Francis Summers THREE STUDIES: PEE WEE, MEAT, BILLY

Francis Summers
Three Studies: PeeWee, Meat, Billy.

Produced in 1982, and set in 1954, the canonical ‘gross-out’ film Porky’s presents a group of young teenagers desperate to lose their virginity in Long Beach, Florida: subjecting themselves to numerous trials and endeavours on an interminable quest for enjoyment. Portraying the abject experience of subjects submitting themselves to an obscene superego injunction to ‘Enjoy!’ at all costs the film oscillates between debased infantile humour and a critical portrait of trauma grimacing underneath desire, placing the viewer in an awkward inter-zone between pleasure and its impossibility.
 
This exhibition will present video studies of three pivotal characters within the film - PeeWee, Meat and Billy - as they interact in a hut deep in the swamp-land, brought together through an orchestrated erotic display that becomes a fraught and anxious experience. Opening up the cinematic fabric through discontinuous editing these studies will appear as interruptions into the original narrative, operating via a form of disfigurative reading where the moving image periodically stumbles to a spasmodic near-stasis.
 
Addressing the relation of horror and humour in this cine-text’s vexed questioning of enjoyment, these studies will not attempt to draw out latent repressed narratives as a form of interpretation but rather they will endeavour to amplify its condition: an anamorphic re-reading of the cine-text to emphasise its critical content. Introducing techniques of image flicker, psychedelic colouration and temporal folding into a cinematic display of contingent masculinity, these studies will attempt to present a fluctuating experience of visual pleasure and its entropic collapse – an encounter with the freezing aspect of fascination alongside a distribution of some velocities of the sensible.

Jasmina Cibic & Pete Moss PRESENT STATE

Alice Walton MODEL AS YOU WOULD CARVE

Hanna-Mari Blencke / Heike Kelter CRISIS and FINANCE and NUDES

PERIODICAL Vol. 1 No. 1

a.a.s DY-66

PEER ESTEEM

PEER ESTEEM:
YOU ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT 4 A3 (LANDSCAPE FORMAT) PIECES OF WORK ON PAPER. FOR EXHIBITION. FOR SHOW.
THERE IS NO SUBMISSION FEE.
ALL WORK WILL BE SHOWN.
ONLY ONE GROUP OF FOUR WILL BE SEEN AT ANY ONE TIME.
EACH GROUP MAY BE SELECTED AND SHOWN ON DEMAND. 
DEMAND IS MADE BY ANY PERSON VISITING THE GALLERY.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONTENT IS DOWN TO THE ARTIST.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR SHOWING/ DISPLAYING WORK IS DOWN TO THE VISITOR.
INVIGILATOR IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR HANDLING/ HANGING WORK.

ALL WORK MUST BE ON PAPER.
ALL WORK SHOULD BE UNMOUNTED, UNFRAMED, UNGLAZED, FIXED AND FLAT.
ALL WORK MUST BE ABLE TO BE HANDLED.

ARTISTS:
A.A.S./ A.S. (ALEXANDER HIDALGO & MONIKA OECHSLER)/ ALISON GUILE/ ANDREA DETTMAR/ ANDREA THOMA/ ANNA PICKERING/ AUGUST JORDAN DAVIS/ BEN FOX/ BLUE MACASHILL/ CARLOS NORNHAFEIO/ CAROLINE ELLIOTT/ CHEK-HUO LEUNG/ CHRIS CLARKE/ CHRIS HAUGHTON/ CHRIS MILLER/ CLAIRE NICHOLS/ CLARE MORGAN/ CLARE QUALMANN/ CUSHLA DONALDSON/ DAN DAVIS/ DANIEL LEHAN/ DANIELLE DRAINEY/ DAVE FARNHAM/ DAVID CAPRA/ DAVID GOLDENBERG/ DAVID THOMAS/ DAWN THOMPSON/ DENISE HAWRYSIO/ DIEDRE KING/ DOMINIC HARKER/ EMMA BARROW/ EMMA GOODMAN/ EMMA LEACH/ EMMA PRATT/ EMMA ROCHESTER/ ERICH WEISS/ EVA RUDLINGER/ FABIENNE JENNY JACQUET/ FENG-RU LEE/ FIONA MERCHANT/ GAIL DICKERSON/ GEORGE KRANIOTIS/ GILES ELDRIDGE/ GREGORY SMART/ HEIKE KELTER/ HUGH GILMOUR/ ILDA COSTA, FERNANDO COSTA & EMMANUEL COSTA/ JANE MILLER/ JESS KIDD/ JIM MCCUTCHEON/ JO-ANN KISUN/ JONATHAN ANDERSON/ JULIE DEL’HOPITAL & KYLIE BRACKSTONE/ KA SMITH/ KAMILA DZIEDZIC/ LAURA WILSON/ LAURENCE NORTH/ LENE BLADBJERG/ LEONARDO ULIAN & PIERO DI BIASE/ LEONTIA REILLY/ LEVIN HAEGELE/ LINDA DOWNIE/ LINDSAY EVANS/ LUCINDA HOLMES/ LULU ALLISON/ M. HARRISON/ MA FAUST/ MARK R TAYLOR/ MARK WILSHER/ MARY CRENSHAW/ MEISO LAI/ MICHAEL BARTLETT/ MIKE WATSON/ MIRIAM STEINHANSER/ MIYUKI KASAHARA/ MORGAN TIPPING/ NAZIR TANBOULI/ NEIL FERGUSON/ NEIL IRONS/ NEIL STOKES/ PATRICIA KANTOVANICH, THORSOA KIZIL & MARION LORETTA/ PATRICK GALWAY/ PAUL SAKOILSKY/ PER HUTTNER/ PHIL COSGROVE/ RO HAGERS/ ROBERT JEFFS/ RONA SMITH/ ROSE ROSE/ SALLY MORFILL/ SAM ELY/ SANDRA MURTAGH/ SARA CAMPBELL/ SARA WAKEFORD/ SARAH TAYLOR/ SONJA BENSKIN MESHER/ SOPHIE STRONG/ SPIKE DENNIS/ STEPHEN HARWOOD/ STEVE SMITH/ SUE WITHERS/ THEODRE WILKINS/ WILLIAM WRIGHT/ WM HUDSON

III. Fragment (consider revising)
You are invited. Almost as far as. Regard. Critically. Giving all the indications. Quality. Capability. The new social art: collaborative, participatory and post-autonomous. Etc. Yes. Something like that. Maybe you’re new. Speak. Clearly. Or have been passed over for so long. All that. Exceptional work. In terms of originality, significance and rigour. Or recognised both nationally and internationally. An important and much respected Artist. A Star. Leading. Emerging. Etc. You. Come in here. Take it as a what? In search. What would you call it? Recognised. And. Not really worth it. Nobody worth. Note. Or maybe out of generosity. No rigour. Who. No criteria. No honour. Well passed your sell by date. Of course this is all very well. Some of you no doubt don’t really get a chance. Or at least whatever chances: Small, insignificant, unrecognised, unprized. You take. Remember. Whatever worth you can muster. Prestige. Ranking. Disappointment. In the face. Maybe you thought you could. Be an artist. Do it yourself. Like. Them. Why not? Terms and conditions apply. The overwhelming dictator. Submission, engaged meaningfully. For the record. All passing conversation to be. Taken. To be developed. To be bitterly incorporated. Like a practice. A research. You just have to keep. Going. Studio paid. After all these years. And like all great Art. It is impossible to say what makes these works so extraordinary. They just are. Of course there’s the struggle. Having a talent is not enough one also requires your permission for it… right, my friends?

IV. Fragment (consider revising)
You are invited to respond. In voice. As well. Into the microphone. We provide what? A little room. All changes captured. The process of fixing one’s gaze. Regard de l’étoile. An academy. An opportunity for you. Comrade. Recognition? Maybe. We will be regarded. How? A function vis-à-vis Institution. Wider community. A Stable. Customers. As if. The dead and the named constitute something more. Or both. We are. Friends? Yes. An act of friendship. Social. Engage. An almost piteous. Face value. Maybe you thought you could’ve been an artist. Remember that time. Your shadow. Practically. A dissemination of material. Well it’s a list of shows. Really. Significant. Important. Like a kind of administered. As if administration alone. Provides. Professional. And petty jealousies. Maybe. You were slighted once. Maybe as a technician. Or an assistant. Or an invigilator. At a gallery. A better one than this one of course. Or at Art School. Like an. Applied for funding. For your own practice. Didn’t get it. Took it as far. Now look where You are. Fucking cunts. And look where they. Anyway. For those who wish to listen. Welcome. If you think of your future you are one of us. Everyone is welcome. If you want to be an artist join us. A place for Everyone. We congratulate you here and now. But hurry. So that you can get in. We tried our best. Spent what money we could. Took out an advert. Trusted in what they said. Tried to provide. An expanded field. Of participation. Words most usefully used. Creativity. Freedom. And. Down with all those who do not believe in us.

Sally Morfill O

Cedar Lewisohn HOTSHOTS

In the novel Hotel Honolulu, author Paul Theroux invents a fictional character called Paul Theroux who charts the lives and fleeting whims of the many characters who amble past him as he works as the manager of a low rent dive in the sun. Sleazy and corrupt, the people he meets and becomes one of seem to be more attractive as they become more hideous.

In much the same way, Cedar Lewisohn's new work at Five Years blurs the boundaries of fiction and reality adding a mild sense of depravity to the mix. Drawing inspiration and its title from a bowling alley and "Ned Disco" in Glasgow where the artist worked for a time, HOTSHOTS offers a glimpse into the nocturnal world of the drunken masses. It's not pretty and there lays its beauty. If the art in this exhibition could speak, it might well quote Paul Theroux's Hotel Honolulu boss, Buddy, with perhaps his wisest and most profound catch phrase "never jack off a dog".

Laurence North NOW AND THEN

Mathew Hale Susan Morris OUR PERIOD.

Marc Hulson UNTITLED SEQUENCE

Begun in 1998, 'Untitled Sequence of Drawings' is a (hypothetically) endless series. Each identical in size and medium, and returning continually to variations on the same themes, the drawings are intended to work as a whole from which continual rearrangements, regroupings, episodes and subsets can be formed.

ROMANTIC ANTI-HUMANISM

The legacy of Romanticism, Maurice Blanchot has written, is to pose discontinuity as an essential problem of both form and of subject: the romantic work as an unworking, as a meandering progression of syntactical knots and fragmentations. Romanticism is likewise posed by Simon Critchley as an oscillating sensibility, as a tearing between the desire for an absolute ideal and the acknowledgement of a lack of synthesis between reality and the ideal. The un-working process of Romanticism is a fragmentary one that desires the complete work alongside the acknowledgement of its own failure - a notion of the beautiful that involves the internalisation of a failing melody.

Arriving at this notion, the artists brought together under the title Romantic Anti-Humanism utilise aesthetic codes to invoke 'Ideals' whilst in turn revealing a self-consciousness of their partial or fragmented activity. The works on show use photography and video, as well as the language of gesture, performance and partial narrative. Theo Cowley will present a video extending his research into the Commedia dell'arte character of the Harlequin, the interruption of spontaneity, and the ability/inability to buck causation. Lisa Castagner's photographs present meticulous photographic tableaux where female protagonists conduct recognisable yet indistinct actions: in this instance hypnosis alongside office-decor sensual symmetry. Jayne Parker will present her 1986 video En Route in which the artist is shown in the midst of several indeterminate acts or knotted passages: driving and getting lost, playing the cello falteringly after many years of non-practice, spitting-rubbing-tasting: "'Are you lost?' 'No - Yes'... A video about transition and trying to find the right track". Bj_rn Ven_ will present a new photographic work that references the oppositional double-character of the computer fighting game Tekken whilst evoking the melancholic ecstasy of the medieval courtly love drama: a protagonist submitting to the ambiguous punishments meted out by his adored Lady.

Gathering these works under the notion of a sensibility that evokes the formation of perfection whilst teasing out disfiguring effacements where perfection becomes impossibility, Romantic Anti-Humanism as a show hopes to present a cluster of work which provide a model of subjectivity that is present yet not-whole: involved in interminable processes of self-creation and self-destruction. Claire Colebrook has discussed the Romantic sensibility as a scene where the poet describes himself as having-been, or having-experienced, in a finite and incomplete sense. Rather than producing a closed sustained self, this is a subject that recognises itself as "an abyssal effect", as somewhere between the subject who speaks and the subject who is spoken - residing uncertainly in a gap. Affirmative but not totalising, celebratory but with a humorous understanding of its own dissolution, this exhibition hopes to be encountered as a series of instances where interruption and continuity are simultaneously enacted or embodied.

Claire de Jong PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES

Michelle Deignan IL CITTADINO

'Il Cittadino'
single channel digital video, 8 minutes 46 seconds, 2007.

In 'Il Cittadino',a presenter filmed at various locations in north east Italy, recounts numerous facts andanecdotes about this part of Europe. Speaking in English with an Italian accent,her presentation includes a story about the film's author painting the interior of an Irish pub on the outskirts of a small village there. Using an aesthetic which emphasises the constructed nature of the presentation, the film's narrative slides from the inconsequential to the significant, combining references which include ski resorts, themed pubs and the CIA.

Rochelle Fry