms in The Regency Town House – an incredible Grade 1 listed terraced
building.
Coley says “I am pleased to be presenting You Imagine What You Desire with Portraits of
Dissension as it gives a broad representation of my work. The new exhibition feels unlaboured
and fresh. It looks at links between the destruction and renovation of architecture and what
objects we might make in the aftermath of political acts, how we manifest answers physically
in the world. The work questions our religious moral authority.”
Marking moments in history and the collective memory, Portraits of Dissension is not about
the specifics of the events themselves, but more an abstract from which to explore wider
implications, more universal ideas; a memorable and fixed point about which we can begin a
discussion, relate back, reflect and consider what is next.
HOUSE 2015 takes Edge and Shift as its overarching thematic, presenting three further
commissions selected through open submission; Joseph Popper, co-commissioned with
Lighthouse, presents ‘The Same Face’, an installation set of a drone command centre; Amanda
Loomes, co-commissioned with Photoworks, produces ‘Relict Material’, a new film installation
considering labour within the marine aggregate industry; engaging the local community,
HOUSE and Photoworks have co-commissioned City Collective, a new video work reflecting
on conflict and change.
HOUSE 2015 is partnering with Outside In to produce Intuitive Visions: Shifting the Margins, an
exhibition which presents works by artists facing barriers to the art world. Eight artists have
been selected to show work responding to Edge and Shift at Phoenix Brighton.
The HOUSE 2015 events programme this year includes a pop up cinema in collaboration with
Cine-City, showing films of re-enactment including Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave and
Humphrey Jennings’ Silent Village. As well as opportunities to meet the artists and attend
talks, presented along with festival partners.
Guest Curator for HOUSE 2015 is Celia Davies, Director, Photoworks.
HOUSE 2015 is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts
Council England.
For further information, images or interviews, please contact Shelley Bennett, Yeti PR
on shelley@yetipr.co.uk | 07890 101841
or info@housefestival.org | www.housefestival.org
Notes to Editors
•
Conceived in 2008 by Directors Judy Stevens and Chris Lord, HOUSE is a curated,
contemporary and dynamic visual arts strand running at the same time as Brighton Festival,
and in part a response to the limited space in the city for presenting contemporary art. It
commissions an internationally regarded Invited Artist and selects from Open Submission, the
work of critically engaged artists based in south-east England. Inherent to HOUSE is an interest
in the threshold between private and public space, where there is potential to experience new
ideas and different ways of thinking, both within the artistic process. Previous years’ Invited
Artists have been Yinka Shonibare MBE (2014) Mariele Neudecker (2013) and David Batchelor
(2012). www.housefestival.org
•
Nathan Coley (b. 1967) was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art. In 2007 he
was shortlisted for the Turner Prize (400 + artists are nominated every year, 4 are shortlisted).
He is interested in how we relate to public space and architecture and what we believe. He
often uses architecture as a readymade, as a means to take from and replace in the world. His
work is sensitive to its context and concerned with the process of historic interpretation and the
aftermath of politically charged situations. www.studionathancoley.com
•
Celia Davies is Director of Photoworks, producer of the Brighton Photo Biennial and Chair of
Blast Theory. Recent projects include Brighton Photo Biennial 2014, The British Library by Yinka
Shonibare (2014), Brighton Palermo Remix by David Batchelor for Brighton/HOUSE
Festival (2012), This Storm is What We Call Progress by Ori Gersht (2012), Imperial War
Museum, London. www.photoworks.org.uk
•
Joseph Popper Born 1986; London. Lives and works in London. Joseph Popper explores ideas
at the limits of certainty, drawing upon science fiction to approach the unknown. He examines
space travel and other forms of human exploration and technological endeavour through film,
photography and installations. Taking inspiration from cinematic special effects, his works
transform found locations and everyday objects to simulate speculative scenarios and fictional
experiences. In these handmade worlds, Popper plays upon common imaginations in attempt
to bridge the gap between getting there and being there. www.josephpopper.net
•
Amanda Loomes Loomes studied MA Fine Art Painting at the Royal College of Art, graduating
in 2006, and from BA Fine Art Painting at University of the Arts, London in 2004. Recent
exhibitions include The London Group at 100, Mottisfont National Trust, 2013; and Centenary
Exhibition at Pitzhanger Manor, PM Gallery, 2013. www.amandaloomes.net
•
Brighton Festival is an innovative commissioning and producing mixed arts festival
which takes place across three weeks in the city each May. It is a major milestone in the
international cultural calendar, offering an ambitious programme of visual art, theatre, music,
dance, circus, books and debates, family friendly events and outdoor performances throughout
the city including site-specific and unusual locations. Each year Brighton Festival attracts
inspiring and internationally significant Guest Directors who bring cohesion to the artistic
programme with British sculptor Anish Kapoor as inaugural curator in 2009 followed by the
Godfather of modern music Brian Eno in 2010, the Burmese Democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi in 2011, actress and Human Rights campaigner Vanessa Redgrave in 2012, poet, author and
former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen in 2013 and choreographer, composer, musician and
performer Hofesh Shechter in 2014. This year the Guest Director is the award-winning Scottish
author Ali Smith CBE. Brighton Festival’s visual arts programme will also proudly present Gauge
by Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey at Circus Street Market, Dawn Chorus by Marcus Coates
at Fabrica, a triptych of porcelain sculptures by Rachel Kneebone at the University of Brighton
Gallery, a new installation by Agnes Varda at University of Brighton Gallery, and A Murmuration
by Sarah Woods and Lucy Harris at Onca Gallery. www.brightonfestival.org
•
Founded in 2006 by Pallant House Gallery, Outside In is a national project that aims to provide
opportunities for artists with a desire to create who see themselves as facing a barrier to the art
world for reasons including health, disability or social circumstances. The goal of the project is
to create a fairer art world which rejects traditional values and institutional judgements about
whose work can and should be displayed. www.outsidein.org.uk
•
CINECITY is a partnership between Picturehouse Brighton, Screen Archive South East and the
University of Brighton. It delivers a year-round programme of film and moving image events,
screenings and exhibitions and presents the annual CINECITY The Brighton Film Festival, the
region’s major celebration of film. Festival patrons include Nick Cave, Barry Adamson, Ben
Wheatley, Paddy Considine and Steve Coogan. CINECITY is a partnership between
Picturehouse Brighton, Screen Archive South East and the University of Brighton. It delivers a
year-round programme of film and moving image events, screenings and exhibitions and
presents the annual CINECITY The Brighton Film Festival, the region’s major celebration of film.
Festival patrons include Nick Cave, Barry Adamson, Ben Wheatley, Paddy Considine and Steve
Coogan.
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