‘What I mean when I say “I should be in charge” is that “you should be in charge”. We should be in charge. What motivates me is politics, but our politicians are ghastly. The last politician I liked was Michael Foot, the Labour leader in the 1980s. He was an intellectual. Margaret Thatcher ate him for breakfast in 1984. Ever since then, liberal and left-wing politicians in Britain have been disingenuous cabbages.’
—Bob and Roberta Smith, I Should Be In Charge (Black Dog Publishing, 2011)
Taking the issue of representational imbalance in government, Bob and Roberta’s painting Esther’s Law is the starting point for You Should Be In Charge. Recently part of a group show curated by Bob and Roberta Smith at the New Art Gallery Walsall, Esther’s Law is inspired by Jacob Epstein’s sculpture of his daughter Esther, of which Bob and Roberta say “in the sculpture Esther looks like she does not want to be interpreted by her father and seems to stick a sharp pair of scissors into the male hegemonic world.”
Esther’s Law, their vision of a truly proportional system of government, states that the same proportion of women, those from diverse communities, and those living with disability that exists in society should be represented in Parliament— what Bob and Roberta refer to as ‘real proportional representation.’ All visitors to You Should Be In Charge are invited to join them in framing a new contract for real proportional representation by signing the The New Magna Carta, which will be presented as a petition to Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone after the exhibition.
Bob and Roberta Smith interviews Bidisha
Who is really in charge?
Should 50% of parliament be women by statute? What advantages would this bring? Are women better stewards of society than men? And how can artists be part of the debate about power relationships?
Come and join this early evening conversation at WORK.
12 May, 6.30–7.30pm, free. Tickets available from WORK on 020 7713 5097 or info@workgallery.co.uk. Numbers limited—booking essential.
WORK would like to thank Hales Gallery, London, the New Art Gallery Walsall, The Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art and The Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art at Ramsgate.
Upcoming event: Over The Horizon: Narratives Of The Future
Panel discussion with James Auger, Sam Hecht and Zoe Laughlin
8 September 2011
6.30-8pm, Free
Seating limited, please RSVP to press@workgallery.co.uk
As daily life becomes increasingly mediated by technology, there is a growing interest in the original interface between human consciousness, the body, and the outside world: the senses. See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception brings together a combination of young and established artists and designers to show work that pushes boundaries both conceptually and technically, harnessing existing and developing technologies to challenge our perceptions of ourselves, and the ways we communicate and inhabit space.
Using anything from elaborate robotics and slick product design, to experimental scientific procedures and prosthetics, the artists and designers engaged in this field destabilise distinctions between mind and body, and blur boundaries between organic and artificial, internal and external, and public and private. And indeed, between fiction and fact.
Whether hi-tech or lo-fi, this work deals with human emotions and senses. Ranging from the practical to the fantastic and absurd, the futuristic projections of this cross-section of designers and artists whose practices envision new ways of relating to and experiencing the world around us provide glimpses of strange new tomorrows in which humans and technology coexist - often within the same body.
The exhibition looks at the material spatially, from the body outwards to three-dimensional space. Exhibits in which body and device become one, or are so closely linked as to be almost indistinguishable from one another, are shown alongside those that, in some way, impact upon the space around us. Others that examine how we engage with our immediate surroundings and how we interact are exhibited side-by-side with those that play without senses and feelings, sometimes enhancing—sometimes disorientating—our perceptions.
Simultaneously playful and incisive, these propositions inevitably produce more questions than answers, inviting critical dialogue on issues such as bioethics, simulated reality, post-humanism and genetic modification. Artists and designers in this field constantly push boundaries, sometimes working at the edges of conventional respectability, challenging our most basic assumptions about our own bodies and minds.
Curated by Marianne Templeton and Kate Trant, See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception has been developed in conjunction with the publication of the same name, authored by Madeline Schwartzman, and released in June 2011 by Black Dog Publishing.
See below for press:
Audio Tooth Implant
Alternate Interfaces
The Glance of Infinity
Reading 3 (Eye Drawing)
Dis-Armor
Face to Face
Eye Candy
Surround Sound Eyewear
(G)host in the (S)hell
(with Mikael Metthey)Pathogen Hunters
Eyecode
Giant Billiard
WORK is pleased to present The Abolition of War, a new solo exhibition by Krzysztof Wodiczko.
Wodiczko is internationally renowned for his politically charged, large-scale public projections and ongoing series of designs for personal communication instruments and survival vehicles. Central to his practice is the exploration of social and political marginalisation, and the creation of suitable platforms for alienated and excluded communities to “develop their shattered abilities to communicate” and testify about their personal experiences.
The two projects featured in this exhibition, The Flame and War Veteran Vehicle, bring into focus the post-traumatic condition experienced by returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both projects are based on a set of interviews conducted by the artist with anonymous war veterans and their families, which reveal the difficulties of re-integration and the impossibility of re-connecting with their previous lives.
The Flame, first presented at Governors Island, New York in 2009, is a projection of a single flame flickering in response to the emotional impact of vocal testimonies by American war veterans and their families. Hypnotic and compelling, the flame draws the viewer into a state of reflective intimacy with these unseen narrators.
The Abolition of War also documents War Veteran Vehicle, an itinerant video installation performed in Liverpool during the Abandon Normal Devices Festival in 2009. For this work, Wodiczko fitted a high-power projector onto the weapons platform of a military Land Rover and ‘fired’ fragmented statements by returned British soldiers onto the facades of public buildings, accompanied by the sound of cannon fire.
The Abolition of War takes its name from Wodiczko’s proposal to radically transform the Arc de Triomphe de L’Etoile into the structural centrepiece of the Arc de Triomphe—World Institute for the Abolition of War, thus reframing the traditional war monument as a site of education, critical discourse and proactive work towards peace.
Krzysztof Wodiczko lives and works in New York, Boston and Warsaw. He is Professor of Art, Design and the Public Domain at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, Cambridge, and has exhibited internationally, to critical acclaim, over the past five decades.
Opening hours: 12–5.30pm, Wednesday–Saturday
(excluding public holidays)