By invitation of G126 Galway and the Galway Arts Festival we presented I See Prisms, the 6th event by The Open Eye Club and the first to take place outside of Glasgow. I See Prisms was a selection of video, animation and performance by 9 artists whose practice reflects current contemporary art being made in Glasgow. In order to contextualise the artistic positions that the work is curated from this event included, for the first time, videos by The Open Eye Club’s curators Karen Cunningham and Leonora Hennessy.
Part 1
untitled (flowers) (42”) by Leonora Hennessy. A short mediation on transitory events, this piece was made while on residency at Hotel Mariakapel in The Netherlands.
There is a Party ar Paracide Park Tonight (5’20”). Sigga Bjorg Sigurdardottir is an Icleandic artist based in Glasgow. She mainly makes drawings but also animations and music. Sigurdardottoir has exhibited internationally and is represented by Galerie Adler, Frankfurt.
Glasgow based Canadian born artist Ciara Phillips' work incorporates elements of painting, printmaking, drawing, sewing, and now video. Chick Flicker (2’), a video work in which the pages of a book on art and feminism are quietly surveyed, was comissioned by The Open Eye Club for their event bazaar in 2006.
Whatever Happened To (7’20’’) is an animation by Glasgow based artist Ronnie Heeps. Originally Heeps worked as a Lighting Designer for bands and clubs including Nico, The Orb and The Sub Club. From the early 1990s he has been involved in Performance and Public Art. This video was comissioned by The Open Eye Club for their event bazaar in 2006.
Interval
Live slide performance by Fred Pedersen. Made especially for I See Prisms Pedersen’s performance is a quiet montage with the artist acting as visual composer. Pedersen’s control over the viewing experience is subtly evoked, by the pace of the changing pictures and choice of images to the intimate attention payed to recurrent motifs and colours.
Performance by Fred Pedersen
Part 2
Who I am and What I Want by David Shrigley is a humorously dark animation made in 2005. Shrigley is has exhibited internationally for several years. He is based in Glasgow and is represented by Stephen Freidman Gallery.
Maybe we need to have more Dinners (1’56”). Ann Bowman was born in San Antonio and raised in Baltimore. USA. She graduated from the painting department at Glasgow School of Art in 2005, she is based in Glasgow.
Gordon Schmidt shows a 3’45” excerpt from Mai 68/Comeback Special (74min.) a video work made by combining original B/W film footage of the student demonstrations in Paris with audio from Elvis Presley's famous televised 'Comeback Special' of the same year. Essentially the piece is a 'mash-up'. The interlacing of two sources found in a public library reflects the artists intentionally subjective and D.I.Y approach to the reading of historically meaningful cultural events.
Monitor
on, live by Karen Cunningham is a looped video made to be viewed on a television monitor. Clearly parodying Mondrians 'composition' paintings as well as Malevich's 'Black Square' or Tony Smiths sculpture 'Die', on,live oscillates between the rational and the absurd.
This event was funded by The Scottish Arts Council