Exhibitions

Stephen Willats: Person to Person; People to People

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Phoebe Unwin: A Short Walk from a Shout to a Whisper

Milton Keynes Gallery presented the first major exhibition in a public gallery by the British painter Phoebe Unwin. Unwin's paintings shift between figuration and abstraction, capturing chance observations of reality, constructs of memory and indirect references to particular places and events. Throughout her practice, Phoebe Unwin works incessantly in an A3 drawing book, creating a personal register of images and marks. Individual pages are worked up simultaneously creating visual dialogues, some obvious, some obscure as Unwin teases and collages images, shapes and forms from the format of the page and materials at hand in pastel, pencil and acrylic. The entire contents of each drawing book, as in The Grand and the Commonplace, 2006, are sometimes displayed collectively as an individual work. On the one hand Unwin's practice appears highly conventional; the drawing book providing impressions for future paintings, often larger in scale and rendered in oil and acrylic. On the other, her approach seems more akin to a literary tradition of composition making or a musical fugue – fuelled with visual echoes and counterpoint. Unwin's paintings each have their own autonomy yet possess a clear genetic and familial link such that the entire breadth of her output has no specific hierarchical order. There are recurring motifs that suggest an autobiographical thread; sunglasses, modernist geometrical forms and portraits – one of the images depicts a person blushing in the dark, a glowing face with black impasto eyelids. Throughout her work the artist creates a counterpoint between explosive abstracted paintings and a darker, often sinister psychological interior space.

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Alex Frost: Adults

British artist Alex Frost works in a variety of media. This exhibition presented a selection of recent sculptures, drawings and mosaic panels. These reflected Frost's interest in the conflation of modern technology, the serial and the multiple with a distinctive hand-made aesthetic. His work ranges from the miniature to the monumental, from intimate decoration to architectural intervention, and locates itself in many differing contexts; the space of the studio, the gallery, wastelands, parks, and cultural centres. Frost's Adults are rock-like sculptures, malformed and enlarged versions of food packaging that are at once sophisticated and clumsy. The sculptures are informed by the well-intentioned community projects that he was involved with as a teenager in north London. Format Wars is a single work divided into two parts that augments the Adults series. As a two part work it conveys a variety of oppositions such as the domestic versus the public, the digital versus the analogue, the intimate versus the exposed, the defined versus the unclear. This is emphasised by one part being placed within the gallery and the other mounted high on the gallery's exterior wall. Embedded within the ceramic-tiled surfaces are the symbols for the HDDVD and Blu-ray formats. Such collision between Frost's reference to the stuff of domestic DIY with the promise and sophistication of digital advancement is both playful and poignant. Frost's use of mosaic bears a formal relationship with the digital or bitmap imagery that he employs for creating his 'blind drawings'. In these, photographs are converted into bitmap prints and each pixel 'punctured' with a pin from the reverse allowing the application of metallic enamel paint to seep through to create a bejewelled surface. Alex Frost: Adults was a collaboration with ArtSway, Hampshire. Alex Frost was in residence at ArtSway, which is based in the New Forest, from 10 August - 12 October 2007, with an exhibition from 23 February - 6 April 2008. A publication is available for Frost's ArtSway exhibition, published in collaboration with Milton Keynes Gallery, ArtSway and Sorcha Dallas. Alex Frost is represented by Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow.

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Pascale Marthine Tayou

The first solo exhibition in the UK by Pascale Marthine Tayou comprised a series of new and recent installations and an offsite work placed in the specific context of Milton Keynes. Marthine Tayou was born and raised in Cameroon and has lived in France and Belgium. His nomadic movement between places is reflected in his practice; in the materials he uses, his artistic sources and his thinking. Through his work, Marthine Tayou identifies points of economic and cultural exchange, largely between his African ancestry and the contemporaryWestern culture in which he lives and works. The exhibition conflated traditional imagery and objects from Cameroon with the artist's evolving interest in commerce and economic transaction. Wall Street took the form of a colossal wall-based installation of logos of companies that permeate the Cameroon landscape. The vibrant colour and placement of neon signs was at once a monument to commerce and an indictment of the homogenisation of global culture. Also featured were Marthine Tayou's remarkable crystal sculptures. Clad in clothing and artefacts sourced from the artist's home village, these poignant sculptures brought together the language of the Western tourist trade with traditional African imagery.

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Marcel Broodthaers

Milton Keynes Gallery presented the most comprehensive exhibition in the UK by renowned Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924–1976) since his Tate Gallery retrospective in 1980. Broodthaers was a poet, photographer, film-maker and artist and throughout his career challenged the role of the artwork, the artist and the art institution. Considered to be one of the most important artists of the last century, Broodthaers' work and thinking is highly influential on many artists working today. This exhibition explored the diversity of Broodthaers' practice including books, editions, objects, projections and paintings and features several works never seen in the UK before. His first 'artwork', Pense Bête,1964, addresses his enduring concerns about form and language and the construction of meaning. Also being shown is Miroir d'Epoque Regency,1973 from arguably the artist's most significant passage of work Museum d'Art Moderne, Département d'Aigles. This comprised twelve different 'sections' and was founded with the 19th century section in his Brussels house in 1968. The mirror reflects the gallery and viewer back on themselves, questioning the role of the institution and the visitor within it. The exhibition also included examples of his renowned shell works – mussels and eggs – as in Grande Casserole de Moules, 1966 and 289 Coquilles d'Oeufs,1966. The egg and mussel shell become a recurrent symbol in Broodthaers' work as a means of questioning the social function of the artwork.With characteristic wit and insight Broodthaers announced 'Everything is eggs. The world is eggs'.

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Sonia Boyce: For you, only you

For you, only you was a collaboration between sound artist Michael Karikis and the early music consort Alamire conducted by David Skinner, Director of Music at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Originated by Sonia Boyce, the piece was first performed at Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford in 2007 and explores the boundary between classical music and sound art. The work comprises an unlikely conversation across centuries between the sublime harmonies of the Renaissance composer Josquin Desprez and Karikis' own more troubled, contemporary voice. To coincide with the performance, a three-screen video installation of For you, only you was also be presented at Stowe Park.

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Cathy Wilkes

Milton Keynes Gallery presented the most comprehensive exhibition in the UK by artist Cathy Wilkes. Born and raised in Belfast, Wilkes is one of a generation of artists who was educated in Glasgow and emerged at the forefront of British visual arts practice the mid 1990s. The exhibition, which comprised new and recent work, was accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Wilkes's work is characterised by the creation of a slowly emerging, distinctively personal vocabulary of sculptures and paintings which she makes and re-makes in evolving assemblages and environments. Her processes are measured and refined, drawing on the most intimate of personal experiences to create a compelling autobiographical thread, coupled with a precise and liberated formal language. Wilkes confidently and unapologetically selects the most abject and awkward of domestic, everyday objects; a widescreen Sony television, a Maclaren's push chair or a jar of Bonne Mamam apricot preserve have all been incorporated in Wilkes' expansive installations.

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Richard Woods – Flora & Fauna

This exhibition presented new work by Richard Woods. It was his first solo exhibition in a British public gallery. Woods has a long-running history of architectural intervention and transformation. He is known for his all-encompassing installations of hand-printed wood-cut floors and elevations, which have been presented in a variety of contexts, from a British stately home to a Venetian courtyard, and from public buildings or private apartments to international boutique stores. In his work, Woods explores the relationship between ‘functionality’ and ‘decoration’, with motifs varying from simple, repetitive red brick work to intricate floral designs, or pastiches of historical styles and artistic movements; Tudor, 18th century Baroque or as in this exhibition, the legacy of Modernism. In conjunction with a remarkable wood-cut printed floor, which occupied the entire ground floor of the Gallery, Woods presented a selection of recent sculptures, new wall-based ceramic works and large scale marquetry panels. This exhibition included a striking commission for the Gallery exterior which cloaked the building in a repeat pattern of imaginary corporate logos devised by the artist, and together his distinctive hand-made aesthetic with the generic language of brand advertising. The exhibition was accompanied by an exclusive limited edition cotton shopping bag designed by Richard Woods. The related public events included a series of talks exploring contemporary design, holiday workshops for all ages and a Family Day.

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Gilberto Zorio

Gilberto Zorio belongs to a generation of Italian artists who in the mid 1960s pioneered a radical and distinguished artistic movement which later became known as Arte Povera. Through the use of often modest and humble materials, these artists posed sophisticated and profound questions about the very nature of human existence. This was Zorio's first solo exhibition in the UK and included new installations made specifically for Milton Keynes Gallery's spaces combined with works that trace the historical points of his practice. Energy, through the use of elemental forces, is essential to Zorio's work and is addressed in many ways, from the near invisibility of oxidisation and its effect on copper to the ferocious heat of metal welding. Zorio's use of different metals such as lead, copper and steel connects his work to a lineage of historical and primordial forms of creative expression.

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Polly Apfelbaum: Anything can happen in a horse race

This was American artist Polly Apfelbaum's first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery. Her work is characterised by an exacting investigation into colour and form, mainly manifesting itself as expansive floor-based installations. Describing her works as 'fallen paintings', Apfelbaum's practice brings together two of the legacies of twentieth century American art history: Minimalism and Pop Art. In recent years, Apfelbaum has employed imagery appropriated from Pop's father figure, Andy Warhol, in the form of dingbats and flower motifs. In addition to the floor-based installation work, these have appeared in many shapes and guises, such as vivid screen-prints, woodblocks or shapes drawn with dye on synthetic velvet. Other work is more abstract, utilising stains and blots that suggest organic form. In a departure from her usual practice of fabricating the elements of her work first in her New York studio, Apfelbaum made all the new work for Milton Keynes Gallery's exhibition on-site when she arrived, over the course of five days. For the artist, it is important for the work to be 'situational' and to involve an element of performance, in direct response to the gallery space. "I think it helps move the work away from the object, thinking of it more as a series of relationships, both in space, but also in time – the piece only exists for the duration of the show." [Quote from an interview with writer and critic Morgan Falconer, Art World Magazine, February/March 2008]. This gives the work a more casual, impermanent feel – what the artist has referred to as an 'automatic abstraction'. In another departure for Apfelbaum, her new works used what appeared at first glance to be simple offcuts of highly reflective, sequined fabric. These hard-edged, spidery forms contrasted with her previous work which involved the aggregation of similar shapes and sizes. Instead they offered spatially ambiguous yet compelling colour-themed installations that evoke more calligraphic and abstract readings. The installations in each of the Gallery's three rooms refered to three famous American gambling cities – Las Vegas, Reno and Atlantic City. In Atlantic City, Apfelbaum explored the graphic possibilities of black, capitalising on the use of positive and negative shapes. Reno, a silver-themed room explored silver's capacity to reflect and capture other colours while Las Vegas was a multi-coloured room which featured thirteen colours in sequence (a colour system determined by the available colours from the fabric manufacturer's line).

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James Lee Byars

Detroit born James Lee Byars (1932 – 1997), was one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic artists. He emerged alongside a generation of artists such as Joseph Beuys and Marcel Broodthaers, who reinvigorated contemporary artistic practices with their own brand of Conceptualism. From the late 1950s until his death in Cairo, Byars made an expansive body of work in sculpture, installation, drawing, performance and mail/postal art. A truly international artist, he led a nomadic lifestyle and was a regular commuter between America, Japan and Europe. The James Lee Byars exhibition in Milton Keynes provided a succinct overview of his practice, including sculptures, works on paper and rarely seen film documentation of his performances. A selection of Byars' of letters and correspondence were presented in vitrines. The majority of works displayed were shown for the first time in the UK. Byars' sculptures typically comprise simple, elemental geometric shapes: spheres, cylinders, cubes and cones. He made his work using exquisite, quality materials; the finest glass, granite, marble, gold leaf and even fresh red roses. The search for 'perfect' provided the philosophical framework for much of Byars' work and was evident in many of the works displayed in the exhibition. The exhibition was selected from Kunstmuseum Bern's autumn 2008 survey exhibition. Milton Keynes Gallery is indebted to the exhibition's many lenders, including: the Kunstmuseum Bern, the Toni Gerber Archive and the Hermann and Margrit Rupf Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia and Marie-Puck Broodthaers and additional loans from public and private collections. The James Lee Byars exhibition at Milton Keynes Gallery continued a programme strand that includes the work of overlooked contemporary "historical" or cult figures, recent examples being Stephen Willats, Marcel Broodthaers and Gilberto Zorio.

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Lyndall Phelps: The Pigeon Archive

Artist Lyndall Phelps' exhibition The Pigeon Archive, documented the re-enactment of pigeon manoeuvres undertaken during both World Wars, through photographs, film and other paraphernalia. In the Second World War it was recommended that every military aircraft leaving Britain carry two pigeons in case of emergency. If the plane was shot down, pigeons were dispatched carrying the survivor's coordinates for rescue. Homing pigeons were also parachuted behind enemy lines in order to retrieve crucial information on enemy manoeuvres for the British and Allied Forces. Some even carried miniature cameras to document military sites behind enemy lines. Large numbers of pigeons lost their lives through starvation, exhaustion, being killed by the enemy or exposure to harsh elements on homing flights, In developing her work for the exhibition, Phelps was particularly interested in the procedures that inhibited or denied their natural behaviour. These included restricting the birds' wing movement by strapping their bodies with elastic harnessing before parachuting them from planes. The first of three series of photographs Phelps created for this exhibition captured pigeons in flight wearing cardboard tube message carriers on their back. The second saw pigeons descending through the air, bound and attached to parachutes. The third referenced the unlikely union of pigeons being transported, bound and incapable of flight, within the large, mechanical flying machines, Lancaster Bombers. 'Just Jane', the Lancaster Bomber at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, formed the backdrop for these photographs. Phelps also devised a miniature video camera holder for pigeons to wear, resulting in a 'pigeon's-eye-view' film over the Cambridgeshire countryside which was shown as part of the exhibition, which paid tribute to these unsung and unusual heroes. To coincide with The Pigeon Archive, there was a related offsite event, a special pigeon race in Campbell Park, central Milton Keynes on Saturday 18 July. As part of the race, Lyndall Phelps released pigeons with video cameras strapped to their bodies, to document the race. The resulting footage was shown in the Gallery's Resource Area. Exhibition and pigeon race supported by the Royal Pigeon Racing Association, Bletchley Park Trust and The Parks Trust, Milton Keynes.

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