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2006
Now
or Never Land
On
The Fly Art Fair
The Residence,
London, UK
(Visit
The Residence Archive for more)
"Life
Is A Parade" was created as part of an event-based exhibition
I organised at The Residence: "Never Ever Land," an
On-The-Fly art fair in which artists were invited to create
works from found objects issued to them just 24 hours prior
to the exhibition. These materials were harvested from the streets
of Hackney by myself and fellow artist Dayvid Lott in an all-nighter
collection on foot. The project connected to The Residence's
fundamental D.I.Y. drive to draw something from nothing in a
passing moment, very much exploiting the transience of life
and focusing on the active event of object producing and history
making. In this case the physical display is charged by the
scenario and life event that it connects to.
In
"Life Is A Parade" I hoarded the left-overs accumulated
from materials issued to other artists and stashed them in a
corner as the prize paradise island back drop to my character
modelled as a beached glamour pirate of "Never Ever Land".
For the duration of the exhibition I performed my scenario,
becoming part tramp/ part entrepeneur at my own art party, offering
up vodka cocktails and consuming many of them myself... Posing
for both freedom and the camera within passing moments of creation
and destruction, the staged and the real no longer defined.
I
enjoy reverting spectacle to the everyday of life. I believe
art objects are disposable tokens vulnerable to the experience.
In this case the display was dismantelled and disposed of but
sometimes people like to hang on to paintings and sculptures
as they can be commodified and fetishized and remind us of something.
Both meaning and value are constantly changing and all we can
really hold on to is in the moment.
Night
In Shining Armour
solo exhibition
The Residence, London, UK
(Visit
The Residence Archive for more)
Review
by Russell Herron:
"LET
THEM EAT CAKE"
I
just knew it was going to be an odd evening when John Hayvend
arrived, fully wired for sound. Hanging on a cord around his
neck was a small digital camera, about the size of a fat credit
card, looking like some hi tech piece of bling. A small red
light visible at one corner, the camera switched to audio function
only, this thing is going to accompany us on our evening, documenting
everything that can be heard.
'That's going to be quite a job to edit down, though,' we say.
'Easy,' he replies, pointing to an almost invisible button on
the underside of the machine. 'It has an index button: if anyone
says anything interesting I can just press this button and it
leaves an edit on the track. So I can go back and find the good
things from the whole evening.' We all agree that the index
button is a good thing. I start trying to think of something
clever to say.
We
head for The Residence tonight, to something that I know is
going to be fairly off the normal range, so should therefore
be worth having a look in.
We
arrive to a small bunch of odd looking people standing around
in the front part of the gallery. There's a load of old family
photos stuck directly to the wall, a large painting of a man's
head, some enlarged photos of derelict houses and the striking
and strange looking 'artist' (and founder of The Residence)
Ingrid Z.
I'm trying to place her look, and some of the others who are
here. There's a smattering of new romantic, goth, blitz, and
even something I can't quite place from the 60s. We get some
beer and get Ingrid to talk us through what's going on here.
She
begins by telling us about her parents splitting up when she
was 2 and a half, (she points to a photo of her mother), then
the years in Canada growing up and setting up galleries and
fashion stores and all sorts of things, and then the relationship
with her boyfriend (she points to another photo), followed by
moving out and tracking down the alcoholic father (points to
an old black and white snap of him on the beach) who left so
many years ago. John asks how she found him. 'I just looked
in the phone book and there he was', she says. (Did he index
that, I wonder?) Anyway, she finds him and the next day he dies.
No kidding. And she doesn't realise for a couple of days, she
just thinks he's sleeping off the drink. But the the chicken
meal he had by the chair begins to go off. So, y'know, she had
to deal with all that. The large painting of the man's head
is him. 'It's done from memory, but I think I really caught
him.' She points at another photo, but I am really straining
to see any connection here. Then, what happened? Someone else
died two weeks after she'd met them. And then, I think there
was another death. There could have been more. By this time
we are all feeling a little queasy. Plus there are more bizarre
people arriving. And Ingrid has been given a chocolate cake.
Which she eats by taking bites straight out of it then passes
it round. Other people takes bites out and pass it on. Has nobody
heard of plates here, I think? Forks and spoons? There's some
funny business going on with the toilet out back too - people
keep going in and out in a fairly bizarre manner. Also, what
happend to the lock on the door? It was there when we arrived.
Olivia, the 'press officer' for The Residence starts saying
words like 'nebula' in regard to Z's work. I tell her not to
use words like that. My companions are giving me looks that
say: GET OUT OF HERE NOW.
So
we go. I realise what the 60's thing was I kept picking up on.
Z and her colleagues are like a tribute band for Warhol's Factory.
And now I understand a little bit more about why Andy wanted
to photograph these people. ..
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Life
Is A Parade, performance/installation, (phonto:METATEMPUS/JONAHH)
Starry
Night, installation view
In Loving
Memory (My Father),
oil on canvas, 36"x48"
(The
first portrait Ingrid had ever painted of her father.
Painted entirely from memory stemming back to age 3)
Johnny
Rawhide, archival
lamda print, 30" x 40"
photo
of Ingrid Z by Russell Herron
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