Mark Leckey: Work & Leisure
Friday 17 February 2012 – Sunday 18 March 2012
FREE
Manchester Art Gallery’s new collaborative programming relationship with London’s Serpentine Gallery launches this February with the opening of a major exhibition from Turner Prize winning artist Mark Leckey.
Work & Leisure will present new work especially commissioned for Manchester as well as a series of live performances by Mark Leckey to take place throughout the run of the 4-week show. The exhibition will include the film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, last shown as part of Leckey’s exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery in 2011. It will also feature BigBoxIndustrialAction, in which a giant soundsystem meets a three-tonne low pressure steam chest on loan from Ellenroad Engine House, near Rochdale, Greater Manchester, home of the world’s largest working steam mill engine.
Mark Leckey won the Turner Prize in 2008 and this exhibition will cover key moments in his career from his international recognition in the late 1990s up to the present day. His work encompasses sculpture, sound, film and performance and explores the potential of the human imagination to appropriate and to animate a concept, an object or an environment. Leckey also draws on his personal experiences, particularly his fascination with the Manchester dance music scene from his formative years spent in the North West.
Mark Leckey will be giving performances on Thursday evenings during the exhibition. Expect immense sounds, not quite enough to shake the gallery’s paintings onto the floor, but not far off – staff did have to check first to make sure.
Performance dates:
- Thur 23 Feb
- Thur 1 Mar
- Thur 8 Mar
All performances are at 6:45pm at Manchester Art Gallery and will last approximately 30 mins.
FREE no need to book.
A bar will be open in the atrium from 6pm.
Shadow Land: Photographs by Roger Ballen 1983-2011
Friday 30 March 2012 – Sunday 13 May 2012
FREE
Shadow Land is a major exhibition of work by internationally-acclaimed photographer Roger Ballen whose work offers a powerful social critique and an extreme, uncanny beauty. The exhibition explores three decades of Ballen’s career, charting the evolution of his unique photographic style and demonstrating the contribution he has made to contemporary photography.
One of the most important photographers of his generation, Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but for over 30 years he has lived and worked in South Africa. In his work from the early 1980s to mid 90s he gained world recognition and critical acclaim with his powerful and controversial images of those living on the margins of South African society.
Although retaining the same distinctive aesthetic, (all his work is in black and white, square format) in the last decade Ballen’s work has evolved into a style he describes as ‘documentary fiction’ where the line between reality and fantasy is deliberately blurred. In doing so, his work enters into a new realm of photography; the images are painterly and sculptural in ways not immediately associated with photography.
Shadow Land will include previously unseen work from his new series Asylum and will be Ballen’s first solo show in a UK public gallery.
Fans of Ballen’s work will be interested in his recent collaboration with Die Antwoord, a futuristic rap-rave crew from South Africa who represent a new style called Zef. Ballen’s photography has had a formative influence on the band and led to him directing their latest video I fink u freeky poised to be a viral sensation and introduce Ballen’s work to an entirely new audience.
Please note: The exhibition will be closed on Sunday 15 April for essential maintenance works to the gallery atrium.
Under That Cloud
Saturday 19 November 2011 – Sunday 15 April 2012
FREE
An exhibition of jewellery by 18 international artists produced in response to their experience of being stranded together in Mexico City in April 2010 under the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud. Their enforced stay became an exciting opportunity to make new work inspired by their impressions of Mexico – the vibrant colours, the traffic chaos, the architecture, the ancient heritage, the music and the people.
Work from this show is for sale.
Curated by Jo Bloxham.
Featured artists
Caroline Broadhead (UK), Ramon Puig Cuyàs (Spain), Gemma Draper (Spain), Jürgen Eickhoff (Germany), Nedda El-Asmar (Belgium), Cristina Filipe (Portugal), Agnieszka Knap (Sweden), Benjamin Lignel (France), Jorge Manilla (Belgium/Mexico), Nanna Melland (Norway), Sarah O’Hana (UK), Jiro Kamata (Japan/Germany), Manon van Kouswijk (Netherlands/Australia), Lucy Sarneel (Netherlands), Karin Seufert (Germany), Janina Stübler (Germany), Tore Svensson(Sweden), and Andrea Wagner (Netherlands).
For more information visit manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/
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