Surprisingly, Kettle’s Yard is managing to maintain a program of exhibitions despite undergoing major building works to the gallery site. Yesterday, curator Lizzie Fisher gave a lunch time talk introducing four artists challenged to produce work inspired by the house, gallery and collection.
Some reacted to specific works – for example, Lorna Macintyre who found a photograph by Brancusi which is on display for the first time. She also produced a cyanotype print as part of her digital sketchbook project. Similarly Matei Bejenaru chose a photograph sent to Jim Ede by the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz. The duotone image of a dead tree “Life and Death” is re-produced as an unlimited postcard. Both are interested in traditional analogue photographic techniques and Bejenaru has gathered a range of photographic equipment into a kit for use in gallery outreach projects and workshops, again referencing the hands-on principles of Kettle’s Yard.
Matthew Darbyshire has produced a series of objects displayed on non-standard plinths as a reference to the Ede’s unusual ways of displaying objects. These objects are off-the-shelf readymades – eg. a mass produced faux-granite nude from a garden ornament center sat on a Philippe Starck tree trunk plinth. A glass buddah head on an IKEA stool, black velour greyhound on a bedside table and fake plastic potted topiary.
Jeremy Millar has made a film of a piano being tuned with bolts and screws inserted into the strings in accordance with John Cage’s specific instructions. Millar curated Every Day is a Good Day – a show of Cage’s prints and drawings at Kettle’s Yard in 2010.
More info on the gallery and the ongoing work by these artists can be found at the new Kettle’s Yard blog: kettlesyardonline.
