Two weeks, bursting out of lockdown, pushing through barriers of fultility, or difficulty in opening up, coming out of routines, meeting friends again, making works, dragging them across London, collaborating, reading, performing, cleaning, hanging - this exhibition, all told, feels well worth it, now it is finished. We documented all the events and works in great depth www.stevenjfowler.com/developments and before we left I managed to shoot this tour, so that the works briefly up may be seen in perpetuity.
A note on: Facial animations and the closing event of A History of Unnecessary Developments
A third and final restricted event for Tereza Stehlikova and I’s exhibition at Willesden Gallery, this was another grand one, curated ably by Tereza. These events, with a max of 7 people, create something obviously intimate but also beyond that, removing expectation of audience, something palpably focused and playful and relaxed. This night we had powerful poetry readings by Cristina Viti and Stephen Watts, alongside talks by Jo Gibbons, my old friend and an incredible landscape architect, as well as animation performances and more. For my own part I read again, for the second time ever, from my CAR GIANT pamphlet that I had written for Tereza and I’s film, which is the centrepiece of this exhibition. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
I also, unexpectedly, and gladly (after spending the event filming with two cameras, for my youtube and tereza’s instagram live) got to collaborate with the animator and artist Birgitta Hosea. http://www.birgittahosea.co.uk/ Birgitta was projected neon asemic poems and lines and drawings upon my own asemic poems! A quite brilliant performance, and she allowed me, or urged me, to get in there, in the way, to be painted upon. At first I wrote on my works and then I just stood there, like a dummy, in the best role a collaborator can have, while she drew upon my visage. It was cool to see on video afterward.
Though the exhibition runs for another week, it was this event that cemented Tereza and I’s feeling that the whole endeavour, run without much footfall as the lockdown trace remains, was wholly worthwhile.
A note on : my art-poems in A History of Unnecessary Developments
I had a friend who can take photos come into to see my new, brief, exhibition at Willesden Gallery, and try to turn chicken beaks into gold. The photos are excellent, and improve my works when seen in the flesh. In a sense, these works do consolidate a lot of my recent explorations in visual poetry - especially in the art poems field, which I’ve loosely theorised in a lot of my teaching. They were all made for the exhibition, on wallpaper paper, with indian ink and some acryllic paint. Tonnes more photos of the exhibition are at……. www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
A note on : The popogrou collective at A History of Unnecessary Developments
The second event to take place, away from the public with the seven person restriction of pseudo lockdown, during my exhibition with Tereza Stehlikova at Willesden Gallery www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
This was the inaugural public showing of a new collective I am lucky to be a part of. POPOGROU - featuring Martin Wakefield, Susie Campbell, Bob Bright, Simon Tyrrell, Patrick Cosgrove (all of whom were present on the day) and Sylee Gore, Emma Hellyer, Victoria Kaye (who provided a brand new hand made publication of intersemiotic translations to rep themselves from beyond).
The performances were extraordinary, and the sense of it being somewhere between a workshop, a catch up of friends after so long without such things, and a high level literary endeavour exploring what is possible with the reading and performances really was uplifting. / For my own part I gave a reading from my 2020 short fiction pamphlet, which was written for the film Tereza and I made, which was screened at the whitechapel and I had realised that I had never read out loud before. https://sampsonlow.co/2020/01/29/the-car-giant-sj-fowler/
A note on : Opening night at A History of Unnecessary Developments
In one day Tereza Stehlikova and I managed to get up a rather ambitious exhibition in the Willesden Gallery, in Willesden Green Library, just in time to welcome in a non-public opening night. A future post shall be dedicated to the works in the exhibition, which balances huge asemics and art poems with Tereza’s brilliant frottage, photos and our film screened on a loop. For now, the opening night, where we could have 7 people in the gallery, masked and socially distanced, with each of the 7 being a poet / artist, who presented readings and performances, including 3 books from If a Leaf Falls press. A kind of poetry lock-in, and the first event for many in 13 months or so. With Lavinia Singer, Dan Power, Emma Filtness, David Spittle, Tereza Stehlikova, myself and Chris Kerr, it was a really lovely evening. Visit http://www.stevenjfowler.com/developments for all the videos of the performances. My own performance included a rubber elephant balloon, poems and the writing on the wall. Tereza’s included a group frottage. It was intimate.
Exhibition : A History of Unnecessary Developments - April 19th to May 2nd
www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
at The Willesden Gallery, London
An exhibition by Tereza Stehlikova & SJ Fowler
The gallery opening times are:
10.30am to 2.30pm, Mon to Fri
12.00pm to 4.00pm, Sat and Sun
Government guidelines are in place throughout the exhibition, with seven people allowed in the gallery at one time, masked and socially distanced. The exhibition has been developed and supported by Nadia Nervo.
Note - Really lovely to have a second exhibition with Tereza in West London, extending our ongoing worm wood project into the brilliant Willesden Green based, library housed, willesden gallery… For more on our project in general visit stevenjfowler.com/wormwood and for our last exhibition visit stevenjfowler.com/wormexhibition
Press Release : A longform collaboration between the artist-filmmaker Tereza Stehlikova and artist-poet SJ Fowler takes shape in an exhibition of experimental documentary, found sculpture and abstract writing. Exploring, recording and revealing the environs of industrial West London, this exhibition creates a temporary shrine to overlooked corners, pathways and ley lines of an area of London soon to face major redevelopment. Taking in vistas and flotsam from across Wormwood Scrubs, Kensal Green Cemetery, the Grand Union Canal and beyond, this fusion of artistic methods, centred around a feature length film previously screened at Whitechapel Gallery, aims to offer an aperture into the lived in, urbane and often unseen beauty of a part of London soon to change.
The exhibition of part of an ongoing collaboration between Stehlikova and Fowler, begun in 2015, which aims to document the disappearing. So far the endeavour has created multiple films, new performances, events, publications and a month long exhibition as part of an extended residency with the Dissenter's Chapel at Kensal Green Cemetery in 2017. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/wormwood