David Claerbout
the time that remains
31 May–10 August 2012
Preview: 30 May, 6.30–9pm
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art
14 Wharf Road
London N1 7RW
Hours:
Monday: by prior arrangement
Tuesday–Saturday, 10–6pm
First Thursday of every month until 9pm
Sunday, 12–5pm.
Admission is free.
T + 44 (0) 207 490 7373
Dedicated to the filmic works of Belgian artist David Claerbout, this exhibition features pieces he has made since the year 2000. It is Claerbout’s first solo show in a public London gallery.
As one of the most innovative and acclaimed artists of his generation working with moving image, Claerbout has created a striking body of works within which the media of film and photography appear to co-exist.
Claerbout’s works often depict some everyday activity or event that seems to be the subject of the work, but as time passes we as viewers face a dilemma in how to decipher the artist’s intention. The works not only alter our established understanding of time and the narrative process but also our notions of reality, illusion, and the relationship between them.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive publication, co-produced with WIELS, Brussels, distributed by Ludion.
Related events
Thursday 21 June, 7pm
Beholding Video: Motion in the Picture Gallery
David Campany will reflect on the moving image in the picture gallery, in the context of David Claerbout: the time that remains, Parasol unit’s current exhibition. What relations are there between beholding pictures and beholding ‘motion pictures’? Can pictures move and still be pictures? David Campany is a writer, curator, and artist. His books include Art and Photography (Phaidon, 2003), Photography and Cinema (Reaktion, 2008) and Jeff Wall: Picture for Women (Afterall/MIT, 2011). He writes for Frieze, Source, and Aperture. In 2010 he co-curated Anonymes: unnamed America in Photography and Film for Le Bal, Paris.
Sunday 24 June, 2:30–4pm
Sunday Workshop for young people: Investigating Time through Video
This workshop, led by local artist educator Alexandra Hughes, will explore the notion of ‘time’ in video through the current exhibition by David Claerbout. Participants will create a collaborative video work that documents a journey through the gallery and terrace exploring the passage of time, which will be transferred on to DVD for all the attendees to take home. This event is most suitable for 14–18-year-olds.
Free (donations welcome).
Thursday 5 July, 6–9pm
Contemporary Music at Parasol: part of First Thursdays and East End Night, special event at 7pm
Acclaimed violist Stephen Upshaw and violinist Jordan Hunt will perform a new composition, composed by Hunt, in response to Parasol unit’s current exhibition of work by David Claerbout. A recognised interpreter of contemporary music, Stephen Upshaw has worked with some of today’s most important living composers (Julian Anderson, Christian Wolff, Helmut Lachenmann), performing in the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Barbican Hall and Theatre, and Vienna’s Schönberg Centre, among others. Jordan Hunt is a composer, performer, and musician whose work often crosses artistic horizons of music, dance, and theatre. Recent collaborations include works with Nick Knight (Hermès campaign), Fiona Shaw (Young Vic), Theo Adams (TATE Britain / Louis Vuitton / Frieze / ICA), and Matthew Stone (Royal Academy).
www.stephenupshaw.com / www.jordan-hunt.com.
Free
Thursday 12 July, 7pm
Artist Talk: David Claerbout in conversation with David Green
Exhibiting artist David Claerbout will be in conversation with David Green, Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Contemporary Art at Brighton University. This will be a unique opportunity to gain an insight into David Claerbout’s practice and the themes and concerns of the exhibition. Green has made major contributions to the debates that fundamentally re-orientated the ways in which photography was analysed as a result of the impact of post-structuralist theory. A founding member of Photoforum, Green is currently engaged in research into theories of photographic indexicality, the phenomenology of sound, and the moving image in the context of the gallery, as well as pursuing a longer term project into the intersections of photography and painting in art since the 1960s.
Thursday 26 July, 7pm
Intercapillary Places, Poetry at Parasol: CODED HISTORIES (part of Islington Exhibits)
John Armstrong – A talk on Entropy, passwords, and the history of code
John Seed – A poetry reading investigating historical documents
The spaces of the city are coded and password protected—socially, historically, and through contemporary technology. A mathematician who works on coding and a poet who uses poetry to investigate and unlock the documents of the past will consider how coded histories can be unpacked and how we can think more clearly about the ‘code/space’ around us.
John Armstrong is a mathematician and software architect currently lecturing at King’s College London while researching differential geometry. John Seed teaches History at Roehampton University in London. He works on religious dissenters in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England. His book on eighteenth-century historiography, public memory, and politics—Dissenting Histories—was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2008.
Parasol unit participates in First Thursdays—late-night art and events in East London that take place on the first Thursday of every month. The foundation will be open on the first Thursday of June, July, and August, 6–9pm.
About Parasol unit
Founded in December 2004, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is a registered educational charity in England and Wales and a not-for-profit institution that operates purely for the public benefit. Every year the foundation organises four thought-provoking exhibitions of works in various media by contemporary artists, and also sets up a variety of other artistic projects. Each exhibition is accompanied by a publication and related educational events. The foundation does not bear the founder’s name, and its exhibitions are not derived from the founder’s collection. Admission to exhibitions is free of charge.
Parasol unit operates like publicly funded institutions in London. Currently about 60% of the funding is provided by the founder and 40% through Gift Aid, charitable organisations, private donations, and the sale of merchandise. The exhibition space has been put at the disposal of the foundation free of charge by the founder. Thanks to this new model between private funding and public support one of London’s most vibrant contemporary art spaces has come to exist.
*Image above:
David Claerbout, The Quiet Shore, 2011. Single channel video projection, black & white, silent, 36:32 minute loop. Courtesy Lilian and Billy Mauer. © David Claerbout.
