Nathaniel Mellors
THE TIME SURGEON
6 October – 25 November 2007
ArtSway
Station Road
Sway, nr Lymington,
Hampshire, SO41 6BA
t: +44 (0)1590 682260
mail [at] artsway.org.uk
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm
Preview and Reception for the Artist: Saturday 6 October 2007, 2pm – 5pm
Free coach from Tate Britain to Sway on 6 October, Leaving at 11.30am, returning at 7pm:
Booking essential.
ArtSway is delighted to announce The Time Surgeon, a new film-based installation from Nathaniel Mellors, co-commissioned with the Biennale dArt Contemporain de Lyon 2007. This new work was created while Nathaniel Mellors was artist in residence at ArtSway this year, and much of the film was shot on location in the New Forest. Nathaniel Mellors ArtSway residency is a partnership with the Arts Institute at Bournemouth.
The Time Surgeon is an absurdist film, partly inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) and Chris Markers La Jetée (1962), in which the central characters verbal descriptions of torture, in combination with the fast-forward and rewind buttons on his Sony portable, are enough to send his tape-bound Victim shuttling forwards and backwards in time. ‘Victim’ is steered through significant historical events, visiting 1960s New York and Renaissance France as well as Jesus’ crucifixion at Golgotha — arriving inside the body of Christ by mistake, causing the abortion of Christs conjoined ‘sensible twin’, before finally meeting GOD who requests the end of the art-work.
Nathaniel Mellors is known for his ad-hoc sculpture, psychedelic theatre and satirical films which target the question of who controls language.
Nathaniel Mellors (born Doncaster, 1974) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2001 and lives and works in London and Amsterdam. Selected solo exhibitions include Hateball at Alison Jacques Gallery (2005) and Profondo Viola, Matts Gallery (2004). He is currently resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam and will exhibit Hateball in The Present Order is the Disorder of the Future at De Hallen Haarlem this Autumn. Nathaniel Mellors was selected for a residency at ArtSway in partnership with the Arts Institute at Bournemouth’s text + work programme. text + work is publishing a full-colour publication to accompany the exhibition, entitled ‘B.OK’, and including new critical texts by Jennifer Higgie, David Evans and Martin Herbert. Nathaniel Mellors is represented by Alison Jacques Gallery, London and Matt’s Gallery, London.
For press images, interviews, and further information, please contact Laura McLean-Ferris on 01590 682260 x 16 or email laura@artsway.org.uk
Nathaniel Mellors will be in discussion with writer and critic Sally O’Reilly at ArtSway on 10 November 2007. To book a place, please contact ArtSway on +44(0)1590 682260
ArtSway and The Arts Institute at Bournemouth offered a two-month production residency with a following exhibition at ArtSway and an accompanying publication/critical text as part of the The Arts Institute at Bournemouth text + work initiative.
ArtSway is a unique place in the UK’s New Forest to see, discuss, make and engage with significant contemporary visual art from the local to the international. A purpose-built and architecturally important gallery space hosts a changing programme of exhibitions and wide ranging creative opportunities for all.
Admission is FREE.
The Arts Institute at Bournemouth is a leading specialist higher educational institution, offering undergraduate and postgraduate degrees across a range of contemporary arts, design and media subjects. Its programme of text + work promotes dialogue between innovative contemporary art and design practice and its theoretical context.
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