Beck’s Futures 2005
18 March – 15 May
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
The Mall, London SW1
T +44 (0)20 7930 3647
F +44 (0)20 7306 0122
info [at] ica.org.uk
www.ica.org.uk
www.becksfutures.co.uk
‘The Beck’s award has always delighted in the role of the art world’s upstartbut this year’s entries show a move towards a more serious tone.’ – The Independent
Prepare to be seduced; to be intrigued and provoked, to participate in an exhibition that transcends artistic boundaries and triggers the senses through entirely unexpected means. Beck’s Futures 2005 contains melancholy, memory, desire; a whiff of a graveyard scent barely imagined; a study of madness and method, of music and genius; a trail of extraordinary almost forgotten ideas that lead to questions unanswerable; film projections of exquisite dreamy utopias, spatial exploration of anxiousness and breakthrough, and a sexy take on medieval mystery plays
Beck’s Futures 2005 opens at the ICA, London from 18 March – 15 May and will subsequently travel to the CCA, Glasgow from 28 May -July. The six short listed artists share a prize fund of 40,000 GBP and the overall winner – to be announced at a gala awards evening on 26 April – will receive an additional 20,000 GBP.
This year’s participants are: Lali Chetwynd, Luke Fowler, Ryan Gander, Christina Mackie, Daria Martin and Donald Urquhart. Individual, distinct and varied as these six are they share a common resistance to neat categorisation and a tendency to experiment with forms and genre. Often bravely self-exposing and darkly macabre, the exhibition too boasts humour and flamboyance whilst collectively eschewing hi-tech processes for a refreshing concentration on craft.
In the Lower Gallery, LUKE FOWLER will show two films on DVD. What you see is where you’re at (2001) follows the controversial Kinsley Hall experiment set up by maverick psychoanalyst, RD Laing and the Philadelphia Association to offer an alternative place of refuge and treatment for those in an advanced state of psychosis. The Way Out, (2003) has as its focus the influential, highly eccentric, underground musician, Xentos Jones. What distinguishes Fowler’s work is an intensely subjective yet unprescriptive presentation of material. His structure follows the peculiarities of the subject matter, chasing thought processes, building layers of personality and information in an abstract, highly effective way. LALI CHETWYND will stage a specially designed performance for this exhibition entitled, Debt, (2005) that uses, as its starting point, a reworking of medieval mystery plays. Chetwynd’s characteristically baroque paintings as well as flamboyant sculptural pieces will remain on permanent display. DONALD URQUHART has conceived for BECK’S FUTURES 2005 ‘an exhibition of olfactory delight’ stimulating a sense not usually called upon in the context of an art gallery. For Another Graveyard, (2004-5) he has created a unique perfume, Darnley, that supports his piece’s sense of loss, grief and memory, whilst evoking another age, a past associated not only unresolved longing but a preserved perfection.
In the Upper Galleries, RYAN GANDER will show selected pieces from his An incomplete History of Ideas (2003 – ongoing). A recreated Bauhaus chess set, made from near extinct zebra wood, a sculptural wall-based installation composed of layers of fly posters which arcs gracefully from the wall under its own weight; a comic-art pictorial representation of being hit over the head, a call to participate in a game of giant literary consequences – all hint at endless conceptual and narrative possibilities. CHRISTINA MACKIE shares this gallery space and has created a haunting installation composed of two free-standing pieces entitled Version 2: part 1, (2003) and incorporating slide and video projection. As well as attempting to ‘describe a sensation’, to create a landscape of emotion, these works continue Mackie’s interest in spatial relationships and the way that meaning can be amplified and transformed through construction and placing. DARIA MARTIN appropriates the other upper gallery space to create a suitably intimate environment for the presentation of her 16mm film, Closeup Gallery (2004). Part of a trilogy that explores artifice and illusion, fantasy and reality, this film portrays the ambiguous relationship between a sleight-of-hand card trickster and his female apprentice. Aesthetically, the film draws strongly on modernist art movements to create a hauntingly lyrical visual style.
This year’s selection was made by an international panel, consisting of artists: Wolfgang Tillmans and Cerith Wyn Evans; curators Jessica Morgan, Louise Neri and Beatrix Ruf.
“Beck’s futures 2005 will be the most surprising, most playful and most serious exhibition yet in the history of this award. It is a unique opportunity to view works by the defining voices of the younger generation of artists working in the UK today. Melancholy meets the grotesque, conceptualism confronts the romantic, the abstract joins the documentary – a perfect mirror of today’s diverse range of artistic production. All of the six artists offer a highly individual and iconoclastic approache to the understanding of contemporary art.” Jens Hoffmann, ICA Director of Exhibitions and Chairman of this year’s BECK’S FUTURES Panel
“We are especially proud to reveal the exhibition for this year’s Beck’s Futures, which comprises a wide range of extraordinary work. It is thought provoking, diverse and fully encompasses the spirit of Beck’s Futures. We are delighted that lovers of contemporary art in both the London area and Scotland will have this opportunity to see and appreciate the work by some of the best up and coming artists and student film makers currently based in the UK.” Sharon Annette, Marketing Manager for Beck’s in the UK
The short list for the BECK’S FUTURES STUDENT PRIZE FOR FILM AND VIDEO will be shown from 8 – 11 April. Showcasing the best in film and video from art and film schools throughout the UK, this years selection was chosen by filmmaker, LYNNE RAMSAY and photographer and publisher, RANKIN. The winner and runners up will be announced at the BECK’S FUTURES 2005 awards night and presented with prize monies worth a total of 5,000 GBP.
SHORTLISTED ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES:
LALI CHETWYND (Painting/performance)
Born 1973, London. Based in London.
Slade School of Fine Art, London Royal College of Art, London
Gallery Representation: Millers Terrace
‘astoundingher performance pieces have included characters from Jabba the Hutt, to Brecht to giant carrots’ – The Independent on Sunday
Lali Chetwynd is increasingly visible as an artist and known for her baroque-style performances. Chetwynd’s paintings and performances fundamentally explore extreme human expression. Often using familiar audio-visual references like Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ she produces highly idiosyncratic collages which evoke a vibrant sense of carnival and burlesque.
Lali has also this year been nominated for a Times/South Bank Show 2005 Breakthrough award. Her recent solo exhibitions include ‘Born Free’, at the re-launch of Gasworks, London in 2004 and ‘Bat Opera’, Millers Terrace, London (2004). She has also participated in a large number of group exhibitions, most recently ‘Year Zero’, NGCA Sunderland (2004) and ‘New Contemporaries’ (2004) at the Liverpool Biennial and Barbican Gallery, London.
LUKE FOWLER (Film)
Born 1978, Glasgow, Scotland. Based in Glasgow
Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee
Gallery Representation: The Modern Institute, Glasgow
‘..has forged a free-wheeling, polymath practice that takes in everythin gfrom film-making to magazine publishing , via live music performance and multimedia collaborations’ – Scottish Sunday Herald
‘bamboozles us into doubting anything and everything’ – ID Magazine
Luke Fowler works with documentary forms to produce his own densely layered, intensely subjective films. Works such as What you see is where you’re at (2001), uses period footage as a starting point to explore controversial social experimentation – an important theme in Fowler’s work, whilst The Way Out (2003) examines the underground music figure Xentos Jones.
Luke lives and works in Glasgow where he runs Shadazz, a multi media platform for collaborative artworks and has gained much acclaim for his music and performance-based collaborations. He has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions at Transmission, Glasgow -The Social Engineer, Generator, Dundee and TART, San Francisco. In addition to participating in ‘Manifesta 4′ where he showcased What you see is where you’re at and Electric Earth, a British Council touring show, he was one of a number of Scottish artists included in Zenomap at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.
RYAN GANDER (Multi-disciplinary)
Born 1976, Chester. Based in London.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, Rijksacademie, Amsterdam
Gallery Representation: Store Gallery, London & Annet Gelink, Amsterdam
‘If you have seen more than two pieces of my work then you’ll know that the next thing is likely to be completely different’
‘Gander works across all media with the single goal of provoking debate’ – The Independent
Ryan Gander’s work belies singular categorisation as he works across installation, advertisements, music, speech and literature to provoke and inspire dialogue; to make the familiar unfamiliar and vice versa. His often esoteric pieces amplify their circumstances, sometimes by exaggerating ready-made things, sometimes by providing a shuttered viewpoint to steer a perspective.
Ryan Gander has most recently been awarded the Arts Council of England International Fellowship and has exhibited in the U.S and throughout England and Europe. Recent solo shows include the Cornerhouse, Manchester, ‘But it was all green’, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, and ‘The Death of Abbe Faria’, Stedelijk Museum Bureau. The 2003 prix de Rome catalogue characterizes Ganders style as a “minimal, barely expressive visual language”, whilst Jelle Bouwhuis has speculated that Gander’s work shares something both aesthetically and emotionally with the recent British situation -comedy ‘The Office’. DARIA MARTIN (Film)
Born 1973, USA. Based in London
BA Hons, Yale University, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, University of California, Los Angeles
Gallery Representation: None
‘The line beween fine art and film is becoming ever more distorted and it’s a boundary that Daria Martin has crossed with ease.’ – The Telegraph
Daria Martin uses the medium of film to reveal and explore thematic polarities. Reality versus illusion, stasis versus movement, modernity and romanticism are just some of the tensions explored in her work. Her film-making is a purposeful mix of the sophisticated and the crude. Drawing on a rich source of philosophical and artistic theory whilst eschewing technological advances, her films aim to overtly seduce the viewer into a dreamy ‘virtual reality’. Daria says, “My films are like magic acts that show how the trick is done”. One of her films Birds, shot in 16mm, playfully recalls moments in fashion history and uses dance and tableaux alternately to covey the aspirations and failures of cultural movements. CHRISTINA MACKIE (Sculptural installation)
Born 1956, Oxford. Based in London
Vancouver School of Art, Vancouver & St. Martins School of Art, London
Gallery Representation: None
‘[Her] work suggests new artistic attitudes in which indeterminancy, resistance and the convergence of multiple spheres of experience are the new creative conditions for understanding space and the way we inhabit it’ – Artplus.com
Christina Mackie has participated in an impressive array of group and solo shows. Her work engages with proximity and interconnectedness, explores spatial relationships and is characterised by the use of disparate elements, kept separate but linked and given new meaning by her placing and assembly. The objects she employs are specifically made and are intentionally detachable and complete in themselves. Pieces such as Xing show a concern with indeterminacy, resistance and the urge to understand the way we inhabit space.
Christina was born in Oxford before moving to Canada where she spent her childhood in the 1960s and ’70′s. She has had a number of solo shows, including The Interzone, Henry Moore Foundation (2002), Meanwhile, CCA Kitakyushu, Japan (2000) and more recently at Magnani, in London. Group exhibitions include Real World, Modern Art Oxford (2004) and Animations, PS1 New York / Kunstwerke, Berlin (2002/3).
DONALD URQUHART (Drawing / installation/performance)
Born 1963. Based in London
Dumfries Academy, Dumfries
Gallery Representation: Herald Street/Interim Art
‘Urquhart’s distinctive, often satirical ink works blend Victoriana and Walt Disney with popular icons, Goya, Homo-eroticism, Nazis and Mary Poppins’ – Scotland on Sunday
‘Urquhart has created and exhibition of olfactory delight’ – The Independent
Donald Urquhart first gained public attention through his legendary ’90′s high camp cabaret night ‘The Beautiful Bend’, but it was his distinctive cartoon-like black ink drawings used as flyers and as wall decoration, skilfully transcending their environment whilst being simultaneously perfectly and autonomously contextualised, that brought him critical acclaim and his first exhibition. The works drew on an array of subjects satirically subverting historical and pop-cultural motifs and placing him firmly within a contemporary sociological context. A further exhibition, ‘Listen to the wine’, embraces the highs and lows of glamour, hedonism, excess and reveals (in his words) “the wonderful horror of alcohol” by contriving a heroism as counterpart the tragedy of his subjects. The ambivalent iconic strength of Urquhart’s imagery both intrigues and leads towards unexpected revelations and clarity.
SELECTION PANEL:
Wolfgang Tillmans: Turner Prize-winner Wolfgang Tillmans was born in Germany in 1968. He studied at Bournemouth & Poole Collage of Art & Design, and has since gone on to become one of the most distinctive and important young photographers currently living and working in the UK. Starting his UK career in fashion photography for magazines such as i-D and The Face, his photography has a spontaneous, snap-shot aesthetic. Often choosing to display his pictures pinned or taped to walls, as ink jet prints, or pages pulled from magazines, his work blurs the boundaries between fine art and commercial photography. Despite a continuing fascination with the still image, Tillmans also works with video, recently collaborating with the Pet Shop Boys on a music video, and making a large-scale video installation, Lights (Body) 2000-2. He was awarded the Turner Prize in 2000.
Cerith Wyn Evans: Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1984 and began his career as a video/filmmaker working as an assistant to the film director Derek Jarman. He went on to make a number of short experimental films and music videos for pop bands such as The Smiths and The Fall. Wyn Evans was also a tutor for six years at the Architectural Association. During the 1990s, he consolidated an international reputation as an artist unafraid to embrace highly complex conceptual issues of communication and perception, with dense textual references invariably spliced with a poetically tongue-in-cheek dandyism, whether the writings of William Blake flashed in Morse code off a disco ball; a homage to Pasolini written in fireworks or the cultivation of hybrid orchids in a Parisian gallery, nourished by the artist’s own urine. He participated in the launch exhibition at The Camden Arts Centre and, in 2003 represented Wales at the Venice Biennale.
Jessica Morgan: Jessica Morgan is a curator at Tate Modern, responsible for the acclaimed exhibition, Common Wealth as well as the present exhibition Time Zones. Formerly chief curator at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Morgan is a British citizen, who worked in the US for a decade. She trained at London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, and then went to the United States for a fellowship at Yale and at Harvard, before working as a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Worcester Art Museum, and the ICA in Boston. Amongst many others, Jessica has notably curated the exhibitions of Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson and Cornelia Parker.
Louise Neri: Louise Neri began her career as the founding director of a contemporary art space, Melbourne’s 200 Gertrude Street, before training at Le Magasin, the prestigious contemporary art centre and curators school in Grenoble. After working as assistant director on Rene Block’s 1990 Sydney Biennale, she moved to New York. From 1990 until 1999, Neri was the American editor of Parkett, the contemporary art journal. Neri has also edited books on Juan Munoz, Paul Thek and Rachel Whiteread, wrote the principal essay for Phaidon’s book on Roni Horn, and is increasingly visible as a curator. She co-curated the 1997 Whitney Biennial with Lisa Phillips, produced Tony Oursler’s son et lumiere for London with Artangel in 2000, and was on the curatorial team for the 2001 Sao Paulo Bienal and the Biennale of Sydney in 2004.
Beatrix Ruf: Swiss curator, arts centre director and writer Beatrix Ruf was appointed Director/Curator of the prestigious Kunsthalle, Zürich in 2001, and is one of the most prominent European curators in contemporary art. Studying in Vienna, New York and Zurich, she has previously been Director/Curator of the Kunsthaus Glarus, and curator at the Kunstmuseum of the Canton of Thurgau (1994 – 1998). Since 1995 she has also curated the Ringier collection. She has organized exhibitions, written essays and published catalogues on artists such as Marina Abramovic, Liam Gillick, Urs Fischer, Keith Tyson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Monica Bonvicini, Pierre Huyghe/Philippe Parreno: (No Ghost just a Shell), Rodney Graham, Doug Aitken, Rebecca Warren, Oliver Payne & Nick Relph, and many others. She features as a guest speaker at this year’s Frieze Art Fair 2004.
BECK’S FUTURES was created in 2000 to provide UK based artists with recognition and support at a crucial stage in their development and is now regarded as one of the most contemporary and challenging of annual Arts prizes. Organised in collaboration with the ICA, BECK’S FUTURES identifies and promotes the work of the most promising contemporary artists living and working in the UK, not only through a prize fund of 65,000 GBP but also through representation at a major exhibition held at the ICA (18 March – 15 May, 2005) and then at the CCA, Glasgow (from 28 May – 10 July, 2005).
PREVIOUS WINNERS:
Since winning BECK’S FUTURES 2004, last year’s winner Saskia Olde Wolbers has had a prestigious solo show at Interim Art and is now represented by Maureen Paley, who also represents Gillian Wearing, Wolfgang Tillmans and Rebecca Warren, amongst others. Saskia has a forthcoming solo show at South London Gallery in May – June 2005.
Scottish artist Roderick Buchanan won the first BECK’S FUTURES award in 2000. In 2001 London-born artist Tim Stoner won BECK’S FUTURES. In 2002, the prize returned to Scotland with Toby Paterson, where it remained in 2003 when the prize was awarded to a third Scottish-based artist, Rosalind Nashashibi. All winners received awards of 24,000 GBP each.
BECK’S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ARTS AND 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS FOR 2005:
Beck’s Bier has supported contemporary art for 20 years, and its major expression is BECK’S FUTURES in collaboration with the ICA. The BECK’S FUTURES Awards were created in 2000 to highlight the work of a new generation of British artists, giving recognition and support to the UK’s most promising artists, at a critical point in their careers. Beck’s rich art heritage includes high profile sponsorships such as:Gilbert & George’s The Complete Pictures, Hayward, 1987 Rebecca Horn, Tate and Serpentine, 1994
Bruce Nauman retrospective, Hayward, 1998. As well as the commissioning of work: Rachel Whiteread’s House – joint commission through Beck’s and Artangel, 1992 Douglas Gordon’s Feature Film – commissioned through Beck’s and Artangel and Tony Oursler’s The Influence Machine, Soho Square, 2000, commissioned through Beck’s and Artangel
BECK’S LIMITED EDITION LABELLED BOTTLES:
To mark this years exhibition, Tim Noble and Sue Webster have recently completed a commission to create a limited edition label design for Beck’s Bier, which will be unveiled at Beck’s Futures 2005. Noble and Webster are the latest of a series of distinguished artists, including Gilbert and George, Yoko Ono, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, who have designed the label. The now famous series of Beck’s Limited Edition bottles have become highly collectable items and have taken their place in the Tate Gallery Archive.
CATALOGUE:
A fully illustrated catalogue will be available from the ICA Bookshop and then at the CCA
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
ICA Press Office: Natasha Plowright – Tel: 020 7766 1404 natashap@ica.org.uk
Emma Pettit- Tel: 020 7766 140 emmap@ica.org.uk
