Carmel O’Brien ‘MADamE B’
Kate Charlesworth
welcome to
transitional toys
now 20 international artists.
pRESS information
15-30 May 2020 RESCHEDULED!
NEW OPENING DATE:
THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2020 RESCHEDULED!
3rd Time Lucky: Thursday 26 August 2021 - Sunday 12 September 2021
now including 5 artists from Milan:
Guy Limone, Chris McCabe, Luigi Belli, Beatrice Gaspari, Chiara Passigli: créations hétéroclites.
AND THEREAFTER - GALLERIA L’AFFICHE MILANO
This material may be reproduced.
Innaugural show: Glasgow December 2019 / January 2020
With the participation of an impressive international cast, iota and Scottish poet Peter McCarey collaborate anew to bring you ‘Transitional Toys’.
artists conspire to bridge cultures across five different disciplines in an exhibition to be shown in Glasgow, Geneva and Milan.
This group of artists emerges from these three great international trading cities, and seeks to further explore and develop our common ground. The artists are invited to consider an exhibit on the theme of “transitional toys” (security objects). These are objects, such as cuddly toys or blankets, that accompany children as they grow and develop. The objects themselves remain unchanged while the possessor’s view of them gradually mutates. Transitional Toys were originally designed for a specific purpose, but their owner invests new significance and the original object evolves psychologically.
In a sense, any art object can have a similar impact on its audience. We therefore ask this group of very different artists to create an object that visitors can relate to. The works will range from physical objects to depiction of such objects in drawings, on canvas or on film, and a musical interpretation of the theme, played (appropriately) on a toy piano. The relevant phase of psychological transition can be early childhood, as with cuddly toys, or adolescence (the teenager’s fetishism of apparel) or adulthood, which also has its transformations to negotiate.
TT artists
Peter McCarey is the creator of TT. Born in Paisley, resident in Geneva, he is a Scottish poet at large. His early poetry is published by Carcanet; the rest is at www.thesyllabary.com. He is Director of Molecular Press (Geneva) and founding member of Makaronic.ch. Awards: a Rockefeller Foundation residency, Bellagio, a Hawthornden Fellowship and a British Council Scholarship. Recommended book of the year 2017 inThe National: Petrushka: A conference on Severe Epidemic Phytonotic Syndrome (SEPS). Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Geneva, Molecular Press, 2017); McCarey travelled to central Siberia in winter to devise a disaster scenario in which people turn into various species of plant. Written up as conference documents, (real) high-level experts in various fields then discussed an action plan to deal with it. https://molecularpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/associationMakaronic ‘Confessionals & Vending Machines’ iota/McCarey & Scott, shown in Glasgow & Geneva. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/630504016556557471/
T. D. Coats aka Duncan Scott, is a TT director. An award-winning architect with a major side-line in sculpture, his architecture includes the Luma Building (Europa Nostra Award), Partick Interchange and the development of Scottish Ballet. Collaborating with the George Wylie for many years, on projects such as the Crystal Ship and Speirs Lock, his art production spiralled from there. He is a co-founder of iota (2010), and of Unlimited Studios (2007). He collaborated with Peter McCarey on the exhibition/ installation ‘Confessionals and Vending Machines’, first shown at iota, Glasgow & then at Poesie en Movement, Makaronic, Geneva. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/630504016556557471/ https://www.iotaarts.space/t-d-coats
Vincent Barras is Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Lausanne. A sound poet and performer, he is a central figure of the Geneva avant garde. He is a writer and translator of his own and others’ contemporary and experimental work including poetry, music, contemporary art, the history of medicine, body & psychiatry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ja1v6RBKA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmDqwUnKG9M
Caterina Borelli is an independent film director/producer. Born in Milan and working from Rome & New York City, her work includes experimental video, documentaries and news for television. Her work has shown at the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Pacific Film Archives and the American Museum of the Moving Image. http://www.anonime.net/ Nominated for ‘Lilli e il cavaliere - 10 giorni per battere Berlusconi’ (Lilli and the Knight - 10 days to beat Berlusconi’) https://vimeo.com/121606817
Drawings by Stephan Zimmerli.
Clara Brasca is a painter who lives and works in Milan. Interested in the development of contemporary work using classical language, predominantly in portrait and landscapes, she explores various techniques, scales and materials - oil on linen, mixed media, paper, glass, ceramics. As well as collective shows, her work has shown in solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Kyoto, California, Barcelona, Glasgow and throughout Italy. https://www.iotaarts.space/clara-brasca https://manifesta7.blogspot.com/2018/05/lagiarina-mostra-cura-di-luigi.html
Jacques Demierre is a pianist, composer and improviser. Whether acoustic or electroacoustic, respectful of the frames of traditional writing or freely improvised, his experimentations can be music just as well as sound poetry and sound interventions in situ. They are all moved by the same search for awareness of sound. Demierre readily explores the evocative force of the most quotidian noises. His critical reflection develops a highly transversal and “interdisciplinary” conception of music, which has brought him to work with a number of musicians from very diverse backgrounds, in Europe, United States, South America, Russia, Japan, Canada.
transitional toys
(securitY objects)
iota Unlimited Studios 25 Hyndland Street, Glasgow G11 5QE, Scotland.
Curating Artists’ contacts:
Peter McCarey Email: mccarey@perso.ch
T. D. Coats Email: dscott@unlimitedstudios.c.uk
iota contact details: Telephone: ++ 44 (0)141 338 6052 Email: iota@unlimitedstudios.co.uk
www.iotaarts.space www.iotaarts.space/visual-art
iota motivation: Established in 2010, iota promotes the arts and creative industries and encourages engagement with the arts, locally and internationally. As Glasgow-born graduates of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art, the founders have always believed in the importance of cross-fertilisation between lands and disciplines - inspiration, dissemination, diaspora.
L. A. Hunter is a Glasgow-based painter who has worked and exhibited in Scotland, England and Italy, both as artist and designer. The verve and commitment of her recent solo exhibition and installation at iota in Glasgow made her a natural candidate for this project. Her work, ranging from oil painting to installation, film and participatory practice, is often inspired by & references words and architecture. Laura is an active member of iota, where she creates participatory projects for engagement with the arts. https://www.iotaarts.space/laura-a-hunter https://www.iotaarts.space/casinista Casinista/Williwaw ‘Disorder’, 1/3 ‘Seasonal-Affective-Disorder’ https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/630504016556565455/
Chris McCabe is a poet and writer of concrete poetry, prose and plays, fiction and non-fiction. He has recorded his work for the Poetry Archive and his collections are published by Salt Press. His first novel Dedalus - a sequel to James Joyce's Ulysses - was published by Henningham Family Press in 2018. With Victoria Bean he is the co-editor of The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (Hayward Publishing, 2015) and he is the author of The Affairs of Dylan Thomas (Red Fox Press 2017), a series of collages, poetry collages and visual poems. http://chris-mccabe.blogspot.com/
Robert McNeil, M.B.E. Following a distinguished career in forensics in war zones, McNeil turned to painting full time. After first showing at iota in 2012, some works have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Glasgow Museums and Galleries, and many are in public and private collections at home and abroad. Since then both his subject matter and media have greatly expanded, although McNeil continues to produce war-related works, using them to help charities raise awareness of atrocities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4VE4eCfdWM https://www.iotaarts.space/robert-mcneil
Alexa Montani works in sound poetry and improvisation and is currently focused on the work of the composer Howard Skempton. She has performed in Geneva, Basel, Lisbon, Florence and St Andrews. She teaches improvisation and piano at the music school Espace Musical in Geneva (CH), where the main goal is to make music accessible to all without cultural, physical or social exclusion. A graduate of the Conservatory of Geneva (Switzerland), she also studied at the University of Music in Vienna (Austria), learning the music and body method "Cos-art" in Barcelona. https://www.espace-musical.com/presentation-de-l-ecole/association
Craig Mulholland combines emerging digital technologies with painting and sculpture, focusing on ideologies of progress, entropy and their social, cultural and legal impact. He is a lecturer and researcher in fine art at The Glasgow School Of Art. Solo exhibitions include: Koppe Astner, Glasgow (2017); Queens Park Railway Club, Glasgow (2015); Edinburgh International Film Festival, (2014); Glasgow International Festival (2014). Group Exhibitions include: Vitrine, Basel, Switzerland (2017); Lux, London (2017); Lightreading & 8fold Press, with Sukaina Kubba (2016); G. I. Festival, with Opera Autonoma (2016); G.O.M.A., Glasgow (2015). https://vimeo.com/104038543 https://www.craigmulholland.com/
‘HommAges’, Craig Mulholland, Carmel O'Brien and Madeleine V Brown.
Carmen Perrin has worked in sculpture since the 80s and taught at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Geneva until 2005. In the 90s she began to work more in the context of architecture and landscape. She creates work which articulates the interaction of materials and explores their relationship with perceptive space, light, the architectural quality and social reality of public space. In 2011 she obtained a second bursary from the Landys & Gyr Foundation for a six month residency in Berlin. She is currently working on public realm projects, and, in the studio, is leading research in the practices of sculpture and drawing.
https://www.carmenperrin.com/travaux/cela-va-faire-des-vagues.html https://www.carmenperrin.com/travaux/lignes-de-forces.html
Yuri Vashchenko born and based in Russia makes a guest contribution
Supported by
République et canton de Genève
and
iota What is this place?
Sumin Bak ‘How to Hide from the Machines’