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Kelvin Brown: Where Are We Going?
kelvinbrown.co.uk

Kelvin graduated from the Visual Communication department (which we unfortunately haven’t had the time to visit), but we came across his audio piece in the shuttle bus that operates between the Battersea & Kensington campuses and it has made the journey worth! We loved the smart idea of turning what would normally be a boring transfer from A to B into an amusing experience. Where Are We Going?
contemplates the neighborhood the shuttle passes through (one of the most expensive London districts) and the career outlooks of a fresh art graduate. How realistic is the dream of being an artist, what is creativity and passion worth when confronted with monthly bills, what are the odds of an artist ever living in a neighborhood in which an average yearly salary exceeds £100.000?

Kristina Cranfield: Manufactured Britishness
kristinacranfield.co.uk

Kristina’s project comments on the absurdity of the naturalisation process in UK. How does one become British: what are the criteria set by the institutions, who decides if an applicant is “British enough” and where might this lead? Playing with the curious examples from the existing Life in the UK test, she creates a video showing a fictive group of future UK citizenship applicants, trying to prove their worth of the holy British passport. Part of the project is also a newspaper dated 29th of May 2020, reporting on how to shape model citizens, warning about the spread of black market spaghetti traders and offering free terminations for selected cat breeds (Persian, Bengal, Russian Blue, Turkish Angora owners better watch out). Finally, Union Jack recognition test can be done onsite – make sure you pass…

Daniel Bragin: Proposal for a Russian Olympic Cycling Team 1992
danielbragin.nl

If we were to predict which would be the most remembered piece of this year’s RCA show, we bet on Daniel Bragin’s awesome black–n’–golden bicycle. A brilliant edition to any oligarch’s art collection, we’ve already spotted couple of potential buyers during the press view, who would have gladly snatched it, together with his other two installations: Murka Triptych and Glossy Matter. The Russian-born and London– and Amsterdam–based Bragin has also caught the eye of Charles Saatchi, who included him in the recent Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union show. The artist’s describes his bicycle as:

“It’s not about what you see in the first place. The Russian Orthodox church, the New Russia, the phrase ‘Gott Mit Uns’ written in Gothic letters or the decadent gold plated parts – that’s just the first layer. But I would like to offer more than just the first impression. The deeper layer has to do with a link between the invisible aspects and the unity that exists between the Russian Orthodox religious fields, the rebirth of the new Russia and the dictatorship that we remember from the past.”

Other intriguing stuff:
Benedikt Groß‘ Big Atlas of LA Pools, Bertrand Clerc‘s proposal for nuclear waste disposal, Agatha Haines‘ mutant babies (all from MA Design Interactions); paintings by Raymonde Beraud, Charlotte Develter and Tyra Tingleff; Roman Liska‘s Brace Brace project and Adam Hogarth‘s video (long live Trolls, man!!) Photos we took are here.

Show RCA 2013 is open to public from 20 to 30 June, 12-8pm (closed on June 28) on campuses in Kensington and Battersea.

RCA Kensington / Darwin Building
Critical & Historical Studies
Design Products
Design Interactions
Fashion Millinery
Footwear & Accessories
History of Design
Innovation Design Engineering
Textiles and Vehicle Design

RCA Kensington / Stevens Building
Animation and Visual Communication

RCA Battersea / Dyson Building
Ceramics & Glass
Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery
Critical Writing in Art & Design
Curating Contemporary Art

RCA Battersea / Sackler Building, Sculpture Building, Moving Image Studio
Painting
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture

RCA BAttersea / Testbed 1
Architecture

Online catalogue available here.

About BMW Tate Live:
BMW Tate Live is an innovative art project that focuses on curating in digital space. Commissioned performances take place at Tate Modern, but can be only viewed online: either in real time, with a possibility of direct interaction, or later on at YouTube. Previous performances featured artists Jérôme Bel, Pablo Bronstein, Emily Roysdon, Harrell Fletcher, Joan Jonas and Liu Ding. BMW Tate Live performances are being curated by Catherine Wood (Tate’s curator of Contemporary Art and Performance), assisted by Capucine Perrot.

Follow BMW Tate Live on Twitter: @TateLive #BMWTateLive

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Haroon Mirza @ Lisson Gallery | runs till 29 June
Haroon Mirza’s (b.1977) work focuses on music, organized noise and instability. You can see – and hear – several of his noise-producing machines in action here, and witness a transformation of an art gallery into an immersive sound chamber.
Lisson Gallery // Press release

Rodney Graham @ Lisson Gallery | runs till 29 June
Rodney Graham’s (b.1949) large-scale photographs are often based on historical paintings with slightly changed context. The main characters (impresonated by the artist himself) are past their heydays, reaching midlife crisis and contemplating their former aspirations. The overall feeling is however not that of bitterness but rather that of an acceptance: life goes on.
Lisson Gallery // Press release

Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2013 @ The Photographers’ Gallery | runs till 30 June
Exhibition of 4 artists shortlisted for the annual prize. Head straight to 4th floor to see Broomberg & Chanarin’s amazing project War Primer 2 (more in our previous post).
The Photographers’ Gallery // About the prize

Thomson & Craighead @ Carroll/Fletcher | runs till 7 July
Thomson & Craighead‘s Never Odd or Even is full of digital/Internet references: spam emails to be sang karaoke-style; wall of tweets; Space Invaders meet Foucault; live digital portrait of Tim Berners-Lee etc. More in an upcoming post.
Carroll/Fletcher // Press release

Jac Leirner @ White Cube | runs till 6 July
Bet that after visiting Hardware Silk, Jac Leirner’s (*1961) first solo show in London, you’ll never look at rullers, curtain rings and steel cabling in the same way. The aesthetic potential of a home toolbox boosted ad infinitum.
White Cube // Press release

Photos:
1+2. Haroon Mirza via Lisson Gallery
3+4. Jac Leirner (detail) via White Cube
5+6. Thomson & Craighead
7. Broomberg & Chanarin via The Photographers’ Gallery
8. Rodney Graham (detail)

The Photographers’ Gallery presents yearly works from four finalists of Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, a recognition given to a living photographer of any nationality for a specific body of work which has significantly contributed to photography in Europe. The 17th edition finalists are Broomberg & Chanarin, Mishka Henner, Chris Killip, and Cristina De Middel.

Our vote goes to Broomberg & Chanarin, two London-based photographers who make work that shifts between art and documentary, while commenting on politics, society and the role of media. They are nominated for their publication War Primer 2, a work inspired by Bertholt Brecht’s 1955 publication War Primer. In his book, Brecht challenged the truth-telling capacities of photography and media with help of 85 photo-epigrams: photos and newspaper clippings about the WWII, each combined with four-line poem.

The artists have translated this work to our time by overlaying the original work with imagery found on the Internet about War on Terror. True to the digital age, once the self-produced limited edition of 100 was sold out, they produced a free unlimited digital version combining essays with a screen-based rendition of the book. The book is available for download on Mapp Editions.

The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2013 will be on display at the Photographers Gallery till June 30th.