Work by exciting and emerging British artists is being premiered here in Leicester as part of a programme to bring live art performances to galleries outside London.
The Gallery at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is one of four regional venues throughout the UK chosen to be part of fig-futures, which has been an influence on the art world for nearly 20 years.
Artist Anna Barham created her latest piece Yet as Yet at the preview evening, combining a live reading with a computer-generated score and film projection. The inspiration text was Vilem Flusser’s Vampire Squid, which was paired with visual images.
Anna said the piece was meant to encourage visitors to be active participants and not passive watchers. As a video plays in one part of the gallery, in a separate section she has built seating with speakers playing a recording of her reading.
Yet as Yet will be on show throughout this week at The Gallery from 12pm to 5pm daily until Saturday. On Monday November 12, the next exhibition by artist Ben Judd will open.
She said: “Everyone will have a different ideas of the meaning that’s behind it. The setup underlines the idea that you have to put the elements together yourself, that is not a passive experience that maybe a traditional cinema is.”
Anna’s work is based around language, which links to some of the most significant works held at DMU – its collection of concrete poetry and work from the Fluxus movement. Work from all four artists will be given to The Gallery to form part of DMU’s permanent collection. The programme is:
Week 1 – Anna Barham 6 – 10 November (preview November 5)
Week 2 – Ben Judd 13 – 17 November (preview November 12)
Week 3 – Annika Ström 20-24 November (preview November 19)
Week 4 – Kathryn Elkin 27 November – 1 December (preview November 26)
Curator Hugo Worthy said: “Not only do we get an exhibition a week by these extraordinary artists but we get a significant work given to the university by Art Fund and Outset. We would be unable to lay hands on this work without this support.
“Anna’s work has a really close relationship with the language-based practice which is well represented in our collection. As well as the language element we’re interested in performance as dance, as theatre and it’s a really exciting opportunity to work with four performance-based practices.”
• See Yet as Yet free at The Gallery DMU every day 12pm to 5pm, ends Saturday.
Posted on Tuesday 6 November 2018