Chelsea MA Curating course leader Amanda Beech has a solo show at Spike Island in Bristol. The show runs from 23 January – 11 April 2010 and see her presenting a new body of work entitled ‘Sanity Assassin’.

‘Sanity Assassin’ is a three-channel video installation with a sculptural element; a spotlit mirrored plinth, which displays a series of polished chainsaws. Situated in a custom designed waiting area, this glamorous structure with subliminal horror movie overtones is homage to the corporate lobby of a real Los Angeles showroom. Shot on location in Los Angeles the work is part of Beech’s on-going investigations into the forceful rhetoric played out within neo-liberal narratives of freedom in philosophy, politics, literature and popular culture.

To accompany the show there will be a seminar with Amanda Beech, Mikko Cannini, Bridget Crone, Jaspar Joseph-Lester and Marie-Anne McQuay entitled ’Imploded Action, Dissonant Affects’. The seminar takes place on Saturday 20 March and will address the relation or non-relation between space, image and sound as well as our expectations for art’s effective and affective potential.

For more information visit – www.spikeisland.org.uk

Image: Amanda Beech, ‘Sanity Assassin’ (2010), installation view. Photo: Stuart Bunce.

Last week we posted a couple of videos from our new ‘Chelsea Shots’ series. Here is another interview from that same series. This time we are in the studio with BA Fine Art 3rd year Jack West. Jack shows us some of his large scale ‘Airport’ paintings he has been working on and talks about the line of investigation in his work.

See more in the series – www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/chelseashots

‘For the Sake of the Image’ is the first show curated by Chelsea MA Fine Art alumna Suki Chan. The show, which runs from the 3 March – 1 April 2010 at the Jerwood Space explores the relationship between moving image and sound, “considering sound not merely as an accompaniment to the moving image but exploring how the force of one multiplies the power of the other.”

The show is part of the Jerwood Visual Arts Encounters series and features work by Asnat Austerlitz, Richard Bevan, Juan Fontanive, Paul O’Kane, Mark Raidpere, Dan Walwin and Suki Chan.

Monday 8 March (18.00 – 20.00) - Curator Suki Chan will be in conversation with exhibiting artists Asnat Austerlitz, Richard Bevan, Juan Fontanive, Paul O’Kane and Dan Walwin. Discussion chaired by Sarah Williams.

Further information -  www.jerwoodspace.co.uk/gal_whatson.html

Image: still from ‘Interval II’, Suki Chan, 2008.

Here’s another video from our ‘Chelsea Shots’ series. This time we speak to Cyril Crentsil, a 1st year BA Textile Design student. He talks us through the various techniques they learn in ’stage 1′, shows us some of his work and tells us why he chose to study at Chelsea.

See the full series of videos at – www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/chelseashots

We have started a new series of short video clips called ‘Chelsea Shots’ that we hope will give you an insight into life at Chelsea. The videos will feature students, staff, events and exhibitions.

For our first series we have interviewed some of our Undergraduate students. In this interview we spoke Turi Baardsen, who is in her 3rd year of the BA Interior and Spatial Design course. She speaks to us about her current project and shows us one of her log books.

For the full series of videos visit – www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/chelseashots

Chelsea MA Fine Art alumnus David A.Smith has been chosen as one of the Catlin Art Prize finalists.

“The prize is unique in providing the artists with the time and opportunity to develop their practice. They are each commissioned to produce a brand new body of work to be exhibited one year on from their respective degree shows, encouraging them to explore new ideas in a large and modifiable space.

As with The Catlin Guide, the chosen artists are considered to be producing high quality work which demonstrates their capacity to make a significant mark in the art world during the next decade. Based on this criteria, a panel of judges will award one of the artists with the prize of £3,000.” An exhibition of the eight finalists will take place at Village Underground, London in May 2010.

www.davidasmithart.co.uk

Image: Shuck, Anatomical canine skeleton, glow wire, enamel paint, 2009 – David A.Smith

James Capper is a Chelsea BA Fine Art graduate. The ‘Ripper’ was the sculpture he made for his final show in 2008 and was also shown at the Hannah Barry Gallery ‘Bold Tendencies’ exhibition later that summer. The piece is now part of the Cass Sculpture Foundation collection.

James describes the ‘Ripper’ as a ‘floor marking’ machine and ‘a tool for making art’; the structure being the cross between a ‘tower crane ‘ and a ‘drag hoe.’ The marks that it makes are the effect of the viewers’ active participation.

As part of Shaping Sculpture 2010 the cafe at Chelsea College of Art and Design currently has a small show of drawings by James. The drawings are for a machine called ‘Chimera’. ‘Chimera’ was shortlisted in 2009 for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize. James also has shows later this year at the Hannah Barry Gallery and Royal Society of British Sculptors.

www.shapingsculpture.com

www.hannahbarrygallery.com

An exhibition of new works by:

Colin Clark
Luke Drozd
Michael Lawton

at The Flea-Pit, Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG

Opening event on Thursday 4th Feb, 6-9pm
Exhibition continues Feb 5th-28th

Sunday 10am-2pm
Tuesday – Saturday 6pm-10pm (dependent on events – see website for details: www.thefleapit.com)
 
About The New New Black Mountain.

Sunday. I spent this morning reading Saturday’s Guardian. Starting at the back, I tried yesterday’s Sudoku puzzle. Working forward (through the past), I looked at yesterday’s obituaries. Mathematics and narrative. There’s logic in reading about the recently deceased in old newspapers.

Regardless of how newly out-dated the events, new new-ness, and black mountain-ness, should’ve been filling my thoughts. Serendipitously, a ghostly aide memoir appeared.

Yesterday’s celebrated life was Kenneth Nolan, a spectral alumnus of The Black Mountain College, a recipient of it’s social and liberal arts education. A pupil of Josef and Annie Albers and Buckminster Fuller, a peer of Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham.

This plot is not mathematically factual, but makes for a good story.

There is no college on the New New Black Mountain, I checked on Google Earth, even at a ratio 1:1, a useless tracing shows no sign of anything educational. Can a mountain peak be new? And is ‘New New’ a joke on art school jokes? (Do two news make an old?)

Perhaps this exhibition constitutes a mapping of this doubly new and dark territory, or a potential mapping of a de-territorialisation.

From the pen of the Secretary of the New New Black Mountaineering Club
For further info email: lukedrozd@hotmail.com

The Course Information Office is now open for business!

Chelsea’s Course Information Office is now open for business. The office deals with drop-in enquiries about Chelsea’s Foundation, Undergraduate and Graduate School courses.

The office is open between 10am – 4pm Monday to Friday (except public holidays)

If you have any questions, remember you can call us or email:

E: enquiries@chelsea.arts.ac.uk
T: +44(0)20 75147751
Find us

We Cluster and We Stick

An exhibition of works by Rosie, her family and friends.

December 15 – 17
The Triangle Space
Chelsea College of Art & Design
16 John Islip Street
London, SW1P 4JU

www.rosiedwyer.co.uk