Prof Simon Faithfull
- Professor, Fine Art Media
Featured Media
A drawing a day sent back from a journey to Antarctica.
A research station for the wasteland where the Berlin Wall used to be.
A journey to Antarctica and back.
A chair sent on a journey to the edge of space.
A walk through a landscape at the bottom of the Adriatic sea.
Slade School of Fine Art
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
Biography
Simon Faithfull is a contemporary artist whose work has been exhibited extensively around the world. His work has been described as an attempt to understand and explore the planet as a sculptural object - to test its limits and report back from its extremities. Within his work Faithfull often builds teams of scientists, technicians and transmission experts to help him bring back a personal vision from the ends of the world.
Recent projects include 'Going Nowhere 1.5' (a film recording an island that vanishes into the North Sea), 'REEF' (live-video transmitted from a ship as it was deliberately sunk to create an artificial reef), and '0º00 Navigation part II' (a journey tracing the 0º line of longitude across Europe and Africa).
Recent exhibitions include solo-shows at Galerie Polaris (Paris, 2017), Sprinhornhof Kunstverein, (Germany, 2016), Le Musée des Beaux-Arts Calais (France, 2015), ICIA (Bath, UK, 2015), FRAC Basse Normandie (France, 2014), Fabrica (Brighton, UK, 2014), ArtConnexion (Lille, France, 2012), Parkers Box (New York, 2011), The British Film Institute (London, 2009).
Recent group shows include exhibitions at ZK"R, Schloss Biesdorf (Berlin 2017), Asia Culture Centre (Gwanju, South Korea, 2016), Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK 2015), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2013), Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (Australia, 2012), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, 2009), Bienal del Fin del Mundo (Argentina, 2009) and the Venice Biennale (2007).
Faithfull was born in Oxfordshire, UK, studied at Central St Martins and then Reading University.
Research Interests
Simon Faithfull's work uses video, performance, drawing and text to explore and report back from the planet on which he finds himself. Different scales of time and space have become a theme within his investigations - often using his own body as kind of measuring stick, or his own subjective gaze as a recording device.
In 2019, the solo exhibition 'Fathom' at The Exchange, Penzance brought together a series of works that explores our relationship with a mostly liquid planet. Also in 2019 at The Natural History Museum in Berlin, the installation: 'An Arbitrary Taxonomy of Birds' used 120 specimens to create eccentric new taxonomies such as: 'Those who fit on my palm' and the first part of a permanent public-artwork for Cambridge University: 'Erratic #1' was unveiled.
In 2009 his exhibition at British Film Institute brought together his Escape Vehicle series including the journey of a domestic chair as it travelled to the edge of space beneath a weather balloon. 2011 saw the launch of Limbo his web and social-media based artwork which delivers his drawings live to a world-wide audience.
Past work includes 'Antarctica Dispatches' - daily drawings dispatched live from Antarctica, Fake Moon - an intervention in the night sky of Bristol, 'Liverpool-to-Liverpool' - a permanent public artwork for the city of Liverpool that sets into paving-stone the drawings from a journey by containership from Liverpool to Canada.
Teaching Summary
Simon Faithfull is a Reader in Fine Art and the BFA Critical Studies Tutor - he works across the Slade School of Fine Art mostly working with BA/BFA and PhD students.
Exhibitions
'Vague' 2023 - Lycée Condorcet
"Vague brings together the work of two artists whose approaches are very different, but who share some very topical issues, linked to ecology, the exploration of marine environments and the relationship between humans and wild animals."
8 B.P.M. (experiments with time) - Simon Faithfull 2023 - Galerie Polaris
'8 B.P.M. (experiments with time) - Simon Faithfull', is a solo exhibition at Galerie Polaris, in Paris.
"The exhibition presents new work from the last two years - including a series entangling myself with the rocks of an Atlantic island, a collaboration with an ant, and an encounter with my 'starlight-twin'."
'Watermark' 2023 - Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum
"There is little doubt that climate change is the defining issue of our Age and the image of the flood has become one of the most brutal marker of this reality – along with droughts, wildfires and evermore powerful storms. In collaboration with four Worcester-based organisations, Meadow Arts has chosen to explore climate change through the prism of water and flooding.
Unfolding across Worcester, a city that is no stranger to flooding, Watermark presents a full programme of new commissions, exhibitions, films and talks. It explores how artists today engage with their environmental responsibility, how they express the need to dig deeper into the new reality of the landscape and the global environment, in order to offer perspective and relevance as we enter the era of the Anthropocene"
'Lichtspiele' 2022 - AXEL OBIGER Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst
Public screening of six artists' video works.
'Orbital no.2: Berlin' 2022 - Berlin Weekly
A month long intervention within the darkness of a Berlin city street - the film: 'Orbital #2: Berlin’ being back-projected into a storefront window. The film combines three concentric journeys around the city of Berlin into a single, dizzying video-mandala of 115min in length. The inner circle shows the view from one revolution of the revolving restaurant at the top of Berlin’s TV Tower, the middle ring shows one complete circuit of Berlin’s ‘Ring-Bahn’ train, and the outer ring shows one full circuit of Berlin’s orbital Autobahn the ‘A10’.
'Tipping the Drop' 2022 - MENGERZEILE KUNSTRAUM m3
Straw, rock and grass, colour flows and folds, fresh water and dirty water. The group exhibition "Tipping the Drop" presents works by Crowe and Rawlinson, Simon Faithfull, Marta Marcé and Noemi Y. Molitor that refer to changing states of aggregation, matter in flux and cautious attempts to speak with nature.
'Faut-il voyager pour être heureux?' 2022 - EDF Foundation, Paris
'Faut-il voyager pour être heureux?' ("Do you have to travel to be happy?") is a group exhibition at the Espace Fondation EDF in Paris that presents the imaginary world of 32 contemporary French and international artists as they invite you to reflect on your conception of travel...
The exhibition tackles topical issues such as mobility in the wake of the health crisis, the environmental challenges of preserving ecosystems and climate change, and forced migration and exile. It's also an invitation to discover the world of travel from a different angle. Nearly fifty works - installations, paintings, videos and photographs - evoke these major issues.
'Tideline' 2022 - Messums Wiltshire
At the centre of a programme devoted to rethinking our relationship with the environment is Messums’ 13th century tithe barn. The largest in the country, the barn gallery becomes a turbine hall for the imagination this summer starting with Tideline, a group exhibition running from 14 May – 3 July 2022.
Made of limestone and sitting on a reef of Upper Jurassic Tisbury coral 24 miles from the nearest beach at Rockley Sands in Poole, Messums’ historic gallery bears witness to the action of water over millennia as maker and unmaker of landscape.
‘At a time of accelerated shifts in sea levels and marine life brought on by human activity, Tideline examines artist responses to that most contested space, the littoral landscape. The area between land and sea carries with it the history of our earliest evolution, and remains one of the principal spaces for mankind’s dwelling. 634 million people live within a 10 vertical metre distance of current shorelines. This liminal environment, where animals and plants interact differently, pushed and pulled by rising and falling tides, holds both the threat to our future security as well as some of its solutions.’ Johnny Messum
The artists selected engage and expand our understanding of this extraordinary ecosystem and bellwether to change. Their work sets out not just to alert and inform, but to key into our empathy with the underwater environment, to sow the seeds of our imagination and drum up our own sense of agency for change. They remind us of human ingenuity’s boundless desire for discovery, and radiate with a light of possibility, inviting us to problem-solve and think the unthinkable.
'Cette Mer Qui Nous Entour' 2022 - Espace Le Carré, Lille
The exhibition Cette mer qui nous entoure (The Sea Around Us), imagined by artconnexion on invitation of the Espace Le Carré, invites us to rethink our relationship with marine spaces, their bounty and diversity, to consider their fragility.
Cette mer qui nous entoure takes up the title of marine biologist Rachel Carson's book (The Sea Around Us) published by Oxford University Press in 1951. The author, a notorious figure of global ecology, gives a narrative and scientific account of the ocean.
Although requiring to be read with some hindsight, considering more recent scientific discoveries, The Sea Around Usis evidence of a first realization of the issues at stake in the field of marine ecology, and managed to popularize environmental issues surrounding our planet's seas and oceans to the general public.
Here or abroad, the sea, as a natural and vital resource, is put to the test by climate change and human activities. Once perceived as hostile, the ocean was progressively invested and appropriated by humans. Rising water levels, overfishing, accumulation of waste and weakening of marine biodiversity are all core topics of today’s environmental issues. How can we learn to have a better knowledge of underwater life to better respect it? How can we shed new light on this environment, of which we only know the waves’ surface?
The exhibition brings together several artists who are supported by artconnexion as part of its production and support for research missions. The sea is a source of knowledge from which the artists draw inspiration to bring about multiple interrogations. Enigmatic and familiar, it is the starting point for the creations of each invited artist. Like Rachel Carson’s book, the pieces that are shown are evidence of the artists’ interest and concerns for marine life, coastal life, as well as that of ocean floors and foreign seas.
By mixing art and science, observing life in the seabed, or using humour as a way to deflect climate anxieties, the artists question our relationships with the ocean and our representations of it. Through a cartography of the sea, both real and conceptual, they reassess the necessity for an ecological transition, and shed light on the physical, scientific and vital bonds that tie us to the aquatic element.
'Hay-Okee: Land of Grassy Waters' 2022 - ARTSERVE
Fata Morgana - Simon Faithfull 2021 - The Fundación Pablo Atchugarry
A solo exhibition at The Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Miami: "a collaboration with ARTSail, a Miami-based multi-faceted platform that connect artists with climate activists, scientists and marine experts to investigate how climate change and man-made pollution are impacting the South Florida waterways and assist them in the creation of tangible outcomes with climate advocacy value.
Featuring a combination of work created by the artist in response to his ARTSail residency, in 2017 and 2018, along with a few earlier works, through a series of photographs and films, the exhibition takes the audience on an aquatic journey spanning from the wetlands of Big Cypress, to the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico, all the way to the Nordic Sea and the Adriatic.
The film Re-enactment for a Future Scenario #2: Cape Romano, constitutes the most significant outcome of Faithfull’s residency, and combines footage shot during two separate visits to the remnants of a luxury villa built by a retired oil producer in the late 1970s, and abandoned after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, along with found images of the interior and exterior of the house while it was still standing on dry land.
A figure is seen standing on the half-submerged ruins, his back to us, staring out at the horizon…he seems to be caught in a dream, or better, a nightmare of a post-apocalyptic future, or maybe, as the artist states: “a memory from a future that never quite happened”.
In another video, Self Portrait: Big Cypress, the same figure is now immersed chest-deep in the heart of the Everglades wetlands, the absurdity of the image brings to the fore open-ended questions: the bucolic and yet eerie settings make us wonder whether he is practicing some form of meditation, or has been caught by a sudden flash-flood episode.
Throughout Faithfull’s oeuvre, nature and the landscape within which the artist chooses to perform his actions play a critical role that goes beyond that of a simple stage or a source of inspiration: a tree, a body of water, or an abandoned man-made structure become the de-facto collaborators with whom Faithfull shares the title of co-creator.
Humor and the absurd are recurrent strategies in Faithfull’s practice, and they often mitigate the sense of dooms-day scenarios that descriptions of his work might bring to mind. Whether he is clinging to a pole in the middle of the sea, as in Self Portrait: Florida Bay; or hanging from a tree in the desert landscape of Earthscape no. 1: Wadi Rum; or nonchalantly taking a walk on the seabed at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea in Going Nowhere 2, Faithfull exposes the frailty of the human condition and mankind’s hubris, without falling into the trap of existential anguish.
As the artist stated at the end of our second Dome House expedition: “We find ourselves in a very strange moment and I think oddly enough that’s also full of absurdity and humor…”: his vision, much better than any words, can truly express the precariousness of our fate and that of our planet."
Rooms to Breathe 2021 - The 5th Floor. Tokyo, Japan
Three rooms on the Fifth Floor which poetically disrupt prevailing articulations of sexuality and nature. Works on paper that reimagine fusion and transformation, ecological interactions, and environmental politics. They include Edi Dubien’s encounters with animal and vegetal life, and Cathy Burghi’s tropical luxuriance that translates into fecundity and brightly colored mutations of flesh, fruits, and flora. Rooms to Breathe celebrates the will to wander, including through the Lichen Bar and a selection of artists using illustration, photography, installation, and video.
S E A P I E C E S – Facts and Fiction 2021 - Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
The sea has been a place of longing, a mysterious, endless, and seemingly unaltered landscape since the Romantic era in particular. But today more than ever, it is a place of new dangers and realities and a sensitive ecosystem that is being progressively destroyed. The exhibition S E A P I E C E S encompasses this wide range of ideas with works by twenty-three international artists.
Bon Voyage! Travelling in Contemporary Art 2020 - The Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany
Travel. Hardly any other topic better reflects our current situation between lockdown and longing. Within closed borders and closed societies, when things that were taken for granted plummet into prohibitions, the desire to leave and break out grows. Rethinking is necessary. To find new ways, to test and take them – not only when travelling – is the challenge of our time.
With Bon Voyage! Travelling in Contemporary Art, the Ludwig Forum for International Art presents a selection of artistic positions that focus on travelling. We invite you to see the world through the eyes of the artists who often move off the beaten tourist tracks. The suitcases are packed with personal challenges, extreme experiences of political as well as climatic nature, fictional, and virtual mental journeys, and the last journey into the afterlife, which does without suitcases.
With around 100 works, the exhibition follows the routes of more than 60 artists and shows a selection of artistic positions from the 1960s to the present. Through paintings, installations, videos, objects, photographs, and prints, the exhibition provides an insight into the fascination and significance of travel in contemporary art at five stopovers.
Un Été Indien 2020 - FRAC Caen Normandie, Fance
Group exhibition of works from the collection of FRAC Caen Normandie, France
Memories From The Future 2020 - Galerie Polaris
'Memories From The Future' is a solo exhibition presenting a body of artworks that explore one individual's relationship with a mostly liquid planet and charts our dreams, fears and premonitions of ‘the deep’. Although the work weaves fictions and conjures impossible, dreams-like images, the films and photographs are nevertheless built on very real physical actions. In each work the artist’s body is placed in various precarious and absurd situations where he is either stranded, sinking or engulfed.
A body of work that measures one individual's against a planetary scale of time and space and looks at the precariousness position of Homo sapiens on this planet.
SEA PIECES - Facts and Fictions 2020 - Museum Kunst der Westküste, Föhr, Germany
Of all landscapes, the sea seems to have seen the least change, and yet the human view of it changes all the time. Curated by the Berlin-based art historian Harald F. Theiss, the exhibition presents 23 international contributions that deal with developments in the perception and interpretation of the sea.
The works often invoke familiar imagery, such as the seascape with storm-whipped waves or the longing view out to the sea. References like these at the same time can open up a new approach: the topicality of the works reveals itself in moments of confusion, outlandishness and, indeed, uncanniness inherent to the exhibited paintings, sculptures, photographic works, videos and installations. Personal experiences and impressions are often associated with political meanings. By now, people have developed a complex view as to what is happening on and under the water surface, naturally or due to human intervention and modern lifestyles – and the consequences this has for the environment. As a result, the (socio-)political significance of the sea as a bridge and frontier has moved into the public spotlight. SEA PIECES is an attempt to approach those different scenarios between facts and fiction through artistic reflections.
Artists:
Angelika Arendt, Jessica Backhaus, Yto Barrada, Julius von Bismarck, Laurence Bonvin, Astrid Busch, Yvon Chabrowski, Lia Darjes, Sven Drühl, Simon Faithfull, Christine de la Garenne, Eva Grubinger, Moritz Hirsch, Inka & Niclas, Tobias Kappel, Jochen Lempert, Christian Niccoli, Charles Pétillon, Sheila Rock, Miguel Rothschild, Nasan Tur, Sascha Weidner, Rebecca Wilton
Equilibrium Delay 2020 - KOGO Gallery, Tartu, Estonia
The artist films exhibited in the international group show all share a continuous aspiration toward balance. The focus is on body and movement, particularly the limbo between losing and finding one’s balance. The characters portrayed are bound in their states of pursuit, a lingering mood of uncertainty.
The techniques, rhythms and devices exposed with the works share a common part in momentum – inertia or impetus, which could mean both losing and beginning something, a test of strength, a process of growth. It is a drive to compete; not necessarily to defeat an opponent, but rather to test boundaries so as to gain an understanding of oneself and how to be together, to achieve synchronicity.
The spatial set-up of the exhibition is based on the timed presentation of the works, which directs the movement and gaze of the exhibition visitor, and allows for an active viewing. The installative framework also brings the personal stories of the works physically closer to the viewer.
Navigating Berlin II - Design & Cognition 2020 - CLB Gallery, Berlin, Germany
Maps use their own distinct system of symbols, scales and measurements as a way of interpreting and articulating the world around us. But how straightforward is the interchange between maker and user? The exhibition considers the Berlin maps beyond their function as rhetorical, navigational tools and opens up their potential as creative artefacts with dialogic power. Viewers are invited to immerse themselves in the compelling language of legends, scales, cardinal points, grids, networks, cartouches and vignettes.
Featuring artwork by Elizabeth McTernan and Simon Faithfull.
The Final Frontier 2019 - The Artists Residence, Herzliya, Israel
The group exhibition The Final Frontier addresses the human need to detach from gravity, the huge powers that exploit this need, and of course the vast and indifferent outer space serving as its backdrop. The exhibited works are based on materials from the US and Soviet space programs, as well as current, privately funded programs.
The exhibition is designed in the format of an educational space expo, but all the works distance us from the myth of exploring new worlds and the urgent and intrepid drive to go where no man has gone before. It also brings us back to the place where man plods heavily at this very moment.
Erratic #1 2019 - Cambridge University, UK
‘Erratic #1’ ( www.simonfaithfull.org/works/erratics/ ) is the first of series of boulders from around the planet that will be transported to Cambridge, UK and balanced on buildings across the ‘New Museum Site’ of Cambridge University. ‘The Erratics’ is a complex permanent public artwork that will unfold slowly over the next 7 years.
An ‘Erratic’ is a term from geology describing a boulder or stone that has been transported into a geography where it does not actually belong. Most often created through the action of glaciers, ‘Erratics’ often sit precariously on the landscape – having been transported hundreds or thousands of miles and then slowly lowered by the receding glacier into an alien context.
The permanent artwork: ‘The Erratics’ will create a series of artificial erratics at the heart of Cambridge, UK. Erratic #1 was found in ‘Wadi Rum’ in the kingdom of Jordan and was installed in Bene’t Yard (off Bene’t St) in Cambridge in 2019. A stainless-steel plaque, etched with a map and text reveals the long, slow journey that the rock made from the Jordanian desert to the wind and the rain of Cambridge.
Taking the Leap 2019 - PHOTOFAIRS, Shanghai, China
"Taking the Leap is an exhibition of work selected from the University of Salford Art Collection by celebrated independent curator Ying Kwok. The exhibition will take place at PHOTOFAIRS, Shanghai.
Taking the Leap – a brave, risky or challenging move away from one’s comfort zone – is the theme for this exhibition. Curator Ying Kwok, an internationally celebrated Hong Kong independent curator, selected works by artists that are innovative and confident in their creative strategy and design. The theme also aligns with the University of Salford Art Collection’s own leap to diversify the Collection – particularly in relation to Chinese contemporary art and digital art.
For this inaugural exhibition in China we will be exhibiting our first co-commission with Cao Fei (Haze and Fog) and our latest co-commission with multimedia artist Lu Yang. Visitors will be greeted by a site-specific installation by Lu Yang, specially commissioned by the University to accompany a new, unique print The Great Adventure of Material World #1 by the same artist, that will be premiered at PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai before entering the University Art Collection. In a special screening room there will be the opportunity to view Cao Fei’s celebrated Haze and Fog , co-commissioned with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in 2013.
Taking the Leap demonstrates the strong partnerships between the university and arts organisations in the UK – including the installation by Luke Ching, originally co-commissioned for LOOK 17 with Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, and four prints from Where the City Can’t See project by Liam Young, originally co-commissioned with the AND Festival in 2017. Other digital works include a video by Simon Faithfull, an animation by Sun Xun and lightboxes by Thomson and Craighead based on computer viruses. The collection also regularly works with artists in the North West of England, represented by a large photograph by Manchester based Mishka Henner and a collaborative work by University of Salford alumni Lizzie King working with Technical Demonstrator Craig Tattersall, commissioned in 2015."
Under Water 2019 - Museo Nazionale della Montagna di Torino, Italy
Curated by Daniela Berta and Andrea Lerda, the exhibition is articulated through video, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. There are about twenty international artists present, to which is added an important nucleus of photographs and historical documents belonging to the Documentation Centre of Museomontagna in Turin and the National Library of the CAI, for a total of eighty works on display.
The Caraglio exhibition is part of a global debate on the most essential natural element that generates and guarantees the maintenance of life - water - and is an opportunity to underline the deep link between the theme of the exhibition and the aims of Acquaviva, a project financed by the CRC Foundation as part of the "Interventi Faro" (Lighthouse Interventions) competition and soon to be implemented in the area of the former Polveriera di Bottonasco in Caraglio.
On display works by: Andreco, Georges-Louis Arlaud, Pablo Balbontin, Olivo Barbieri, Walter Bonatti, Calori&Maillard, Mircea Cantor, Carolina Caycedo, Nuno da Luz, Marjolijn Dijkman & Toril Johannessen, Simon Faithfull, Mario Fantin, Bepi Ghiotti, Cesare Giulio, Jeppe Hein, Frank Hurley, Invernomuto, William Henry Jackson, Adam Jeppesen, Peter Matthews, Elena Mazzi, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Ryts Monet, Pennacchio Argentato, Laura Pugno, Ernesto Samaritani, Studio Negri, Silvano Tessarollo, Helen Mayer Harrison & Newton Harrison, Gaston Tissandier, Julius von Bismarck, Thomas Wrede.
Europe After The Rain 2019 - Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall, UK
In 2019 I was invited to curate a large group exhibition at Newlyn Art Gallery to run alongside my solo-show at The Exchange, Penzance.
Max Ernst’s painting ‘Europe After The Rain II’ depicts a haunting future landscape where things seemed to have evolved, or possibly devolved, into a new strange state. The painting was made in 1942 during the height of the Second World War and yet the painting is ambiguous - it doesn’t depict scenes of destruction but portrays a landscape that might come after.
‘Europe After The Rain’ was a group exhibition that I curated for Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall and features the work of 13 contemporary living artists and one surrealist masterpiece. With permission from the artist’s estate, Max Ernst’s small oil painting was reproduced for the exhibition as a 7-meter wallpaper print that filled one end-wall of the main gallery space. The group exhibition uses Ernst’s surreal painting as both a starting point and a backdrop for a show that imagines future landscapes that have evolved after the world has changed. The exhibition creates a surreal and imaginary universe that is extrapolated out from the current world around us. The current tensions between humans and other species or landscapes are here amplified to create an unnerving alien terrain. Some of the works by living artists are themselves dreams of strange futures - such as Larry Achiampong’s video: ‘Relic’ that depicts the relics of English landscape and culture as seen from a distant post-colonial future or Nick Laessing’s sculpture/machines that offer utopian living solutions for a world in collapse (I am also primary supervisor for Nick’s PhD research project at the Slade). Other works in the show look at normal things from our current world - like Karin Bos’ uncanny paintings of old caravans rusting in scrubland, or Melanie Manchot’s video of an explosion shaking a mountain as it is cleared from avalanches. When framed, however, within the wider context of the exhibition even these depictions of ‘normal’ things from our current world become artefacts within a strange collective dream – a dream of imagined futures to come.
An Arbitrary Taxonomy of Birds 2019 - Natural History Museum, Berlin, Germany
'An Arbitrary Taxonomy of Birds' (www.simonfaithfull.org/works/arbitrary_taxonomy_birds/ ) was the result of a 6-month residency at Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. The installation occupied the Bruckensaal of the Natural History Museum and consisted of 120 of the museum's specimens and 120 of the artist's drawings collected together into a series of eccentric taxonomies such as: 'Those who fit on my hand' or 'Those Who Became Red'.
The installation addressed the scientific ordering systems of taxonomy, but rather than merely looking at these systems, the piece used the precious material from the collections itself – reordering it into new absurd constellations and installing this back within the fabric of the museum itself. Through this, the work sought to destabilise some of the museum’s scientific certainties and to reframe our individual species against (or actually within) the billions of other interconnected species with which we share this planet.
This solo installation was one of two commissions from Wellcome Trust and the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin under the umbrella of 'Contagious Cities'.
Ways of Seeing 2019 - Waltham Forest, London Borough of Culture 2019, UK
"68 artworks, 33 artists, 28 locations
In partnership with the Government Art Collection, Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019 presented Ways of Seeing in the summer of 2019. Transforming the whole borough of Waltham Forest into an art gallery, Ways of Seeing displayed the work of 33 internationally-known artists from the Government Art Collection in 28 unusual and unexpected venues across Chingford, Leyton, Leytonstone and Walthamstow from 24 April – 31 August.
An impressive total of 68 artworks by 33 artists were selected from the Government Art Collection relating to ideas around production, landscape and nature connecting with the Borough’s rich history of creativity and its enviable mix of urban spaces, waterways and forest. Each work was displayed in a specially selected location that responds to the piece, offering new ways to think about it and the borough. "
THE NIGHT FACE UP 2019 - Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Poland
This exhibition was inspired by an intuitive insight into the history of Latin American literature, its real and magical narrative and by the total artists whose fates are etched into it. It is intended as a visual and poetic story spun by contemporary creators, where artworks transform into texts. The exhibition features artists of the Americas as well as their European counterparts; most of these people have complicated biographies and a propensity for openly commenting on the oppressive political reality of today. This adds another layer to the exhibition’s theme of dreams and unfulfilled hopes....
...The exhibits tell a story of an endless journey through extraordinary worlds: the real ones, divided by the borders of countries and continents, and the magical ones, limited only by our imagination. In both cases, it’s ruthless dictators who rule these worlds, suppressing any sign of freedom, and sycophantic propaganda poisons the iconosphere. An environment like this one is conducive to rebellion and anarchy, which are supported by fatalistic yet hopeful songs and poems.
In such a system, is art a cultural remedy that transcends territory and reality, capable of bringing about a common understanding and initiating a dialogue? Or maybe the agency of art is another utopia, an expression of trauma, a catastrophe of interpretation, and ultimately a failure of individuals?
Lignes de vies - une exposition de légendes 2019 - MacVal (Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne), Paris
"Conceiving biography as a creative force is the common vector for the eighty international artists invited in "Lines of Life - an exhibition of legends" which brings together the artistic gestures of different generations and practices, from photography to video, painting, installation, performance and writing.
This exhibition is part of a line of programming which, since the opening of the museum in 2005, has sought to question the modalities and instances of the construction of identity, or more precisely, of identities, initiated with the exhibitions "Détours" by Jacques Monory (2005) and "Le Grand Sommeil" by Claude Levêque (2006). With the cycle "Zones de Productivités Concertées" (2006 - 2007) or the collective exhibition "Emporte-moi / Sweep me off my feet" (2009 - 2010), the next step was to analyse the place of economy or emotion in our lives; then, gender (and more precisely masculinity) with "Chercher le garçon" (2015) and the very idea of cultural identity in "Tous, des sang-mêlés" (2017).
All the works given to be seen in this collective exhibition construct a reflection around the staging and representation of the self and deconstruct, analyse, criticise or question the phenomena and processes that shape and legitimise identity/identities. Far from a narcissistic or self-centred gesture, through them the artists reconstruct and propose, more than new identities, chosen identities. A political gesture of taking back in hand the narration of one's own legend."
Elsewhen 2019 - Hestercombe House, Somerset, UK
The solo-exhibition 'Elsewhen' was created in response to Hestercombe and its gardens, and brought together a series of works and interventions. These included a new sculptural earthwork set into the lawn, a series of window drawings and 'A Garden of Time' (drawings of plants from across the world) - as well as other film, sound, text and photographic works.
The artworks attempt to connect the local, everyday scale of our normal lives to the wider, global scale of the planet. Many of Faithfull’s works subjectively map the planet that the artist finds himself on – attempting to understand his place in both time and space. He often brings home personal accounts of far-flung places to create what he calls ‘An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity’.
“Through these works, I’m orientating myself on a planet which is itself, orbiting a sun. Trying to visualise how this global scale meets the local scale of someone standing on a lawn in Somerset.” Simon Faithfull
Water Rising 2019 - Groundworks Gallery, Kings Lynn, UK
Through The Looking Glass 2018 - Cobb Gallery, London, UK
Alteria Art, Cob Gallery and James Putnam are pleased to present Through the Looking Glass- an exhibition of miniature artworks from a selected blend of international modern and contemporary artists.
The exhibition title directly references Lewis Carroll’s sequel to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ in which the protagonist returns to a fantastical world through a mirror. Her journey is defined by her constant transformations in size and her experiences where everything exists in reverse, including logic. Taking this as its germ, the multidisciplinary works included in Through the Looking Glass activates the viewer’s sensory perceptions of scale across two and three dimensions, compounding a complex human psychological fascination with both the possibility, and seeming impossibility of the miniature pitted against the scale of our bodies.
The origins of the miniature artwork remains in early medieval manuscripts which then evolved into the functional portability of portrait miniatures of the 16th century European courts. The skill of a miniature portraitist often determined the reputation and social status of the client, and the commissioning of these portraits remained popular until the emergence of photography. Often defined as being able to ‘hold in the palm of your hand’, the creation and exchange of miniature art historically has always been symbolic of the intimate gesture; a love token or memento; or something that must be contemplated and treasured.
Through the Looking Glass harnesses the intimacy associated with this historical genre contrasted to the tendencies of the contemporary art world- which is more often than not in favour large and imposing works that vie for attention through their grand gestures or physical nature. Substance and skill may sometimes be overlooked in these works and the sheer scale of the artwork can overwhelm the public, all semblance of critical thought being dwarfed by relational inferiority. Here, the intricacies of craft and technicality are highlighted, with smaller works imbued with signs of the artist’s patience and diligence giving a more intimate and precious sense to the pieces. Through The Looking Glass encourages people to slow down, take a closer look and really contemplate what they are looking at.
Through the Looking Glass- looks at an expanded concept of the miniature art genre- exploring considerable behavioural nuances behind our love for the minuscule through a simultaneity of the compulsion of the artist to create works on a small scale and the impulse to marvel at encountering it.
Artists:
Alice Anderson · Becky Beasley · Zadok Ben David · Paul Benney · Emmanouil Bitsakis · Antony Cairns · Alexander Calder · James Capper · Lynn Chadwick · Jake & Dinos Chapman · Charlotte Colbert · Susan Collis · Mat Collishaw · Adeline de Monseignat · India Dewar · Simon Faithfull · Tessa Farmer · Kitty Finer · Nancy Fouts · Nina Mae Fowler · Realf Heygate · Alba Hodsoll · Carlo & Fabio Ingrassia · Soojin Kang · Idris Khan · Simon Linke · Reuben Mednikoff · Polly Morgan · Annie Morris · Grayson Perry · Pablo Picasso · Tristan Pigott · Shahpour Pouyan · Joshua Press · Cat Roissetter · Jason Shulman · Kenji Sugiyama · Akiko & Masako Takada · Gavin Turk · Eloise van der Heyden · Craig Wylie · Hirosuke Yabe · Walter & Zoniel · Yuri Zupancic
La No Comunidad 2018 - CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain
THE NO COMMUNITY
An essay on loneliness in late capitalism
The NO Community proposes to address solitude through a polyhedral view from the questioning of the idea of community, a "non-community" characteristic of late capitalist society whose main feature has to do with the idea of not belonging and breaking the social bond . Through a wide selection of national and international artists, a kind of essay develops around the problem of loneliness at the present time, an analysis that traces its different forms as an epidemic generated from capitalism and its forms of biopolitical separation.
The route is not planned in a linear way, but reversible, being able to start from the central cabinet of mirrors and portraits , in which the reflection of the viewer dialogues with a series of portraits and self-portraits of an outstanding selection of artists. From here a series of areas where you can find the consequences of late-capitalism in the form of solitudes, such as the contemporary city , or its counterpoint in the different concepts of periphery that are reflected from the island, space, sea or the consequences derived from the abandonment of the rural. Also the development of technology opens another chapter to the problem of loneliness that links to the section of the ages of loneliness, to move to another of the areas that expands in the idea of border , explored from all angles: immigration and ideology but also disease, seclusion, gender and identity.
In this way the proposal offers an overview of loneliness: from the most heartbreaking perspective to the most optimistic visions that come especially from the hand of artists who have commissioned ex-professed works for the exhibition, and who in a way or another offer solutions, gestures or alternative approaches to this problem.
Curators: Blanca de la Torre and Ricardo Ramón Jarne
Participating artists:
Marina Abramovic, Pilar Albarracín, Helena Almeida, Eugenio Ampudia, Vasco Araújo, Artemio, Basurama / Dagoberto Rodríguez (co-founder of Los Carpinteros), John Coplans, Gregory Crewdson, Elena del Rivero, Rineke Dijkstra, Willie Doherty, Gonzalo Elvira, Pepe Espaliú, Simon Faithfull, Joan Fontcuberta, Regina José Galindo, Alberto García-Alix, Miguel Ángel Gaüeca, Anthony Goicolea, Pierre Gonnord, Luis Gordillo, Paul Graham, Nuria Güell, Mona Hatoum, Zhang Huan, Jose Iges, Shell Jerez, Francesco Jodice, Jesper Just, Jürgen Klauke, Sigalit Landau, Eva Lootz, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Lucia Loren, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Cristina Lucas, Esko Männikkö, Juan Carlos Martínez, Boris Mikhailov, Mitsuo Miura, Jorge Molder, Vik Muniz, Markus Muntean & Adi Rosenblum, Shirin Neshat, Marina Nunez, Jorge Perianes, Liliana Porter, Richard Prince,Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Antonio Saura, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Trine Søndergaard, Sam Taylor-Wood, Darío Villalba, Antonia Wright.
Macro Asilo 2018 - Macro (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma), Rome, Italy
On 30 September started the experimental project known as Macro Asilo, due to feature at the Macro in Via Nizza for 15 months, until 31 December 2019. The new scheme devised by project curator Giorgio de Finis is going to turn the entire museum into a fully-fledged living organism at once "hospitable" and relational, urging people, skills and disciplines to meet and cooperate in a rationale of constant openness and participation on the part of the city and of the public. To ensure that that happens, admission will be free for everyone.
In this project the very idea of the museum seeks to renew itself with the intention of forging a new and prolific relationship between art and the city. The experiment, in that sense, concerns precisely the city's museum of contemporary art, exploring its civic function as an institution operating in the present on the production of skills, sense and knowledge, an institution that uses art to place itself at people's disposal. Macro Asilo is the first piece in the Contemporary and Future Cluster set to become a complementary presence compared to other institutions such as the MAXXI or the Galleria Nazionale, so as to offer the city's residents a rich spectrum of viewpoints and experiences.
That is the challenge from which de Finis took his cue, working in close cooperation with the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo which has been managing the museum since 1 January 2018, and with the Sovrintendenza Capitolina which, in its capacity as part of Roma Capitale, maintains responsibility for the conservation and enhancement of the museum's collection, archive and library.
Deadpan 2018 - Galerie Andreas Schmidt, Berlin, Germany
'Deadpan' is a three-person exhibition curated by David Evans in Galerie Andreas Schmidt in Pankow, Berlin. The exhibition features the work of two living artists and one dead.
DEADPAN:
Buster Keaton
Simon Faithfull
Tim Knowles
In Pursuit of Elusive Horizons 2018 - Parafin, London, UK
Parafin is delighted to announce a group exhibition, curated by Rebecca Partridge. ‘In Pursuit of Elusive Horizons’ continues a series of exhibitions featuring the same core group of artists, curated by Partridge with various co-curators, including ‘Scaling the Sublime: Art at the Limits of Landscape’, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham (2018), ‘Reason and Emotion: Landscape and the Contemporary Romantic’, Kunstverein Springhornhof, Germany (2013) and ‘Reason and Emotion: Landscape and the Contemporary Romantic’, Baroniet Rosendal, Norway (2012).
Pursuing an elusive horizon conjures an image of the romantic figure in a lone and distant landscape, both longing for and questioning the existential relationship between self and nature. A decade ago, to describe an artwork, or an artist, as ‘romantic’ would be to suggest the absurdity of this scene, the romantic hero lost in his own subjective illusion. However, despite the dismissal of subjective states as serious subject for artistic enquiry, the impulse towards feeling and imagination remain. As one of the artists in this exhibition recently remarked, ‘I am, I guess, a wonder junkie’, one of a generation of artists who are increasingly returning to grand narratives and timeless themes, though embraced with a simultaneous sense of distance, critique and irony.
Artists:
Martin John Callanan, Simon Faithfull,
Rebecca Partridge, Katie Paterson, Richard T. Walker
L'ENVOL, OU LE RÊVE DE VOLER 2018 - La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
L’envol is the final exhibition at La maison rouge, which will close its doors for the last time on October 28, 2018.
Antoine de Galbert has invited Barbara Safarova, Aline Vidal and Bruno Decharme as co-curators. Together, these specialists in art brut and contemporary art have imagined an exhibition that examines mankind's dream of flying – though without any reference to those who have actually made this dream come true.
As always at La maison rouge, the curators have considered the subject matter independently of "categories" to bring together works of art brut, modern, contemporary, ethnographic and folk art. A walk through the various themes reveals a succession of some 200 works, including installations, films, documents, paintings, drawings and sculptures.
liste
des artistes
James K. Anane
Dieter Appelt
Stephan Balkenhol
August Bert
Emery Blagdon
Lev Borodulin
Brassaï
François Burland
Thomas Cabrera
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Chucho
Lucien Clergue
Salvador Dali
Henry Darger
Gino de Dominicis
P. Delbo
Charles Dellschau
Hélène Delprat
Fernand Desmoulin
Hervé Di Rosa
Janko Domsic
Arthur Conan Doyle
Simon Faithfull
Fantazio
Didier Fiuza Faustino
Federico Fellini
Abbé Fouré
Dara Friedman
Joseph Gautier
Agnès Geoffray
Hans Jörg Georgi
August Gunkel
Cai Guo-Qiang
Pierre Henry
Robert Herlth
Rebecca Horn
Eikoh Hosoe
Miroslav Hucek
Karl Hans Janke
Kim Jones
Pierre Joseph
Ilya et Emilia Kabakov
Dong-Hyun Kim
Paviz Kimiavi
Dimitri Kirsanoff
Yves Klein
Julius Koller
Zdenek Kosek
Jacque-Henri Lartigue
Urs Lüthi
Jan Malik
Zelle Manning
Jean Manzon
Jules-Etienne Marey
Fabio Mauri
Winsor McCay
Georges Méliès
Gustav Mesmer
Akira Miwa
Moebius
Peter Moore
Sethembile Msezane
Melvin Edward Nelson
Heinrich Nüsslein
Palanc
Panamarenko
Frédéric Pardo
Alan Parker
Lucien Pelen
Jean Perdrizet
Mikhail Prekhner
Guillaume Pujolle
Philippe Ramette
Robert Rauschenberg
Royal Robertson
André Robillard
Auguste Rodin
Alexandre Rodtchenko
Albert Rudomine
Ben Russell
Carla Sacrez
Yuichi Saito
Hartmut Schoen
Alfred Sakter
Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern
Koji Shima
Shimabuku
Roman Signer
Jean Ségalat
Kiki Smith
Ivan Matthew Smith
Alfred Statler
Johannes Stek
Nils Strinberg
T. Fogl
Ionel Talpazan
Vladimir Tatline
Mario Terzic
Stéphane Thidet
Philippe Thomassin
Oswald Tschirtner
Damian Valdès Dilla
Ray Ventura
George Widener
Joel-Peter Witkin
Adolf Wölfli
At Altitude 2018 - The Towner, Eastbourne UK
At Altitude is a selective look at the historical impact and the continuing appeal of the aerial image. Ranging from the exhilarating viewpoints of early aviation to the all-enveloping but flattening vantage point of Google Earth, the exhibition charts these changing perspectives, illustrating how the wonder of the overhead view was transformed through advances in technology as altitudes became higher and horizons more distant.
Bringing together works in film, video, photography, sculpture, painting, drawing and installation the exhibition features artists including Jananne Al–Ani, Michael Andrews, Ken Baird, Tacita Dean, Charles and Ray Eames, Simon Faithfull, Mishka Henner, Dan Holdsworth, Kabir Hussain, Peter Lanyon, Christopher R. W. Nevinson, Cornelia Parker, Carol Rhodes and Wolfgang Tillmans, alongside a new installation created by Timothy Prus of the Archive of Modern Conflict and a site-specific commission for Towners Collection by Annabel Howland.
OCEAN IMAGININGS 2018 - MUMA (Musée d'art moderne André Malraux), Le Havre, France
MuMa's major 2018 spring and summer exhibition "Ocean Imaginings" explores imaginative interpretations of the sea, the ocean and the undersea world in art works from the second half of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century, a period in which attitudes to the marine world were decisively transformed by the new discipline of oceanography.
Ocean Imaginings Ensconced in the apt setting of MuMa's building overlooking Le Havre's harbour entrance and seascape, the exhibition itinerary showcases 180 works - paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, videos, glass and ceramics - by almost 100 artists including Anna Atkins, Gustave Moreau, Arnold Böcklin, Auguste Rodin, Emile Gallé, Max Klinger, Adolf Hiremy-Hirschl, Jean-Francis Auburtin, Mathurin Méheut, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Brassaï, Jean Painlevé, Philippe Halsmann, Pierre and Gilles, Nicolas Floc’h and Elsa Guillaume.
4th INTERNATIONAL MARDİN BIENNIAL: “Beyond Words” 2018 - 4th INTERNATIONAL MARDİN BIENNIAL, Mardin, Turkey
4th INTERNATIONAL MARDİN BIENNIAL
“Beyond Words” is the headline; and “Infinite Sight”, “Body Language”, and “Boundaries and Thresholds” are its subheadings… These subheadings indicate our distinct yet interrelated approaches as curators of the 4th International Mardin Biennial. Each theme is a mechanism affecting, linking and expanding into each other. The language of art under each subheading is formed with the belief that we all can meet there that lies beyond “words” — where we are all called to meet at the 4th International Mardin Biennial to produce meaning beyond words.
“Beyond Words” brings together various forms of artistic expression created through the languages of sight, the body and space-making that the artists make visible and raise awareness about. The audience is invited to experience how expression turns into art in places that lie beyond words.
Expedition Natur 2018 - Kunstverein Springhornhof , Neuenkirchen, Germany
"Expedition Natur" shows works by predominantly Dutch artists who deal with the representation of landscapes and whose working methods are characterized by a specific handling of materials, proportions, perspectives and set pieces. Some approach their subject documentary, others have a researching approach or process representations of familiar subjects and situations. Travels through Germany and abroad provide ideas, images and stories. As explorers, researchers, narrators or inventors, they explore human intervention in nature; sometimes the path is the goal.
An exhibition in cooperation with the museum CODA Apeldoorn (NL), curated by Karin Bos (Amsterdam).
Artists:
Jasper de Beijer, Patrick Bergsma, Karin Bos, DAT (Tammo Schuringa, Claudie de Cleen, Corinne Bonsma), Simon Faithfull, Florian Göttke, Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Lynne Leegte, Jochem op ten Noort, Henk Wildschut, Marjolijn de Wit, Erik Wuthrich
Scaling The Sublime 2018 - Djanogly Gallery, University of Nottingham, UK
This exhibition explores affinities with Romanticism in contemporary art practice, and the continuing fascination of the Landscape Sublime. Drawn to subjects such as mountains, glaciers, the icecaps, forests, the ocean, the moon and the remotest stars, the artists included have found new ways of reflecting on our relationship with the unimaginable forces of nature, even in our age of technological advance and the unprecedented expansion of knowledge.
Working across a variety of media and often drawing on expertise from other disciplines through collaboration, these artists embrace the newest processes and techniques as well as traditional methods of image making. The resulting works move through registers of wonder, melancholy, futility and absurdity.
Scaling the Sublime includes work by: Martin John Callanan, Simon Faithfull, Tim Knowles, Mariele Neudecker, Rebecca Partridge, Katie Paterson, and Richard T Walker. Curated by Nicholas Alfrey and Rebecca Partridge.
One Orbit of the Sun 2018 - Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany
For the seventh “showcase exhibition” at Bikini Berlin Haus am Waldsee presents selected drawings from the current cycle entitled One Orbit of the Sun by British artist Simon Faithfull (b. 1966), who lives and works in Berlin and London. For more than ten years Faithfull has created his sketchbooks digitally instead of on paper. In doing so he combines a practice dating back to the Renaissance period – the recording of fleeting everyday moments – with the latest digital technology.
To begin with Faithfull produced drawings on a BlackBerry whereas today he works through a customised app on another smartphone. The sheets on display are print-outs in which the artist captures moments from the period between April 2017 and April 2018. We learn a good deal on the daily routines of a contemporary, internationally active artist who commutes between London and Berlin and is permanently on the move to give lectures or to press ahead with his projects in every corner of the globe.
Alongside everyday moments from Berlin and London we find impressions of Iceland, Jordan, the Swiss Alps, Miami Beach, California or the Everglades National Park in the USA as well as Wadi Rum in Jordan. The drawings are never representational. They always show subjective views as traces of a moment of pause. After all, Faithfull could have recorded the moment with the camera in his mobile device. As a draughtsman, however, he deliberately chose the slower medium that draws, most of all, on closer inspection.
The question of original and reproduction appears to be answered long since in Simon Faithfull’s work. The printouts in the exhibition come in editions of two, plus a single artist proof. Thus, the artist employs a well-attuned strategy of artistic photography, limiting the print run of his sheets. In doing so he translates the drawing – which utilises the means of the potentially infinite reproduction of the digital net – back into the analogue world of the original – yet one that is no longer singular but, like in photography, simply limited to the smallest possible print run.
Until the close of the exhibition on April 14, 2018, Faithfull continued to draw, mostly at the Berlin Zoo. The results were printed and integrated into the show. In that way, the show grew until the annual cycle has been completed. Concurrently, the works were being published on social media.
Océans, Une vision du monde au rythme des vagues. 2018 - Le Fresnoy Studio National, Tourcoing, France
Le Fresnoy - Studio national and TBA21-Academy present Oceans - A vision of the world in the rhythm of the waves, an exhibition that explores a different way of looking at the oceans and the world we inhabit.
The artists:
Doug Aitken - Atif Akin - Darren Almond - Julian Charrière - Édith Dekyndt - Simon Faithfull - Ellie Ga - Tue Greenfort - Ariel Guzik - Newell Harry - Camille Henrot - Alexander Lee - Basim Magdy - Eduardo Navarro - Enrique Ramirez - Sissel Tolaas - Janaina Tschäpe and David Gruber - Ana Vaz - Jana Winderen - Susanne M. Winterling.
The Crisis of the Horizon 2018 - SMALL PROJECTS, TROMSØ (NORWAY)
The Crisis of the Horizon is an exhibition of lens-based media art including animation, photography and expanded cinematic works, exploring the way aerial views and satellite views provoked a structural modification in the regime of vision, leading to a shift in the human behavior toward the environment.
ARTISTS:
AGNIESZKA POLSKA
EMILIJA ŠKARNULYTĖ
JENNY-MARIE JOHNSEN
SIMON FAITHFULL
Connectivities 2017 - MUCEM (Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée), Marseille, France
The Mediterranean Gallery is getting a new look, and its second section will house a new semi-permanent exhibition. Connectivities tells the story of the great Mediterranean port cities of the 16th and 17th centuries: Istanbul, Algiers, Venice, Genoa, Seville and Lisbon were the strategic sites of power and trade in a Mediterranean that saw the birth of the modern era, between great empires and globalization.
Taking The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II as its foundation, the exhibition follows in the footsteps of historian Fernand Braudel and approaches this 16th and 17th century Mediterranean region not as an object of study with strict chronological limits, but rather as a character with a lengthy story to tell, even extending into the contemporary period.
Inviting visitors to leap backward in time, this urban history continues today, through changes to contemporary port territories like the megalopolises of Istanbul and Cairo and the metropolises of Marseille and Casablanca. This exhibition shows expanding cities as places where influxes, connections trade and therefore power converge and intensify...
...Each of these cities is also the subject of some new models, such as the question of informal settlements in Cairo; but also through the work of contemporary artists who enable visitors to immerse themselves in the physical realities of these cities through films, videos and photographs.
An Eyeful of Wry 2017 - Brynmor Jones Library Gallery at the University of Hull, Hull, UK
An Eyeful of Wry initially evolved at the Government Art Collection (GAC) offices in London as a display for visitors on public tours. It was born out of the realisation that works of art in the GAC – an eclectic and diverse collection – can sometimes relate to each other in unexpected ways when shown together, adding to the potential for humour, just as the best comic double acts are mutually complementary. Satirical prints by James Gillray, William Heath and other nineteenth century artists are shown amongst playful contemporary works including Martin Creed's neon work THINGS and Mel Brimfield's gaudy funfair piece, 4' 33” (Prepared Pianola for Roger Bannister). In the exhibition, visitors will also discover video works by Simon Faithfull, Mitra Saboury and Wood and Harrison – very different performances that range from introspective humour to pure slapstick. The exhibition presents further comic notions and provocative ideas in works by other artists in the show, including Ian Hamilton Finlay, Jim Lambie, Cornelia Parker, Grayson Perry, David Shrigley, Laure Prouvost, Eva Rothschild, Mark Wallinger and Bedwyr Williams. Enticing us mischievously with his proposals as random as composing a song for British embassy staff around the world; to swamping the streets in bunting, is Peter Liversidge's Proposals for the Government Art Collection. Commissioned for the exhibition in book and print form, this work includes two of the artist's eponymous 'proposals' that are brought to life: one as a filmed performance by British comedian Phill Jupitus; and another by a group of art students from Hull.
PRIVATE CHOICES - Collection Nicole et Olivier G. 2017 - CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, Bruxelles, Belgium
11 BRUSSELS COLLECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY ART
The Private Choices exhibition unveils an important aspect of the art field: the collections of contemporary art and the art lovers who initiated it. More than ever, they play a major role in a constantly growing art world. In an era of over-commercialization and globalization of the art market, these enthusiasts invest their time and money in contemporary creation, often without counting.
This project highlights 11 Brussels collections that bring together works by Belgian and international artists, renowned artists and young creators, in an attempt to reveal the uniqueness of each. Through choices made in consultation with collectors, part of their vision of art and life is discovered.
Collection Nicole et Olivier G.
La création au plus proche de l’engagement sociétal. Avec des oeuvres de Brigida Baltar • Stephen Brandes • Vincen Beeckman • Marie José Burki • Detanico & Lain • Simon Faithfull • Aurélien Froment • Hamza Halloubi • Ane Mette Hol • Olga Kisseleva • Michaël Matthys • Léa Mayer • Tom Molloy • Simon Nicaise • Joëlle Tuerlinckx • Regina Viserius • Royal Art Lodge • Marc Wendelski
Expedition Nature 2017 - CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Not all who wander are lost
Paradisiacal landscapes and fairytale nature or melancholic, absurd, frightening and alienating. Expedition Nature shows the work of more than twenty artists who illuminate landscape themes in a variety of ways. At the request of CODA, visual artist Karin Bos made a varied, rich selection of artists working in a variety of disciplines. Some approach the landscape in a documentary way, while others react manipulatively or opt for a more scientific approach.
Participating artists:
When making the selection of artists, the connection with the work of Karin Bos was taken into account. Not only nature and the landscape play a role, but also the human intervention in nature is reflected in the work of various artists. Without exception, the selected works demonstrate an investigative and open attitude of the artists concerned.
Karin Bos . Bas Jan Ader . Jasper de Beijer . Patrick Bergsma. DAT (Tammo Schuringa, Claudie de Cleen, Corinne Bonsma) . Elspeth Diederix . Simon Faithfull . Florian Göttke . Scarlett Hooft Graafland . Jean Bernard Koeman . Jeroen Kooijmans . Lynne Leegte . Paul Nassenstein . Jochem op ten Noort . Michael Raedecker . Guido van der Werve . Henk Wildschut . Marjolijn de Wit . Erik Wuthrich
CAMINAR, PENSAR…DERIVAR 2017 - Centro de Arte y Naturaleza (CDAN), Huesca, Spain
On April 26, 1336, Francesco Petrarca wrote La ascensión al Mont Ventoux, a text considered to be the first testimony of an aesthetic view of the landscape in the Western world. This exhibition draws on this story to bring together a series of works by artists, and other visual documents, which propose the act of walking as an aesthetic action or practice, as well as a source of knowledge of the world around us. The fact of walking as a form of intervention in the landscape was born from man's natural need to move, and has become a symbolic action that has allowed human beings to inhabit the world.
The exhibition is divided into 10 areas where visitors can read the full story of the humanist, printed on the walls of the museum, along with 75 works by 33 artists from the fourteenth century to the present. All of them are examples of how walking is not only a way of looking at and transforming the landscape, but also a critical tool for understanding the individual and social nature of man.
Artists, authors and collectives: Juan de la Abadía El viejo, José Luis Acín, R. Alix, Esteban Anía, Marcos Ávila Forero, José Azor, Javier Broto, Lucien Briet, Ricardo Calero, Enrique Carbó, Pepe Cerdá, Aimé Civiale, Ricardo Compairé, Juan Crego, Declinación Magnética (Aimar Arriola, José Manuel Bueso, Eduardo Galvagni, Juan Guardiola, Irene Grau, Sally Gutiérrez, Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga, Diego del Pozo, Silvia Zayas), Effi & Amir, Simon Faithfull, Francisco Felipe, Hamish Fulton, Charo Garaigorta, Federico Guillermo Erla, Jules C. Janssen & M. Lamazouère, Richard Long, Eduardo Marco Miranda, Maurice Meys, Julio Nogués, Gerard Ortín, Francesco Petrarca, David Rodríguez Gimeno, Warren de la Rue, Scotter111, Juli Soler i Santaló.
CYCLIC JOURNEY - EL VIATGE CÍCLIC 2017 - GOETHE-INSTITUT, Barcelona, Spain
Exhibition commissioned by Herman Bashiron Mendolicchio.
Featuring: Penelope Umbrico, Anselm Kiefer, Alejandro Cartagena, Fabrizio Contarino, Tom Carr, Clemens Wilhelm, Miguel Azuaga, Rachel Labastie, Waqas Khan, Pietro Ruffo, Simon Faithfull
The debate on the essence and definition of time has fascinated philosophers, scientists and all types of thinkers throughout the history of humanitarianism. Among the various principles, measures and interpretations of time - conceived for different religious, philosophical or scientific visions - the most obvious are linear and cyclical lectures.
This exhibition reflects on the concept of "cyclic viatge", on circular and elliptical visions and movements, and on those phenomena and experiences (of predictable vegades, of non vegades) that tend to repeat themselves.
The constant rotation of the Earth at the turn of the Sun, the inexorable cycle of life and death, the repetitions of history, periodic migrations, civilizations in ascents and falls, the economic cycles, the incessant processes of creation and destruction, The repetitive succession of wars and wars, cosmologies, the lives of anarchists and tornadoes realised by a multitude of people through all epochs, or ends and all daily routines, are some of the realities that give shape to the concept of "cyclic journey". The project will emphasize the intense, intrinsic, inevitable cycle that affects all humans.
Cyclic and linear movements intertwine. Cycles - appetites or large, personal or collective - are constantly and inexorably multiplied. Is there a final destination for cyclic travel?
L’Art Chemin Faisant 2017 - Atelier d'Estienne - Centre d'art contemporain, Pont-Scorff, France
A group exhibition with the theme of 'path' or 'way'.
IM_MOBILITIES 2017 - Galerie KUB, Leipzig, Germany
"Which sets of relationships, tensions and contradictions exist between categorisations, practices and politics of mobility, territorial border regimes and conceptions of space and identity?
Taking a selection of contemporary art works and a set of research documents as starting point, the exhibition IM_MOBILITIES questions the visible and invisible structures of (im)mobility, traces its discourse in the arts and looks at its impact on subject and society."
Counterpoints - Kunst Im Park 2017 - Schloss Grafennegg, Austria
A series of temporary interventions within the grounds of an Austrian castle.
Zwischen Räumen 2017 - ZKR Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin
"In Between Spaces, 15 artists examine questions and contradictions found in urban life. The exhibition places work by Gordon Matta-Clark and perspectives on East Berlin into a dialogue with current artistic positions."
Wanderlust 2017 - The International 3, Manchester, UK
"WANDERLUST explores the practice of three artists whose work is bound up with ideas of voyeurism, omitted context, ambiguous journeys and seeing the world from a veiled or altered perspective. Blurring genres, and straddling the space between reality and fantasy – WANDERLUST reveals our inherent desire to let our imagination ‘fill in the gaps’ whilst exposing the allure of obscurity."
Somewhere Becoming Sea 2017 - Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK
"In this exhibition of international artists’ work with the moving image, we take a closer look at the ever-changing boundaries between land and sea, exploring Hull’s long-standing prominence as a gateway to the North Sea and beyond.
Featuring artists including Simon Faithfull, Lavinia Greenlaw, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen (with Duncan Pickstock and Mikkel H. Eriksen), Cecilia Stenbom, Ruth Maclennan, Isabella Martin, Esther Johnson (with Jez riley French), Gunnar Jónsson, Nina Sverdvik, Guy Moreton, Christine Clinckx and Alec Finlay (with Hanna Tuulikki and Lucy Duncombe), Somewhere Becoming Sea reflects how expanses of water that divide countries are also channels that connect them."
La Vie Aquatique 2017 - Regional Museum of Contemporary Art, Sérignan, France
"'La Vie Aquatique' explores man's ambivalent relationship with the sea, a place of fantasies, rituals and tales, a place of discovery and glorious conquests, but also of struggles often lost against the immensity of the sea, ocean. From Moby Dick to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas of Jules Verne, from the marines of William Turner to the Symbolist engravings of Odilon Redon, the sea has not ceased for centuries to inspire artists."
Le Satellite / L’Art contemporain près de chez vous 2017 - Frac Franche-Comté, Besançon, France
Walks, wanderings and other peregrinations
Pierre Alféri, Simon Faithfull, Ellie Ga and Hans Schabus
The works gathered in the exhibition Balads, Wanderings and Other Peregrinations were born from travels. The artists set out to discover a remote or unusual territory by borrowing the methods or practices of the sailor or skipper or even the scientist. Through a double exploration (of the world and art), they question the notions of space and time.
Does The World Exist, When I'm Not There? 2017 - Galerie Polaris, Paris, France
A solo exhibition that brought together the complete 'Going Nowhere' series of video works.
Club Monster 2016 - Asia Culture Centre, Gwanju, South Korea
An international group exhibition looking at the influence of pop music on artists and artworks:
"Asia Culture Center presents a contemporary art exhibition that explores the point of contact between popular music culture and current art practices. Across these various genres, key words such as ‘Human Rights,’ ‘Zeitgeist,’ ‘Healing Trauma,’ and ‘Sympathy’ are recurrent leitmotifs. Pressing issues of global concern, such as terrorism, refugees, gender inequity, child abuse, war, unemployment, racism, poverty, and cultural tensions are given urgent expression in both the popular music and the contemporary artworks on display in this exhibition."
Linear Momentum 2016 - Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, Germany
"The exhibition Linear momentum treats the line in its relation to our movement in urban and rural areas. It therefore approaches the theme less about the genre of drawing, which is traditionally connected to the line, but rather by performative work, collage, wall painting, photography and video. The title Linear Momentum is paradigmatic for the exhibition and reflects a characteristic of the line itself, which as a connection of two points always points to its movement-connected genesis. Temporality and movement are inherent in the line and form the foil before which the selected works can be seen. Linear momentum thus regards the line from a temporal and spatial, a performative perspective."
Videocity, Videosea 2016 - FRAC Basse Normandie, France
Recent acquisitions from the collection of FRAC Basse Normandie, France.
Images Festival 2016 - Salle del Castillo (Images Festival), Vevey, Switzerland
Sous le Soleil Exactement Coucher de Soleil et Lever de Rideau 2016 - Centre d’Art Bastille (CAB), Grenoble, France
"The mountains around and the city below are cut through the wide windows pierced in the old casemate which houses the Center d'art bastille. But the curtain rises on another vision of the landscape behind the survival blanket that crosses the room through and through (Nicolas Darrot).
From the South Pole to the North Pole, cycles and natural phenomena are recomposed. A continuous landscape scrolls through the porthole of an icebreaker for 44 days of shipping (Simon Faithfull). The recording of very low frequencies is retransmitted amplified on microphones arranged in ellipse (Dominique Blais).
Sunsets taken from the Internet connect along a horizon line (Jean-Claude Ruggirello). A children's pool is a luminous crater or flying saucer (Mathilde Barrio Nuevo). A planisphere is covered with graphite (Caroline Corbasson). Spatial and temporal distortions create new landscapes, like those hypnotic forms produced by a projector and a reflector (Bertrand Lamarche).
The term landscape covers an ambiguity: does it qualify reality or its aesthetic representation? This indecision is constitutive of the landscape and a certain theatricality: it establishes a framework that it transgresses in concert, as lightly demonstrated the postcards of Sigudur Arni Sigurdsson whose elements emerge from the space assigned to them. The artwork shows itself as such in David Coste who creates portraits of space from studio photographs of which only the painted decoration remains. "
Zero 2016 - Kunstverein Springhornhof, Lüneburger Heide, Germany
A survey-exhibition of recent work by Simon Faithfull, Zero consisted of 7 video works, all 1100+ drawings from the 'Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity' archive and a number of photographic works.
Man Made 2016 - Raversyde Museum, Oostende, Belgium
Innbundet / Ubundet 2016 - Norske Grafikere, Oslo, Norway
"In this exhibition we see the traces of the history of the artist book. The exploratory illustrations may seem to be the legacy of livres d'artiste, and their autobiographical publications are in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp. Diether Roth's sculptural books can also be mentioned. An important concern for several of the artists in this exhibition is to work with, against and across the language of communication and the book as a symbol. Books also have features like visual sculptures and tactile objects.
Seeing artist books from the perspective of graphics gives us access to experience the book's paper, print, construction and content in new ways. These are material books."
Terrain: Land into Art 2016 - Hestercombe House Gallery, Somerset, UK
"Hestercombe Gallery is proud to present a new exhibition Terrain: Land into Art, bringing together 17 artists who make artworks that respond to the natural world.
The show features a series of works from modernism to the present day. Artists include Peter Doig, Kathy Prendergast, Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Anya Gallaccio and Simon Faithfull alongside more recent works by Gary Hume, John Stezaker, Vicken Parsons, Raphael Hefti and Tim Knowles."
Viewing Device for the Planet: three permanent public artworks for Nuffield Hospital. 2016 - Nuffield Health Hospital, Cambridge, UK
Three permanent public-artworks that seek to orient the viewer to the wider world outside of the hospital walls.
The first, called: 'Viewing Device for the Planet', consists of drawings sandblasted into the glass of windows across the four faces of the new hospital building. The drawings were made in distant points on the planet but points that lie exactly on the compass bearing of the view from each particular window.
The second, called: 'Ouse Navigation', is a series of drawings that trace a journey from the source of the river Cam, to where the Cam joins the river Ouse and ultimately to where the Ouse reaches the North Sea. All 42 drawings are now sandblasted into paving stones that form a path through the hospital gardens.
Finally: '123 Steps Above Cambridge' is a 360º digital drawing made from the top of a church tower at centre of Cambridge. The long, frieze-like drawing is now physically realised in laser-etched stainless-steel, set into a 7-meter walnut panel in the hospitals reception.
L'Epais Réel 2015 - La Criée Centre d'Art Contemporain, Rennes, France
"The collective exhibition L'Épais Réel focuses on the relationships that artists have with the strength of the elements and the tangibility of the world. She questions the necessity of penetrating into the thickness of things so that a work may emerge; The desire to change from immobility to action. Combining disturbed crossings and immobile journeys, she questions the place of sensible experience.
Diving or not diving? How does the artist come into contact with things, with what energy, what courage? In what way is the will an artistic medium and how is the experience of form? What is the place of trial and danger?"
Whatever the Weather 2015 - Ramm Museum, Exeter, UK
"RAMM’s major winter exhibition explores a theme which affects all our lives: the weather. Or more accurately, how weather seems to be constantly changeable, occasionally extreme and always unpredictable. Through a lively mix of historical paintings and prints, artefacts, archives and the work of contemporary artists, the exhibition exposes humanity’s relationship to the elements. It draws on the collections of the Met Office, National Trust, Arts Council Collection and Royal Meteorological Society and RAMM’s own collections."
They Shall Have Stars 2015 - NN - Contemporary Art Northampton, UK
"They Shall Have Stars is a group show looking to Space, to what may be the home for the ultimate human diaspora and considering our relative position and direction. The title of the show is borrowed from a James Blish novel, the first of his Cities in Flight series in which a new interstellar civilisation occurs. They Shall Have Stars is a title with a grand claim imbued with ambition and an inference of inevitability. We live in a time when science fiction continues to become reality: 2015 saw water found on Mars and the discovery of Exoplanet Kepler-452b, Earth’s closest twin. Data from deep space is regularly received on Earth and even hover boards are now on the market.
Each artist in the show is thinking about our place in the universe, from communicating with it, listening to it, pressing at its edges or preparing for a new way of life with work by Simon Faithfull, ELK and Cassini Sound, Joshua WF Thomson and Agnes Meyer-Brandis."
Risk 2015 - Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
"What happens when art and risk collide?
This autumn, see artists leap into the void, abandon control and push art to the limit as creative risk-taking comes under the spotlight in the first major UK exhibition to explore risk in art. Experience how artists have intentionally embraced the unpredictable and uncontrollable, from chance procedures to political risk; from the power of natural forces to the culture of risk management."
Urban Lights Ruhr 2015 - City Centre of Hagen, Germany
A series of night-time interventions in the city of Hagen, Germany:
"Urban Lights Ruhr illuminates the strongly changing city of Hagen. For a moment artistic interventions guide our view of light and city and offer new perspectives on the familiar. The interventions form a light trail that invites you to stroll, discover and actively participate in a multi-faceted city."
Linear Momentum 2015 - TBC Art Inc, Melbourne, Australia
"This exhibition will bring together five diverse experimental approaches, using a range of media, to explore the potential of a fundamental artistic gesture the drawn line and its relationship with human movement through the city and through the landscape."
In Search of the Miraculous 2015 - Newlyn Art Gallery, UK
"In Search of the Miraculous is an exhibition of international artists, inspired by and marking the 40th anniversary of the voyage made by Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who set sail alone in July 1975 in a 12½ foot dinghy Ocean Wave from Massachusetts to cross the Atlantic to Falmouth, Cornwall, disappearing en route.
In Search of the Miraculous includes artists who have not necessarily taken direct influence from Bas Jan Ader but have made works that have a yearning for the sublime, a playful pursuit for new experiences and journeys, or a romantic contemplation of the sea and what may lie beyond the horizon."
ON THE EDGE. Artists in Dialogue with Humboldt University Collections 2015 - Tieranatomical Theater, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
"A six meter long bandworm ... a silver bracelet ... leaf skeleton ... an exploded 'skull ... a dandelion research station ... deep sea creatures
These and other unusual things can be seen in a new special exhibition, which offers a fascinating insight into the scientific collections of the Humboldt-Universität of Berlin as seen through the eyes of seven artists from Germany and Great Britain under the title ON THE EDGE: Annie Cattrell, Simon Faithfull, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Lucy Powell, Andrea Roe, Nicole Schuck and Wolf von Kries."
Walking Sculpture 1967-2015 2015 - de Cordova Sculpture Park Museum, USA
Der Traum vom Fliegen 2015 - Mewo-Kunsthalle, Germany
"The dream of flying has always accompanied us. Even when airplanes were still a long way off, people imagined how they could pull birds right through the air and thus overcome unimaginable distances.
The Icarus myth is only one among many. With the technical development, Artists visions of flying:
"flying has become almost everyday to us, and yet there is still a mystery connected with it, but not so much on the airplane as transport, but on the supposed adventure and the possibilities, the constraints of everyday life escape."
Sebald Variations 2015 - CCCB, Barcelona, Spain
"The exhibition is a conversation between art and literature. It takes as its starting point, the work and the figure of the German writer W.G. Sebald (1944-2001), the author of some of the key books of the turn of the last century, such as The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz. «Sebald Variations » recreates the dialogue between Sebald and renowned artists and writers who have been invited to take part in the project"
Chercher le Garçon 2015 - MACVAL, Paris, France
"For the first major event of the year's program of its 10th anniversary, the MAC VAL - Museum of Contemporary Art in Val-de-Marne presents a multidisciplinary thematic exhibition.
What defines masculinity today? And how to propose alternatives to the dominant male figure in the patriarchal society?
To answer these questions, Commissioner Frank Lamy invites more than one hundred male artists, as many ways of thinking about the cultural models of male representation ... enough to bring down certain accepted ideas, as tenacious as fragile. Acceptance of self and others.
Elsewhen 2015 - Andrew Brownsword Gallery, University of Bath; Hestercombe House, Somerset UK; Galerie Polaris, Paris France
'Elsewhen' is a performative lecture looking at the history, allure and possible evaporation of the place called 'Nowhere' and imaging a point outside time called ‘Elsewhen’. The last piece of the global atlas to be filled-in was the empty white continent of Antarctica. Since this landmass was finally traversed and mapped there now remains no 'Terra Incognita' left on this planet. Given that the grid of measured time and space on this planet is now complete, this lecture asks: where is ‘Nowhere’? and when is ‘Elsewhen’?
Recif 2, Une Traversée 2015 - Musée des Beaux Arts Calais, Calais, France
A survey-exhibition bringing together a body of work by Simon Faithfull themed around journeys and the sea - the various works spanning the years 2004 - 20015. This exhibition formed the second part of a two-site solo exhibition (together with 'Recif 1 - Antipode' at Frac Basse Normandie, Caen).
0º00 Navigation Part II - A Journey Across Europe and Africa 2015 - The Edge & Andrew Brownsword Gallery, University of Bath, UK
A solo show bringing together a body of work that documents the artist's quest to follow the 0º line of longitude, or Greenwich Meridian, first across England, and then further across Europe and Africa.
RECIF 1: Antipode 2014 - Frac Basse Normandie, Caen, France
The solo-exhibition: 'RECIF 1: Antipode' brings together a body of work by Simon Faithfull themed on journeys, mapping and the sea. This exhibition formed the first part of a two-site solo exhibition (together with Recif 2 -
Une Traversée at the Musee des Beaux Arts Calais).
Fathom 2014 - Fabrica/Brighton Photo Biennial, Brighton, UK; FRAC Basse Normandie, Caen, France; Le Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais, France; Hestercombe House, Somerset UK; The Exchange, Penzance, Cornwall UK
The solo-exhibition 'Fathom' ( www.newlynartgallery.co.uk/activities/fathom/ ) presented a body of work that explores our relationship with our mostly liquid planet - charting dreams, fears and premonitions of ‘the deep’. The exhibition, that consisted of 6 video works, 4 photographs and 35 drawings, wove fictions and conjured impossible, dreams-like images - but images that are nevertheless built on very real physical actions. In each work the artist’s body is placed in precarious and absurd situations where he is either stranded, sinking or engulfed. Borrowing a language from ‘Slapstick’, the work uses a sculptural physicality to picture, but also to embody, man’s precarious position on this planet - a position that leads to an absurd or desperate humour.
REEF 2014 - Fabrica, Brighton, Sussex, UK
For the exhibition REEF, the Brioney Victoria, a boat at the end of its working life, was deliberately sunk off the coast of Dorset. 5 cameras mounted on the boat transmitted live as she made a final journey to rest on the sea bed. The exhibition REEF in Brighton uses this footage as the basis for an immersive installation showing the birth of a new artificial reef.
Perduti nel Paesaggio / Lost in Landscape 2014 - MART, Rovereto, Italy
A survey exhibition exploring landscape and space - the exhibition, curated by Gerardo Mosquera, tackles the subject through the works of over 60 artists from around the world.
On display are over 170 photographs, 84 paintings, 10 videos, 4 video-installations, 4 installations, 4 context-specific interventions (Gonzalo Diaz, Takahiro Iwasaki, Glexis Novoa and Cristina Lucas), 1 web-specific project (Simon Faithfull) and 1 artist’s book.
7 Raumthesen 2014 - Rotwand gallery, Zürich, Switzerland
A group exhibition looking at ideas of architect and ruin.
The Vault 2014 - SPACES Gallery, Cleveland, USA
DeStilled Lives: curated by Kristin Rogers featuring: David Claerbout, Simon Faithfull, Gary Hill, Isaac Julien, William Kentridge, Margot Q. Knight, Qian Li, Patte Loper, Ethan Murrow, Barbara Polster, Eric Rippert, Kristin Rogers, Jennifer Schmidt
The World Turned Upside Down 2013 - Meade Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, UK
An survey exhibition curated by Simon Faithfull and Ben Roberts at the Meade Gallery, Warwick University. Through the work of over twenty international artists, the exhibition examined the legacy of Buster Keaton’s unsettling comedy on conceptual art from the 1930s to the present day. Artists included: Bas Jan Ader, Gordon Matta-Clark, Simon Faithfull, Fischli & Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Brian Griffiths, Emma Hart, Jeppe Hein, Sofia Hultén, Tehching Hsieh, Hayley Newman, Roman Signer, William Wegman, Richard Wentworth, Richard Wilson, John Wood and Paul Harrison, and Erwin Wurm. The conference was chaired by Lisa le Feuvre (head of sculpture studies at the Henry Moore Foundation) and included papers by Dr Paul Cuff (Warwick University), Jonathon Heron (Warwick University) and Peter Kramer (senior lecturer UAE). The exhibition was reviewed in Art Review and Artist Newsletter and received funding from The Henry Moore Foundation.
Nouvelles Vagues - Le Principe Galápagos 2013 - Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Created by a curatorial collective from Geneva (Maxime Bondu, Gaël Grivet, Bénédicte Le Pimpec and Émile Ouroumov) the exhibtion invests Palais de Tokyo by scattering works throughout the building. The question of the biotope of art’s relationship to the rest of the world is framed by Darwin’s famous examination of the Galápagos archipelago. The observation of this natural milieu, considered as autonomous, allowed Darwin to formalize his theory of natural selection, which he then applied to the rest of the natural world. How does this pertain to the question of art?
Verstand und Gefühl, Landschaft und die zeitgenössische Romantik 2013 - Kunstverein Springhornhof, Neuenkirchen, Germany
Curated by Rebecca Partridge and Bettina v. Dziembowski - an exhibition looking at contemporary artists working with ideas of the romantic and landscape.
Ulysses, l’Autre Mer 2013 - FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France
A group show built around idea of the sea including: Eric Baudelaire, Berdaguer & Péjus, Ursula Biemann,
Balthazar Burkhard, Jocelyn Cottencin, Elie Cristiani, Tacita
Dean, Gérard Deschamps, herman de vries, Marcel Dinahet,
Philippe Durand, Anne Durez, Laurent Duthion, Simon
Faithfull, Christelle Familiari, Harrell Fletcher, nicolas Floc’h,
Mark Geffriaud, Raymond Hains, Richard Hamilton, Ron
Haselden, Guillaume Janot, Emma Kay, Sharon Kivland,
Stéphane Le Mercier, Benoît Laffiché, natacha Lesueur, Penny
McCarthy, Alexandre Ponomarev, Paola Salerno, Yvan
Salomone, Jean-Michel Sanejouand, Sarkis, Alain Séchas,
Allan Sekula, Yann Sérandour, Bruno Serralongue, Esther
Shalev-Gerz, Robert Smithson, olivier Tourenc, Sébastien
Vonier
Wanderings 2013 - Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Art, Bath University
Wanderings was in two parts; the first presented the project 'An Expanding of Subjectivity' consisting of 900+ drawings a live printer that then added to this number as when Faithfull made a drawing. The second presented the Video work Going Nowhere2 (a walk through a landscape at the bottom of the sea and series proposals for equally mad-cap schemes.
as well
Des Mondes Possibles 2013 - FRAC Franche-Comté, France
The opening exhibition of the new space for the FRAC Franche-Comte (France). The exhibition was a selection from the FRAC's collection including: Micol Assaël, Richard Baquié, Rosa Barba, Neal Beggs, Nina Beier, Julien Berthier, Etienne Bossut, Robert Breer, Alain Bublex, Balthasar Burkhard, James Lee Byars, Manon De Boer, Philippe Decrauzat, Silvie Defraoui, Simon Faithfull, Mario Garcia Torres, Shilpa Gupta, Jung Hee Choi, Julius Koller, Suzanne Lafont, Vincent Lamouroux, Didier Marcel, Gianni Motti, Jean-Christophe Norman, Hans Schabus, Gregor Schneider, Georgina Starr, Laurent Tixador, Raphaël Zarka
Fake Moon 2013 - In Between Time Festival, Bristol, UK
A intervention in the night sky for 'In Between Time' live art festival in Bristol.Fake moon was a perplexing apparition - an intense, diffuse ball of light slowly tracing an arc across the city's sky.
Shy Fountain - A Fountain That Only Exists When No-one Is There 2013 - Cannon's Marsh, Harbourside, Bristol, UK
A permanent public artwork for Bristol Harbour-side, UK. The piece consists of an interactive artwork - a fountain that the viewer might glimpse in the distance but as they try to approach the fountain disappears like a startled animal.
An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity 2012 - Pheonix Arts Centre Leicester, UK
A solo exhibition presenting 900+ drawings from the 'An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity ' project, the specially commissioned 1000+ page bookwork also called 'An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity' an installation using the plate glass of building and the short animated film '13'.
An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity 2012 - ArtConnexion, Lille, France
A solo exhibition presenting 900+ drawings from the 'An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity ' project and the specially commissioned 1000+ page bookwork also called 'An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity'
An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity 2011 - National Museum, Berlin, Germany
A solo exhibition presenting 900+ drawings from the 'An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity ' project.
Secret Satellites 2011 - BELFAST EXPOSED PHOTOGRAPHY, The Exchange Place, 23 Donegall Street, Belfast, BT1 2FF, Northern Ireland
Exhibition of work by 4 artists which explores our connection to space and the orbital environment.
Going Nowhere: Simon Faithfull 2011 - Parker's Box 193 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY 11211, USA
An exhibition bringing together two recent works: 0º00 Navigation and Going Nowhere 2 as well proposals and drawings.
Lines Fiction 2011 - Fruehsorge | Galerie für Zeichnung | Contemporary Drawings, Heidestr. 46-52 (Gebäude 6) 10557 Berlin, Germany
A group exhibition bringing together the work of 6 artists who work with drawing and animation.
Several Interruptions: 15 Years of the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art 2011 - North Lodge, Gower Street, UCL
Seven, sequential solo presentations to celebrate 15 years of the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art in 2011. One work exhibited: 'Each Long Second' 2006, (880 x 850 cms, A0 photocopies, tape) a double-sided paper representation of the imagined flow of internet information, made to be endlessly manipulated and re-configured to produce different three dimensional maps/representations of virtual space.
Liverpool to Liverpool 2010 - Liverpool Lime St Station, Lime Street Liverpool, UK L1 1JD, UK
Traveling by container-ship, train and bus, 181 digital drawings record the daily details of a journey from Liverpool (UK) to Liverpool (Nova Scotia). Making an average of six drawings a day, the minutia and randomness of travel is described in a way that builds to become an elliptic graphic essay - describing the dislocation of one person along the historic paths of trade and exodus. The permanent public A permanent artwork for the city of Liverpool was unveiled in 2010 - the drawings etched into the paving and glass of a new public site at the centre of Liverpool (UK).
Simon Faithfull: Recent Findings 2010 - Harris Museum, Preston, UK
A survey exhibition that brought together a selection of Faithfull's video works, drawings, installation and proposals from the previous 4 years.
Voyages Extraordinaires - Simon Faithfull & Christoph Keller 2010 - CRAC Alsace, France
Two parallel solo exhibitions presenting the work of two artists who use travel and exploration as themes within their practice.
Gravity Sucks 2009 - British Film Institute Gallery, 21 Stephen Street London W1T 1LN, UK
An exhibition that brings together for the first time the complete Escape Vehicles series - made over a period of 10 years from 1995 - 2006.
Wunderland 2009 - SKULPTURENPARK BERLIN_ZENTRUM KUNSTrePUBLIK e.V. Köpenicker Str. 36-38 10179 Berlin, Germany
Mobile Research Station no.1 - one of six sculpture commissions for the Skulpturenpark Berlin Centrum.
Schwerelos 2009 - Haus am Waldsee, Ort Internationaler Gegenwartskunst, Argentinische Allee 30, 14163 Berlin, Germany
In Transit: Launch of the Love/Hate Arts Trail 2008 - North Kensington, London
Simon Faithfull - Video Works 2008 - Galerie Polaris, Paris
An exhibition bringing together three video works by the artist Simon Faithfull.
Ice Blink 2006 - Parker's Box 193 Grand St. Brooklyn, NY 11211, USA
An exhibition presenting the body of work made on a two month journey to Antarctica traveling with the British Antarctic Survey on an Arts Council fellowship.
Ice Blink 2006 - Cell Project Space, 258 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA, UK
An exhibition presenting the body of work made on a two month journey to Antarctica traveling with the British Antarctic Survey on an Arts Council fellowship.
Ice Blink 2006 - Stills Gallery, Edinburgh
An exhibition presenting the body of work made on a two month journey to Antarctica traveling with the British Antarctic Survey on an Arts Council fellowship.
Antarctica Despatches 2004 - Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow
30km 2004 - Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK
Video installation of the work '30km' - the video footage recording a journey from a face to the edge of space.
Hybrid 2003 - Art Space, Imperial College London
Bag Lady 2003 - Cell Project Space, London
30km 2003 - Wollaton Hall, Nottingham
Art for the people (a collaborative project) 2003 - www.marketforces.org
Dreamland 2003 - Turner Centre, Margate, Kent
The Map is Not The Territory III 2003 - James Hockey Gallery, Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Surrey
13 Messages - Work Commissioned By Low-fi For DMZ Media Arts Festival, Limehouse Town Hall, London, 11 Nov - 23 Nov 2003 -
'Le monde est tout ce qui est' - GRANDE HALLE
The OVNi – edition 2022 statement is an imaginary of the possibilities of follies as places and ideas. The proposal « The world is all that is », which is deployed in the Grande Halle of 109-Pôle de cultures contemporaines, is a collective layout that is part of a critical relationship between humans being and the Earth and the biological.
Far from an inventory, the artistic projects presented share some conceptual experiments of our environment and its ability to absorb disorder. Artworks formalized thinking nature or the devouring of this one and refer to organic or inorganic, floral, mineral, aquatic or aerial vulnerabilities. Works also relate the hypotheses of a balance between the environments, the resources and the presence of the living beings.
Philosophers and scientists agree on this Zone of Uncertainty that we have just penetrated. They say the disruptions resulting from the interactions of the technosphere on the biosphere. They talk about the metasystems born from the New Technologies and their hybrid forms. But when they tell us that « 90 % of the vegetal biodiversity has been able to operate the greatest conquest of the terrestrial space » they also tell us about the resilience of the living.