RANDOM ACTS OF ART

EXHIBITION 24 APRIL - 1 MAY

2010-05-02T04:01:00.000-07:00

For Random Acts of Art three artists, who are known for placing an emphasis on social exchange in their artistic practice, were commissioned to develop new work over the course of a two-month residency at the gallery.

Artists Volkhardt Mueller, Lady Lucy and Amy Feneck were asked to respond to the context of the West Quarter of Exeter and to collaborate with people who live or work in the area. Each of the final works on display in the exhibition are the result of this process of engagement.

LADY LUCY

Lady Lucy has an ongoing interest in the every day and a self-proclaimed fascination with other people’s lives. For Random Acts of Art she sent invitations to the residents of nearby housing estates Mermaid Court, Neptune Court and Wheatley Court to sit with her at her mobile portrait studio and be painted. The Court Portraits are the result of the encounters that ensued.

Snippets of the conversations that took place during the painting sessions are made public around the edge of the canvases, offering us some insight into the story of each sitter.

Lady Lucy’s social portraiture lies somewhere between social practice and object making. On this occasion the artist will be redistributing the paintings to the sitters at the close of the exhibition. This radical gesture emphasises that the overriding value of an artwork can lie as much in the process of making as in a physical body of work.

AMY FENECK

Epilogue is based on a conversation between the artist and Terry Timlett, a member of Exeter CND, about Terry’s political activism and his particularly ‘independent spirit’. The latter was a term Feneck heard used in association with the West Quarter and took as her conceptual starting point.

In the film we see an actor and Terry as himself re-enacting an edited version of the original words from the conversation. Following the artist’s direction, which can be heard from behind the camera lens, the performers constantly move in and out of character – a theatrical device utilized in the final epilogue of a play.

Through the layers of editing, the artist gives multiple voices to a series of memories, opinions and values and in doing so confuses the boundaries of reality and fiction. As the narrative is delivered we are reminded that not only memory but history and social conditioning play and important role in the scripting and editing of our lives.

VOLKHARDT MUELLER

Wearing a sandwich board to initiate conversations and collect memories from passers by in the area, Mueller led and recorded a number of interviews with numerous striking West Quarter characters.

He discovered that both unsolicited displays of performance and carnival were once characteristic of an area where arguably there is now little sense of public ritual or event.

Majorette Rehearsing is a utopian portrait of the built environment, which unfolds through ten trajectories. The long receding views, enabled by the digital technology, expand and alter the actual scene, acknowledging an act of public performance without ceremony. The majorette is Muller’s West Quarter archetype, a paradoxical figure of individual aspiration, community celebration and carnival.

Tea Time!

2010-04-30T05:05:00.000-07:00

To mark the last day of the Random Acts of Art exhibition tomorrow, we are holding a May Day tea party at the gallery...come and marvel at the vintage spread laid on by Odd Crocks, Otto Retro and Absolutely Cupcakes!

Tea & cake will be served from 3.30 - 6.30pm.

Speed Portraiture

2010-04-30T04:55:00.000-07:00

Lady Lucy talking to people at last night's speed portraiture event - thanks to everyone who came!

Wrights & Sites

2010-04-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

West Quarter Water Walk From the Tap Bar, White Hart Hotel, South Street Exeter 28 April 2010.

Last night Simon Persighetti and Phil Smith led a Mis-Guided exploration following a water course down through the West Quarter to the Quay. Like the flow of water, walkers found themselves slipping down the gaps between fact and fiction.

Simon Persighetti & Phil Smith are core members of Wrights & Sites, a group of four artist-researcher-lecturers with a special relationship to site and landscape. They make work across a range of media: site specific performance, published Mis-Guides & Mis-Guided Tours, themed drifts, mythogeographic mapping, multi-media installations, public presentations and articles.

See www.misguide.com for more.

2010-04-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

Some local online press cuttings about Random Acts of Art:

BBC DEVON http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8621000/8621993.stm

ARTS & CULTURE
http://artsculture.newsandmediarepublic.org/2010/04/23/engaging-the-public-in-random-acts-of-art-volkhardt-muller-on-the-exeter-spacex-project/

EXPOSE - EXETER UNIVERISTY (Feature on p.32)
http://xmedia.ex.ac.uk/newspaper/pdf/2010-03-22.pdf

2010-04-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

The Random Acts of Art Exhibition is now open

Saturday 24 April - Saturday 1 May

10 - 5pm

(Closed Sunday 25 April)

Admission Free

2010-04-20T07:38:00.001-07:00

Peter Thomas is Exeter's longest established and best selling local Author and has had a lifetime involvement with photography. He is also owner of Exeter's largest private photographic archive, the Isca Historical Photographic collection, which was established in 1974 and contains around 60,000 images of Exeter.

Peter presented a never-seen-before series of images of Exeter's West Quarter to a packed house at Spacex on Tuesday evening.

2010-04-19T03:06:00.000-07:00

Some images of Amy Feneck's film shoot that took place over the weekend

Photography by Ben Langworthy

2010-04-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Street Poetry

2010-04-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

A collaborative poem written as part of a poetry workshop at Spacex today, led by Liv Torc, the Bard of Exeter. A poem inspired by the life and poetry found in the West Quarter of Exeter...

Room to let – ideal for serious student

Beyond the low moan of clone-town commerce

And a High Street riddled with ribald rhyme

Lies a wonderful Wild West.

The clink of roman coins reverberate through time

To the cash registers of a Cappuccino bar.

Cultural cross-hatch expressed in fleeting shops

Whose memory remains imbedded in the pavement’s passage.

The art is as much a part of these streets as the fruit and veg cart

Which is also a part of the heart of the art.

If you collect faces this is a good place to lurk

In the shadows I have seen fear and hope

And at best a sudden hidden lust.

Everyday lives of the past woven into the walls by weavers.

Money builds walls between people, buys indifference and personal space

But nobody has a scent to their name in this place

So we all know the roots of the sadness in the eyes of each face.

On Little Rack Street flat-chested women torture midgets.

Taller men might favour Rack Close Lane

Taking care not to leave any refuge there

The Age of Aquarius is heralded from amid medieval churches

Life ordered between buildings

Do you think the rooks are saying ‘Do not disturb?’

Because it all seems to be in his bedroom

And we are merely intruders in this park.

Renegades of the graveyard.

Roman walls shade the history of slaughter/conquest

Now our daughters get slaughtered within the West Quarter

Past the stream lies the peace shop, peace sells but who’s buying?

How strange to see such a rare commodity

The visual speed dating of window-shopping

Research the old zones, scrub the stones

Etched emo-goth, tattoo your banana blue

The ancient elegance of Tucker’s Hall

Partially obscured by the presence of a Portaloo

In a musty interior everyone’s favourite granny

Once sold whips, chains of bondage – but now she is flats

Stairs that are blocked, locked memories forgotten in mortar

I have smelt death on Preston Street, sickly and sweet

Decaying on the floor of her flat, leaving only her cat and her name

The coffin entrance – out of use

The tattoo of a hand-made belt cuts deeper than 19 butchers

‘It’s like being scratched by kittens’ he said,

As he carved out my broken heart with his needle.

There’s no guts, no glory if you don’t take a Walkabout in the West Quarter

Climb success to the top of Fore Street

Step down to new heights

Funky junk shops with windows throwing beats to the streets

Like aching marching feet

The breeze played an empty larger can like the drums of a marching band

As ghosts lined the streets waiting to be pulled from their graves for a dance

Know about rave? Please come in.

Random acts of art are our inheritance

Last orders are called

The stargazers are now being served.

2010-04-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

There was some unusual pom pom related activity at the top of Stepcote Hill this morning during Volkhardt Muller's final shoot.

The majorettes and their coach viewing some of the footage back at the gallery

2010-04-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

Volkhardt Muller has been videoing majorette performances at various locations in the West Quarter today...

Easter Explorers

2010-04-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

Today Kathy and Hannah led a workshop session for 7-10 year olds who, armed with explorer kits, headed off into West Quarter to see what they could find out about this place and it’s people.

Here's some of what they found: A manhole cover made by Parkin and sons of Exeter; some interesting doorways; some very old key-holes and hinges; spiders' nests; fearsome dogs and alley cats; an artist at work in Neptune Court (Lady Lucy); a watering can which looked like a face; some windows reflecting light onto a wall; some flowers growing from gaps in the path; worm holes, a fire riser; an interesting shape which looks like a dog on the Co-op window.

Participants took photographs, made sound recordings, collected specimens and made drawings. Back at the gallery they experimented with ways of displaying their research. The final display can be seen on 24^th April 2-4pm.

Lady Lucy in Wheatley Court

2010-04-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Mother and daughter, painted by Lady Lucy today

Paul

2010-04-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Today Lucy painted Paul, Tony and a number of other residents of Mermaid Court.

2010-04-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Amy is currently writing a script based on a series of interviews and conversations she has conducted with people from the area.

2010-04-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Amy Feneck interviewing Mr. Terry Timlett of the Exeter CND at the gallery today

Lady Lucy's portrait studio out and about in Neptune Court

2010-04-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

Lucy received a warm welcome today from the residents of the very sunny housing estate Neptune Court, just off Preston Street. Among her numerous friendly sitters today were a postman, a very patient drain maintenance man and a whippet. Tomorrow Lucy will be based in the nearby Mermaid Court and she already has people lined up to be painted - fingers crossed for more lovely weather!

If you live in the area local to Spacex and want to join in with this project by having your portrait painted, please come down and find us at Neptune Court, Mermaid Yard or Wheatley Court. Lady Lucy will be out painting tomorrow and all of next week.

All portraits will be on display as part of the Random Acts of Art exhibition at Spacex from 24th April - 1st May. At the end of the day on 1st May anyone who has sat for a portrait will be invited to take the painting away with them to keep.

2010-04-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

Volkhardt Muller and Lady Lucy enjoying the sun outside Spacex this morning !

2010-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

ANNOUNCING A WEEK OF
ARTIST LED EVENTS
24 April - 1 May

FAMILY EXTRAORDINARY EXPLORERS

Saturday 24 April, 2–4pm, free, drop in.
Take part in a family tour of the exhibition and create your own portrait book.

ARTISTS' DISCUSSION

Monday 26 April, 7pm, free, drop in.
Amy Feneck, Volkhardt Muller and Lady Lucy in conversation with Spacex Project Coordinator Martha Crean.

WEST QUARTER FROM OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

Tuesday 27 April, 7pm, free, booking essential.
Local photographer and historian Peter Thomas will present images of life in the West Quarter from the archives of the ISCA collection.

WATER WALK

Wednesday 28 April, 7pm, free, booking essential.
Simon Perisghetti and Phil Smith from local artist collective Wrights & Sites will take you on a misguided exploration towards the Quay. Meet at the White Hart on South Street.

SPEED PORTRAITURE WITH LADY LUCY

Thursday 29 April, 7pm 16 + free, booking essential.
Lady Lucy will lead a quick fire portraiture workshop. Join us for this sociable event with drinks and snacks. No drawing skills required.

SPRING SCREEN - ARTIST FILMS

Friday 30 April, 7pm free, booking essential.
An opportunity to view a selection of short films from artists across the south west, followed by discussion and networking.

MAY DAY TEA PARTY

1 May, 3.30pm – 6.30pm, free, drop in.
See the exhibition, eat cake and celebrate life in the West Quarter of Exeter. For one afternoon a vintage tea party will be installed in the gallery by local creatives Otto Retro and Odd Crocks. Fairy cakes generously supplied by Absolutely Cupcakes.

Booking Information

Call Spacex on 01392 431786 or email: martha@spacex.org.uk.

2010-04-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

Volkhardt Muller out and about speaking to people around Fore Street this week, collecting memories of significant events in West Quarter history.

2010-03-31T02:00:00.000-07:00

Amy Feneck with Phil Weekes from the Little Theatre Company.

Amy has been investigating rehearsal and performance spaces in the area this week. She also met Fin and David the founders of the recently opened Bike Shed Theatre just off Fore Street.

Invitation to residents of Mermaid Court, Neptune Court & Wheatley Court

2010-03-26T09:17:00.001-07:00

Lady Lucy Action

2010-03-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Random Acts of Consumerism

2010-03-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

Spacex's regular Outerspace attendees were told that instead of paying for the week's activities they could spend the £5 on Fore Street in any way they choose. The random shopping trips resulted in a number of objects, which are going to be used in an animation...

2010-03-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Van Man Red

2010-03-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today the skills for Living students from Exeter College returned to Spacex to show the pictures they took around the West Quarter last week and to use these to produce a personal record of their research.

See the slideshows below for photographs by: Richard Dickins, Thomas Burridge, Liam Davey, Phillip Copp, Hetty Halliday and Tom Sewell.

West Quarter Reds by Richard Dickins includes: Jumping Red, Red Coat Red, Red Learners Sign, One Way Red, Shiny Comfy Red, Glowing Red, Red Letter Day, Child Safety Red, Line Red, Gambling Card Red, Traffic Light Red, City Wall Red, Ruby Splash Red and Van Man Red.

A night time photography walk

2010-03-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night a group of seven photography enthusiasts went for a walk around Exeter's west quarter with Artist Dave Green. They selected a location - the ruins of the medieval Exe Bridge and St Edmunds Tower - and spent an hour on location creating light trace images using torches, the lights of passing traffic, and the embers of a fire left by kids playing under the bridge. The evening concluded back at Spacex with a slideshow of everybody's images.

Exeter College researching and documenting details of West Quarter life

2010-03-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Spacex is running a programme of West Quarter-related workshops and events for schools and colleges alongside the Random Acts of Art residencies. A number of these will be based around research as artist practice. Some of the findings from these workshops will be presented on this site.

Last Friday students from Exeter College's Skills for Living course used Spacex as a base to research and document some details of West Quarter life which included; animals- real or otherwise- that could be found in the area, different types of red found in this environment, an exploration based on locating a sequence of numbers found on doors, signs, posts etc.

2010-03-10T07:47:00.001-08:00

It even has seats that attach to the back!

Arrival of Lady Lucy’s mobile portrait studio

2010-03-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

Mr. Wollett, aka Lady Lucy’s dad, has delivered this specially designed portrait cart to it’s new home in the front gallery at Spacex. Once Lucy has given it a dash of colour it’ll be out on the streets!

Welcome lunch for artists

2010-03-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the Random Acts artists in residence plus special guests Mr. Wollett and Ben Langworthy joined staff at the gallery for lunch and lively discussions about the next few weeks...

Photos by David Myers

2010-02-24T08:47:00.000-08:00