The prison where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated will host a major Artangel show with newly commissioned works by Wolfgang Tillmans and Ai Weiwei. Reading Prison will open to the public for the first time to host a line-up of artists, performers and writers, who will respond to the work of its best-known inmate.
Specially commissioned artworks by Tillmans, Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, Robert Gober, Steve McQueen and Jean-Michel Pancin will be installed in the prison’s corridors and cells. Existing works by Doris Salcedo, Richard Hamilton and Felix Gonzalez-Torres will also feature as part of the exhibition.
Writers will compose letters from their own direct or imagined experience of a state-imposed separation from loved ones. Ai Weiwei, Tahmima Anam, Anne Carson, Joe Dunthorne and Danny Morrison, among others, will contribute letters, and visitors will be able to listen to and read them in the prison cells. BBC Radio 4 will broadcast five of these.
Actors, writers and performers such as Ralph Fiennes, Maxine Peake and Patti Smith will pay homage to Wilde by reading De Profundis in its entirety every Sunday in the Victorian prison’s chapel.
Inside — Artists and Writers in Reading Prison is open from 4 September — 30 October.
Vdrome is an online platform that offers regular, high quality screenings of films and videos directed by visual artists and filmmakers, whose production lies in-between contemporary art and cinema.
Each screening is presented during a limited period, as in a movie theatre.
Vdrome makes...
Shot on the streets of New York during the the passionate struggle of protestors coming face to face with the establishment sworn to protect them, Jessica Lehrman’s latest and ongoing series Revolution tackles some of the most contentious and emotionally charged issues, including Occupy Wall street, the fallout of Hamilton and most recently Black Lives Matter.
The shallow depth of field used, focusing sometimes on key sights and sometimes on incidental curiosities, drives home the fact that the series has been shot very much amid the moment and the passionate desperation for causes that rightly refuses to simmer down.
The shots are dynamic and dramatic, the black and white tones augmenting urgency and vehemence of the fervour in the streets. Signs reading “This is resistance”, “Who are you protecting?” and “Ferguson everywhere” are glimpsed within the photographs, which otherwise focus on the people and the atmosphere of the scenes and scenarios.
Jessica Lehrman is a photographer fascinated with capturing the action and emotion of social movements on the streets of New York, and contributes frequently in the fields of both current affairs and popular culture to the likes of The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
We previously featured Vincent Chapter who covered the Black Lives Matter demonstrations as they moved through the streets of London. Its worth comparing the atmosphere of the passionate crowds in the two cities, captured as social document by the two photographers in their varying styles.
Carl Burton is an artist and animator based out of New York City. We featured his award-winning animated short “Shelter” a while back and now he’s just released a new game called “ISLANDS”!
Described as a “surreal trip through the mundane”, familiar scenes become strange as you work to unlock hidden ecosystems within 10 different environments. Perhaps more art than game, it’s definitely a unique experience! Check out more images below.
We also have 4 promo codes to download the app for free! Just leave a comment with your current favourite iPhone game and we’ll pick 4 commenters on Friday!
Winner of ‘Best Short’ awards at both Fantastic Fest and Sitges in 2016, Tim Egan’s 10-min Horror Curve is a dark, minimalist, and truly unsettling film. Simple in premise, but immeasurable in impact, prepare yourself for what is set to be one of the most tense and unforgettable shorts you’ll witness in 2017.
Reminiscent of one of my favourite long-shorts (if an almost 50-minute film can really be classified as a short?), Shinya Tsukamoto Haze, Curve is at its most powerful when putting you inside the headspace of its doomed protagonist. An uncompromising, physical watch, Egan’s film sends shivers down your spine as you imagine your own fingernails desperately clawing to that unforgiving concrete, in hope of getting any kind of traction. It’s really hard not to watch Curve without setting your mind racing about what you’d attempt in that situation – however horrifying and hopeless it might be!
Taking just 8 hours to write, from first concept to shooting script, Curve was inspired by two key moments in the director’s life – the first being hit by a car and the second a conversation with a depressed friend.
“I still remember the feeling of wet tarmac under my fingers” Egan recalls when describing his lucky escape after being knocked into the centre lane of busy traffic, where he gripped the asphalt preparing to be struck by a second car in a matter of seconds. Whilst this first experience was an undeniable physical one for the writer/director, the second influencing experience was a much more mental one.
“She said the earth opened up beneath her and the rest of her day was simply about holding on by sheer force of tension”
Describing a conversation he had with a friend struggling with grief, where she explained that “the only good moments of her day being the seconds after she woke up”, Egan obviously had some more symbolic intentions coursing under the surface of his thoughts when writing Curve. “Her mind was clear and at peace for a few seconds before she remembered her pain”, he recalls. “Then grief rushed in, a feeling not unlike vertigo. She said the earth opened up beneath her and the rest of her day was simply about holding on by sheer force of tension”.
Despite knowing this particular influence on Egan’s script, Curve feels like a film better left unscrutinised. Yes we could talk about all the metaphors (or is it allegory?) in the scenario of a bloody woman clinging to the precipice of life. But Egan’s is a short best enjoyed without all this bullshit. A film best enjoyed in the moment, a film best enjoyed for its raw, uncompromising approach – however uncomfortable that may be.
Artist Samara Scott has created the first artwork in a new Art on the Underground commission series for the Night Tube pocket map. The artist – known for her pools of water filled with the detritus of modern culture – has created a photographic collage of night-time-inspired items in cross-section, suspended in way that makes them seem otherworldly.
The items include cut electrical cables, batteries, an open lipstick, a felt tip pen, a bike light, a screw, a USB and a squeezed lemon, which were captured on a domestic scanner. True to Samara’s raw approach, the sweeping purple background was apparently created by shining a light on to an Ikea bag, while the dust on the scanner surface was left to add depth and movement to the image. Much like her existing work, it uses everyday products that surround our lives, depicted as simultaneously grotesque and beautiful.
The map will be released tomorrow (Thursday 15 December) with a special edition print also available. It coincides with the launch of the 24-hour Piccadilly line.
Kiera Blakey, head curator for Art on the Underground, says the new series is “a brilliant opportunity to support early career London-based artists, providing them with the opportunity to make work for our vast audience across the city. Samara made this work specifically for the pocket map format, thinking carefully about scale, function and distribution. That’s why the piece works so well in this medium”.
joekeerys
“These last few years, it’s almost like I can feel you holding your breath.”
― Love, Simon (2018) dir. Greg Berlanti
