Speaking Parts
16–24 May 2015
Raven Row
56 Artillery Lane
London E1 7LS
Hours: Daily for the duration of Speaking Parts, 11am–6pm
T +44 (0) 20 7377 4300
Speaking Parts is a ten-day exhibition framed by two weekends of performance. It brings together artists who weave text and language into sculpture, painting and film, as well as performance. Pushed and pulled into different forms, from poetic prose to the spoken word and scored voice, language is treated as plastic material and a medium equivalent to others, intrinsic to the structures of artistic thinking and making.
The works in the exhibition are for the most part ephemeral and makeshift, but each piece has its own temporality, from one-off performance to intermittent activation. Many of the works depend on the input of collaborators and/or audience members to be fully realised or further transformed.
A historic reference to the use of language as artistic material is celebrated during the exhibition with a homage to the British concrete poet Bob Cobbing (1920–2002), with artists, writers and musicians quoting from Cobbing’s work and invoking their own.
Artists in Speaking Parts are Brian Catling (b. 1948, UK), Michael Dean (b. 1977, UK), Natalie Häusler (b. 1983, Germany), Ewa Partum (b. 1945, Poland), Heather Phillipson (b. 1978, UK), Agnieszka Polska (b. 1985, Poland) and Giorgio Sadotti (b. 1955, UK). The exhibition is curated by Amy Budd, Exhibitions Organiser, Raven Row.
Performance programme
Friday 15 May, 6:30pm
Natalie Häusler, a reading of extracts from her poems Corals (2015) and Impressionisme (2014)
Giorgio Sadotti, performance of ANOTHER ANOTHER ANOTHER RING OF BALLS (2015)
Ewa Partum, a restaging of Active Poetry (first performed in 1971)
Wednesday 20 May, 6:30pm
Bob Cobbiiiiiiiiing Live with Brian Catling, Paula Claire, Beth Collar, Hansjörg Mayer, Hannah Silva and David Toop
Presented in association with “Make Perhaps This Out Sense of Can You: Symposium on Bob Cobbing” at Chelsea College of Arts, Thursday 21 May, 10am–5pm. Further information about the symposium here
Saturday 23 May, 6:30pm
Giorgio Sadotti, performance of ANOTHER ANOTHER ANOTHER RING OF BALLS (2015)
Agnieszka Polska and David Bernstein, a presentation of The Talking Mountain (2015) as a live action screening
Michael Dean, a reading of Untitled (You Fuck) (2014)
Brian Catling, performance of QUILL3 (2015)
Admission to the evening performances is free, however booking is essential as space is limited. Please see the Raven Row website to reserve a place.
