British Art Show 6

PLEASE NOTE THE GALLERY’S OPENING HOURS ARE BEING EXTENDED FOR THE DURATION OF THE BRITISH ART SHOW TO TUESDAY to SUNDAY 12:00-18:00

Castlefield Gallery exhibits artists Marcus Coates, Chris Evans, Doug Fishbone and Eva Rothschild. Eva Rothschild’s work incorporates both geometrically abstract forms and references to the mix of cultures experienced in the 1960s and 1970s from as diverse movements as the psychedelia of New Age Spirituality and sobriety and exactness of Minimalism. Although Rothschild’s work is inter-disciplinary, the two works included for BAS6 Weeping Willow (2005) and High Times (2005) are sculptures, a medium that she feels embodies her interests in the metaphysical, alluding to the concept of various belief systems’ projection of faith onto an object, a projection that in reality transcends the object’s physical tangibility.

The suggestion of the Shamanistic in Rothschild’s work is echoed in the work of Marcus Coates. In many of his works, Coates endeavours to explore human and animal mentalities by imitating accurately animals’ behaviour and calls, in an attempt to investigate the relationships between the species. In Journey to the Lower World (2004), he performs a voodoo-like ritual in front of the tenants of a condemned block of flats in Liverpool. During this ceremonial address he dons the head of a stag and looks to acquire strategic advice from animal spirits for the inhabitants before they are relocated to the residences being built in the flats’ wake. Its a comical performance that verges on the surreal.

Doug Fishbone’s video pieces collate an amalgamation of downloaded internet images, accompanied by humourous narrations. Towards a Common Understanding (2005) presents a discordant host of subjects that contrast between the globalised and the offensive. The images’ deadpan commentary attempts to rationalise what we see before us, the format evoking a public information lecture. However, this notion disappears when the comments begin to veer towards politically incorrect statements and breach of copyright, leading the viewer into an uncomfortable quandry of feelings.

Radical Loyalty (2003) was chosen as the name of Chris Evans’ ongoing project (involving the creation of a sculpture park in Jarvakandi, Estonia) because of Evans’ desire to collaborate with the Managing Directors of various global companies whose brief from Evans was to visualise sculpturally their own idea of loyalty and how that concept of loyalty could pronounce itself as radical. These visualisations were translated in prints and maquettes created by Evans, and will eventually be realised as physical sculptures by local Estonian craftsmen. In Evans’ works of this kind, he simultaneously adopts the personae of consultant, patron and artist, blurring the conventions of these roles.

MORE ON MARCUS COATES:
Marcus Coates graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Kent Institute of Art and Design in 1990 and from the Royal Academy of Art in 1993 and lives and works in Northumberland. He has undertaken residencies as part of the Further Up in the Air project in 2004 and Grizedale Arts in Cumbria in 1999-2001 and has a forthcoming solo exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead in 2006.

MORE ON CHRIS EVANS:
Chris Evans lives and works in London and Berlin and has had three solo exhibitions in 2005 including a self-titled show at the Store Gallery in London. In 2000 he embarked on the first of his Sculpture Consultancy projects in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds when he asked the Managing Directors of five companies of the Gemini Business Park on the outskirts of Leeds to create designs for sculptures that would represent each director’s perception of his business.

MORE ON DOUG FISHBONE:
American artist Doug Fishbone lives and works in London after completing an MFA at Goldsmiths College in 2003. He was awarded the Beck’s Futures Prize for Student Film and Video in 2004 and in 2005 was included in Norwich School of Art and Design’s East International exhibition. He is best known for his large installations consisting of up to 40,000 bananas in selected city squares around the world.

MORE ON EVA ROTHSCHILD:
Eva Rothschild is seen as part of the new generation of British sculptors alongside such as other BAS6 artists Claire Barclay and Gary Webb. She graduated with an MFA from Goldmiths College in 1999 and lives and works in London. Since graduating she has exhibited in many group and solo shows including Peacegarden at The Showroom, London and the Cornerhouse, Manchester in 2001, the 54th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 2004 and two solo exhibitions in 2005 at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin and Modern Art Inc, London. Rothschild will partake in the Tate Triennial at Tate Britain in May 2006.

MORE ON THE BRITISH ART SHOW 6 CURATORS:

Alex Farquharson is an freelance writer, critic and curator and currently a course tutor on the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art. Previous to this he was Exhibitions Director at Spacex in Exeter and the Centre for Visual Arts in Cardiff.

Andrea Schlieker is a freelance lecturer and curator and was previously a curator at the ICA and Serpentine Gallery. She is currently Curator of the Fourth Plinth Project in Trafalgar Square and lectures at the Sotheby’s Institute in London.

A Catalogue for the British Art Show 6 will be available. Price: £14.99

A Hayward Gallery Touring Exhibition. Presented in association with Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and in galleries across the cities of Manchester, Nottingham and Bristol.