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Exhibitions & Events Timetable 2011

Opening Times:

Monday - Friday 09:00 - 17:30
Saturday by appointment

Admission Free

Current Exhibition:

Stephen Carter: Reading Between the Lines
5th Jan - 1st Feb 2012
Private View 5th Jan 6:00-8:30pm

READING BETWEEN THE LINES
A retrospective of paintings by Stephen Carter (b.1949)
focusing on the period of 1995-2011, curated by Sebastian Craig.

In 1995 Stephen Carter made his first newspaper painting; a one-to-one scale representation, using black rectangles and white gutters, of the structured layout of information on the page of a daily newspaper. This was to be the first work in a series which would occupy Carter’s practice for the next 5 years. The early paintings present different incarnations of the systematic graphic structure favoured by newspaper editors; they stop short of revealing the conceptual play between types of information and limit themselves to the purely spatial typologies of print upon pages. By the end of the 1990s Carter had introduced the 5-colour palette by which his painting at the turn of the millennium may be characterized. Following the same structural system as the earlier works, a colour code was now implemented: white to represent areas of editorial text, blue for editorial images, red for areas of advertising and yellow for what Carter calls narcissism (a self-referential editorial-cum-advertising text which it was not possible to classify definitively as either advertising or editorial), gutters between information fields were painted grey. The choice of these colours hints at one of Carter’s ongoing conceits - a feud between high and low culture. Displaying the colour palate of De Stijl, the paintings seem to advocate the austerity of a purely aesthetic endeavor, however each work represents a snap-shot of a cheap and disposable product of mass-culture which might be said to be a snap-shot, albeit fragmentary, of the culture itself at a given moment.

Culture is not a static or even sedentary prey, it perpetually alters its shape and at best can be grasped in the form of trends or patterns which can be predicted, created and then documented, all of which activities take place through the communications industries including the media and the arts. At what point the boundaries of the one activity bleed into another is a matter of ethical concern with regards to who is being served and who is being manipulated. Design in the mass media is a tool put to many uses although its fundamental function is to deliver, in a particular way, a particular segment of content. Whilst designers may also attempt to influence content, in the mass-media it is more common for content to arrive pre-formed upon the designer’s desk for him or her to arrange. There is a clear duality, that of the signifier and the signified, between the concept and the form of its dispersal. Begun immediately after the turn of the millennium, Carter’s series, known as the word paintings, revels in exactly this duality. In short the process of production is as follows: Carter enters a newsagent’s shop or stands before a newsstand and either takes note of every word he can see printed upon the front covers of the publications there displayed, or photographs the newsstand to carry out the process at leisure in his studio. These words are then compiled and laid out upon the surface of a single painting. These paintings could again be described as a record of a moment in cultural history as displayed by the headlining words, designed to be most visible, appearing across a fairly broad sample of mass-culture’s products available on a given day. However, they also cut through the sample and, in the manner of Burroughs’ cut-up novels, reveal a subtle system at work in the arranging together of separate items of information in the field of vision (the suspicion that Carter had in fact discovered a system and was putting it to dastardly effect caused the painter to be detained on suspicion of being a spy during an outing in the late nineties to a newsstand to collect his source material in the manner described above). It is clear that the arrangement of information, both within a single source and between sources, be it arbitrary or deeply controlled, is vital to the way in which we, as readers, interpret meaning from the available content. Should a newsstand shelf-stacker casually place his copies of The Times in front of his copies of The Daily Star it is probable that only tiny fragments of information from the cover behind will penetrate the mind of a disinterested viewer, and his arrangement of publications will surely be self-interested in terms of his shelf space and a product’s profitability as well as being subject to his individual process of classification and a certain level of chance.

A dichotomy which could be said to be the essence of human society is the struggle between ideology and its application. Aristotle termed this struggle praxis, referring to the varied interferences which arise during the action necessary to turn theory into practice. Pivotal ideas cannot always find their way into the main stream of daily life as they are simply not compatible with the pragmatic self-interested concerns of individual free citizens. For example - plans for a new wind power station, which would power millions of homes with clean energy for decades may be overthrown due to the media savvy protest of a handful of outraged local business owners - this type of circumstance colours every aspect of our society and its endeavors. By 2004, almost a decade after beginning the newspaper paintings, Carter, perhaps realizing the wider implications of his method, turned away from the mass media and focused both his theoretical attention and artistic practice on another grand and monumental document of mankind’s industry - the fabric of the city. The urban planner, and on a smaller scale the architect, is tasked with the role of constructing, arranging and editing the built environment and infrastructure that our civilization envisages for itself and subsequently demands, reconciling the top-down concerns of governmental strategies for funding and regulation with the practical demands of users on the ground. Carter’s architectural paintings of the last decade return to the process he began in the early nineties. Humbly reducing the elements in his field of vision to their constituent outlines and arrangements, Carter is engaged once again in a procedure of stripping back the surface noise in order to catalogue the structures beneath, so that over time when the noise is carefully replaced, we are better able to comprehend that upon which it hangs.

Power Games
6th Feb - 23rd Feb 2012
Special Performance: Friday 17th Feb 7:30-8:30pm
Private View: 9th Feb 6:00-8:30pm

POWER GAMES
Photographic projects by Matthew Fagg & Paula Gortazar
'Sur La Surface' - A special site-specific dance performance choreographed by Artémise Ploegaerts

Power Games brings together two new photographic projects which reveal an aesthetic & cultural thread running through 1980’s design.

Fagg’s memorial documentary photographs of early 80’s game-playing technology show the machines in a space of lifeless homage. These obsolete consoles fascinated the warlike urges of children with legendary games of interplanetary battle. The users of these machines are now in their thirties or forties, their destructive childhood drives have hopefully matured, equipping them for our daily power struggles. Fagg’s images reveal a natural melancholia - sentiment for a time before adult responsibilities affected our social, political and corporate decisions. The aesthetic of these design objects hinted at a futuristic technological dystopia and represent the fantasies of a unique period in western culture, which appeared in the film, literature and product design of the period.

Gortazar’s inventory of the interior design of the European Parliament buildings, particularly the Espace Léopold (design led by Michel Boucquillon, 1988-9), reveals a design centred on the same visual reference points forming the backdrop of our multi-state governmental machine. Vorticist angles and acres of industrially produced materials appear as scaled up version of the gaming machines produced a few years before. In this building data is processed, national muscles flexed and armies controlled in the game of ideological and economic world domination, but the civilization which these systems serve has again moved on whilst the building itself stands still, awaiting the outcomes of some recent developments.

These projects present the remnants of a human will-to-power via the machines of an obsolete period in which humans refused to conceive of, whilst perpetually envisioning and acting out, the collapse of their civilization following massive attack. As the millennium progressed our focus shifted and the collapse, when now envisioned, is brought about by internal weakness rather than external aggression. Whilst the early computers fade into the past and reappear in a generational retro- revival, the Espace Léopold still functions. The perpetual challenge is how to upload a new version of the functionality on top of the old hardware.
(Atari VCS 1980-2, Vectrex 1982-3, Espace Léopold 1988-93)

Paula Gortázar, Common Space, 2011 / Matt Fagg, Thinner, Faster, Lighter, 2011

Special Performance Event: To accompany the exhibition, Dreamspace presents Sous La Surface, a special site-specific dance performance choreographed by Artémise Ploegaerts. In a restructuring of accepted archetypes of control and observation, dancers in Ploegaerts’ performance will occupy the same space as the audience whilst the choreographer – usually hidden from view – exposes herself centre-stage. Under the scrutiny of all, Ploegearts will control the dancers via remote control by making alterations to a stage set in front of her, responding to unpredictable events on the ground but always with a master-plan in view.

DESIGN 2012
6th March - 15th March 2012
Private View: 8th March 6:00-8:30pm

Call For Submissions: Dreamspace Gallery | The Architecture + Design Centre

Design 2012 is the next instalment of the Dreamspace Gallery open survey of contemporary design practice which is a new annual event at Dreamspace. The exhibition will represent the broadest possible range of recent design projects emerging from the UK, covering all design disciplines including architecture, furniture, product design, urban design, graphic design and design interactions. All designers from any discipline, and at any stage in their careers, are welcome to submit work to the exhibition. Visual artists and cultural theorists engaged in the design debate are also encouraged to submit recent work - objects, products, drawings, texts and films are all welcomed.

The exhibition will be held at Dreamspace Gallery in East London from March 6th – 15th 2012.
The Private View will be held on Thursday March 8th 6-8:30pm.

Founded in 2007, Dreamspace is an exhibition, events and informal education space in London focused on representing current ideas, work and research in the fields of architecture, design and urbanism. Dreamspace gallery aims to channel the creative energy from the art and design community into worthy social causes and provide a stimulating forum for architects, designers and the public.

Submission Deadline: January 31st 2012
We aim to include all submissions in the exhibition in March (given available space).
All submissions will be included online (see below).

Please send images of the work you wish to submit by post or email with this application form and the submission fee of £12 per person (up to 5 submissions).

NAME*:
EMAIL*:
PHONE NUMBER*:
PROJECT TITLES / MATERIALS / DIMENTIONS / YEAR*:
ADDRESS*:
WEBSITE:
COMPANY:
DATE OF BIRTH:
EDUCATION (course / college):
(*Essential)

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST:
•Completed Application Form
by post to: Dreamspace Gallery Open, 3 Dufferin Street, London, EC1Y 8NA or email: info@dreamspacegallery.org

•Up to 5 images of work/s for submission
by post to: Dreamspace Gallery Open, 3 Dufferin Street, London, EC1Y 8NA or email: info@dreamspacegallery.org

•Submission fee is £12 (£10+VAT)
Please send a cheque payable to ADREM GRP LTD.
with your application form to Dreamspace Gallery, 3 Dufferin Street, London, EC1Y 8NA
Alternatively please make payment via online banking using your name as a payment reference:
HSBC Sort Code: 40-04-09 Account Number: 51869302
IBAN:GB93MIDL40040951869302 BIC:MIDLGB2106D

(Dreamspace Gallery is an educational social enterprise maintained by donations and sponsorship)

We will do our very best to include all submissions in the exhibition (given available space).
(If far too many submissions are received we will schedule a second exhibition later in the year).
All submissions will be included online.
NB. We reserve the right to refuse submissions which we consider to be offensive or unlawful.
Important Info:
Submission Deadline: 5:30pm January 31st 2012
Confirmation of inclusion: February 1st 2012

Exhibition Dates: March 6th – 15th 2012
Private View: March 8th 18:00-20:30
Exhibition Address: Dreamspace Gallery, 3 Dufferin Street, London, EC1Y 8NA, UK
Gallery Opening Times: Monday-Friday 09:00-17:30
Gallery Website: www.dreamspacegallery.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dreamspacegallery
All work must be delivered and collected:
Drop off/Deliver Work: Friday 2nd March (09:30-17:00) or Monday 5th March 2012 (09:30-12:00)
Collect Work: Friday 16th March 2012 (09:30-17:30) (unfortunately uncollected work cannot be stored by the gallery)

Insurance: Dreamspace Gallery is locked and alarmed out of hours; however Dreamspace provides no insurance cover for items on display or in storage at the gallery and damage or theft cannot be reimbursed. We must advise clients to arrange their own insurance cover if insurance is required.

If you’d like to discuss your submission before sending it or for further info contact Sebastian, 0207 562 8282 / info@dreamspacegallery.org