CHARLES ATLAS
( / + \)
25 FEBRUARY - 10 APRIL 2011
OPENING THURSDAY 24 FEBRUARY 6.30 - 8.30pm
Vilma Gold are delighted to present a solo exhibition of works by Charles Atlas, comprising an installation of new projected video works and an ambitious multi-channel video work Joints 4tet Ensemble.
In his new video works, encounted by the viewer immeditately upon entering the exhibition, Atlas meditates on his career now spanning over forty years. The videos take as their point of departure an imagined future viewpoint from which Altas' past work - and by extension his past self - are regarded and vice-versa. In his new work Altas seeks to explore how points of perspective (both imagined and real) may influence present ideas; he considers how past and future poles may be inter-related, or how they are activated continuously to inhabit one another affectively in the present.
In the second room of the exhibition Atlas will present Joints 4tet Ensemble (1971-2010), an installation of Super-8 colour films of the dancer Merce Cunningham shot by Atlas in 1971. One afternoon, after rehearsal in Irvine, California, Merce Cunningham and Charles Atlas went out of the back door of the dance studio to a raised concrete dock and started to film. As Cunningham articulated his joints in a minimal dance Atlas filmed in a variety of ways with his new Super-8 camera, shooting close-ups of Cunningham’s wrist, elbow, ankle, and knee. The films capture Cunningham’s unique style of movement. Atlas experimented with different frame rates and levels of blur, but mainly focused on following Cunningham’s moving joints as if carefully observing a strange animal. Atlas cannot entirely recall all the circumstances surrounding the filming, only that it was purely experimental. The artists made nine short films in total, most of which were extended continuous hand-held shots.
For the installation Joints 4tet Ensemble, Altas brings the resulting films together for the first time, editing the material into four channels of synchronized video and showing them across a choreographed arrangement of ten different sized monitors; some placed on mono-stands, some on rolling carts, and others grouped in pairs. With this configuration of monitors Atlas harks back to ideas first used in 1978 in the creation of Fractions; a video/dance collaboration he made with Cunningham. Each monitor is orchestrated to broadcast the observation of an autonomous trail within the overall choreography of the group, reflecting Atlas’ ongoing interest in tracking the simple movement of dancers in and around a studio. The visual elements of Joints 4tet Ensemble are accompanied by four channels of collaged sound. These are reworkings of ambient sound recordings made by John Cage in the 1980s whilst on his travels to cities around the world with his long-term partner Merce Cuningham. As the sound plays out across the monitors, projection lamps cast multiple and shifting shadows over the surrounding walls of the installation.
Charles Atlas (born in Missouri, 1949) lives and works in New York. In 2006 Tate Modern, London presented the first UK survey of work by Atlas. He has has screenings at: Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York (2011); Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2010); MOMA, New York (2010) ; and Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis ( 2010). In 2010 he was also included in group shows at: Hayward Gallery, London; ICA Philadephia (touring to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston); MIT/LIST Visual Art Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nürnberg; De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands; PS1, New York (touring to Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow) and KAde Kunsthal in Amersfoort. In April 2011 Atlas will have a major collaborative exhibition at the South London Gallery, London.
Image:
Charles Atlas
Stills from Joints 4tet Ensemble, 1971 - 2010
Super 8mm film transferred to video, 4 channel video, colour
four channel sound using material recorded by John Cage
10 Sony monitors, metal stands, programmed projection lights and flash players
13 Mins 12 Secs (Loop)
Courtesy of Vilma Gold, London
VILMA GOLD
6 Minerva Street
London E2 9EH
T +44 (0) 20 7729 9888
VILMA GOLD
Read On... VILMA GOLD, London
( / + \)
25 FEBRUARY - 10 APRIL 2011
OPENING THURSDAY 24 FEBRUARY 6.30 - 8.30pm
Vilma Gold are delighted to present a solo exhibition of works by Charles Atlas, comprising an installation of new projected video works and an ambitious multi-channel video work Joints 4tet Ensemble.
In his new video works, encounted by the viewer immeditately upon entering the exhibition, Atlas meditates on his career now spanning over forty years. The videos take as their point of departure an imagined future viewpoint from which Altas' past work - and by extension his past self - are regarded and vice-versa. In his new work Altas seeks to explore how points of perspective (both imagined and real) may influence present ideas; he considers how past and future poles may be inter-related, or how they are activated continuously to inhabit one another affectively in the present.
In the second room of the exhibition Atlas will present Joints 4tet Ensemble (1971-2010), an installation of Super-8 colour films of the dancer Merce Cunningham shot by Atlas in 1971. One afternoon, after rehearsal in Irvine, California, Merce Cunningham and Charles Atlas went out of the back door of the dance studio to a raised concrete dock and started to film. As Cunningham articulated his joints in a minimal dance Atlas filmed in a variety of ways with his new Super-8 camera, shooting close-ups of Cunningham’s wrist, elbow, ankle, and knee. The films capture Cunningham’s unique style of movement. Atlas experimented with different frame rates and levels of blur, but mainly focused on following Cunningham’s moving joints as if carefully observing a strange animal. Atlas cannot entirely recall all the circumstances surrounding the filming, only that it was purely experimental. The artists made nine short films in total, most of which were extended continuous hand-held shots.
For the installation Joints 4tet Ensemble, Altas brings the resulting films together for the first time, editing the material into four channels of synchronized video and showing them across a choreographed arrangement of ten different sized monitors; some placed on mono-stands, some on rolling carts, and others grouped in pairs. With this configuration of monitors Atlas harks back to ideas first used in 1978 in the creation of Fractions; a video/dance collaboration he made with Cunningham. Each monitor is orchestrated to broadcast the observation of an autonomous trail within the overall choreography of the group, reflecting Atlas’ ongoing interest in tracking the simple movement of dancers in and around a studio. The visual elements of Joints 4tet Ensemble are accompanied by four channels of collaged sound. These are reworkings of ambient sound recordings made by John Cage in the 1980s whilst on his travels to cities around the world with his long-term partner Merce Cuningham. As the sound plays out across the monitors, projection lamps cast multiple and shifting shadows over the surrounding walls of the installation.
Charles Atlas (born in Missouri, 1949) lives and works in New York. In 2006 Tate Modern, London presented the first UK survey of work by Atlas. He has has screenings at: Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York (2011); Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2010); MOMA, New York (2010) ; and Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis ( 2010). In 2010 he was also included in group shows at: Hayward Gallery, London; ICA Philadephia (touring to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston); MIT/LIST Visual Art Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nürnberg; De Hallen Haarlem, The Netherlands; PS1, New York (touring to Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow) and KAde Kunsthal in Amersfoort. In April 2011 Atlas will have a major collaborative exhibition at the South London Gallery, London.
Image:
Charles Atlas
Stills from Joints 4tet Ensemble, 1971 - 2010
Super 8mm film transferred to video, 4 channel video, colour
four channel sound using material recorded by John Cage
10 Sony monitors, metal stands, programmed projection lights and flash players
13 Mins 12 Secs (Loop)
Courtesy of Vilma Gold, London
VILMA GOLD
6 Minerva Street
London E2 9EH
T +44 (0) 20 7729 9888
VILMA GOLD
Read On... VILMA GOLD, London
Comments