RA Summer Exhibition 2023

Taking the Barn for a Walk | Kristina Kotov & Gabor Stark, 2014-23

Kristina Kotov and I were selected for this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The annual exhibition, running without interruption since 1769, features work by Royal Academicians and household names as well as new and emerging talent. Anyone can submit their work and, if their work is selected by the RA’s judging panel, goes on display in the Main Galleries. This year, the Architecture Room is curated by housing specialist Peter Barber RA, and focuses on the role of making and the hand-made in the design process.

The idea for our collaborative piece started nearly ten years ago, when Kristina bought, disassembled, and relocated a vernacular barn in Lithuania. The timber structure was reassembled on the adjacent site of her LT Ranch Space. Three components that weren’t fit for purpose anymore were exported to England, and I received a 2-metre-long purlin which sat behind my office door in Canterbury for several years. Last summer, I finally carved the piece of wood into small barn-shaped houses. Mounted on the original iron nails that came with the travelling purlin, the three Barneys now tiptoe on top of the worm-eaten timber log. So, taking a barn for a walk is possible – but may take longer than you think.

The RA Summer Exhibition is open until Sunday 20 August 2023.

Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/summer-exhibition-2023

The mother barn | Stučių km. Tauragnai, Lithuania, 2014

RNc | Purlin cuts & carvings, 2022

Taking the Barn for a Walk | Carved timber and iron nails, 10 x 47 x 17 cm, Kristina Kotov & Gabor Stark, 2023

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Epilogue

The Curious Incident of the Barn before Showtime

A few days before the opening, we received a message that the piece was supposedly damaged during the installation process. It turned out to be not even a minor sculpture injury.

A big thank you to Peter Barber, Lorenz Ecker, and the friendly RA art handlers!

LINKS

On this blog

LT Ranch Space on Instagram

LT Ranch Space blog

Different Planes at Cantium Arts

Different Planes was featured in a film and live performance by Anna Phoebe and Richard Bundy. 

“Cantium Arts is part of Dover Arts Development Digital Festival 2021, supported by the Arts Council. Curated by Anna Phoebe + Richard Bundy, artists were asked to respond to the themes of Movement, Interaction and Connection in and around Dover. The submissions were compiled into a 30-minute film, to which Richard and Anna improvised a musical response. This was recorded live in Alkham Valley on the 11th November.”

Music by Richard Bundy + Anna Phoebe // Available for download here

With contributions by Paul Chaplin // Edda Jones // Joanna Jones // Gabor Stark // Mark McGuire // Clare Smith // Paul Chenoeur  // Skyla Bridges // Barry O’Brien // Charles Holland // Danny Burrows // Chloe Lamford // Malgosia Lonsdale 

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Further links

DAD DIGITAL FESTIVAL // https://www.dadonline.uk/digital-festival/

CANTIUM ARTS // https://www.instagram.com/cantiumarts/?hl=en

DIFFERENT PLANES // https://precariouspropositions.wordpress.com/2021/08/12/different-planes/

ΟΙΚΟΠΕΔΟΠΟΊΗΣΗ

LIMITLESS LIMITS – LARNACA BIENNALE 2021 | 13 October – 26 November 2021

ΟΙΚΟΠΕΔΟΠΟΊΗΣΗ
Land Consumption – Every Day!
Emilio Koutsoftides & Gabor Stark, 2021

ΟΙΚΟΠΕΔΟΠΟΊΗΣΗ | oikopedopoíisi
Greek | noun: the conversion of areas of land into plots for sale
From οικόπεδ(ο) (plot) + -ο- + -ποίηση (poetry)

Exhibited at the Larnaca Biennale 2021, the installation addresses the themes of land parcellation, commodification and consumption – the irreversible conversion of land with healthy soil and rich biodiversity into areas of urban human settlements. It combines the cast of an exemplary Cypriot landscape with the transmission of field recordings of the same location. 

The material and sound samples were taken at the village of Lemba in the Pafos District. Known for its rare biodiversity, the 40-hectare Lemba Valley is a natural enclave and recreational retreat that competes to exist with the ever-growing sprawl of Pafos’ metropolitan area.

Held in position by a wall-mounted steel rack, the grid of 32 plaster casts presents an inverted 1:1 replica of the site’s micro-geology. The pristine surface of the plaster is contrasted by mineral and organic residues captured during the casting process. The accompanying audio track juxtaposes the cultural noises of construction sites with recordings of Lemba’s natural soundscape.

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ΟΙΚΟΠΕΔΟΠΟΊΗΣΗ | Land Consumption – Every Day!

Steel and plaster, 200 cm x 175 cm x 18 cm | audio track, 10:49 min
Emilio Koutsoftides & Gabor Stark, 2021

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LIMITLESS LIMITS

LARNACA BIENNALE 2021
13 October – 26 November 2021

www.biennalelarnaca.com

@biennalelarnaca

Different Planes

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An aeroplane flies over the romantic Rhine valley in Germany. On board, two of the most influential composers of the 20th century, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Even though the scene is staged – the plane is a painted cardboard cut-out, the background a black and white photograph – Cage and Stockhausen actually did visit the Siebengebirge, the scenery depicted on the tourist postcard, and the place where I grew up. Accompanying the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on their world tour in 1964, our two composer-pilots, together with Henry Tudor, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham and other members of the company, took a day trip from Cologne to Königswinter and climbed the Drachenfels. Another postcard shows the merry band of weekenders in a make-believe helicopter; portraying oneself in a cutting-edge flying device in front of a romantic landscape – clearly the tourist souvenir craze of the day. But back to the first photograph. The two protagonists look quite serious. Was it fear of flying? Or the anticipation that this whimsical double-portrait would become one of the most iconic images in music history?

Fast forward half a century. A second plane, very similar to the aforementioned one, hovers over the same setting, albeit in front of a slightly different photographic background. Steering this time: Blixa Bargeld, of Einstürzende Neubauten fame, and the Italian musician Teho Teardo, who re-enact the Cage/Stockhausen image for the promotion of their latest album. Their facial expressions, especially Bargeld’s, are even grimmer than those of the original aeronauts. This may be due to the gravitas required for the retro-iconic occasion, or general coolness, or the realisation that travelling in a second-hand, Photoshop remake of a fake airplane simply isn’t like flying 1st class – whatever fame the future may hold for our two air pirates.

Back to the 1960s. A third plane, very similar to the aforementioned ones, hovers over the same setting, albeit in front of a slightly different photographic background. On board this time: my mother, with my sister on her lap, and three other children. They had the same outing as Cage & co. and all passengers look happy. With its proud place in the family album, this photo is part of my childhood memories. I learned about the musicians in the first two images much later in life, but now like to entertain the idea that my mother, Cage and Stockhausen were in the same queue, waiting to board the same cut-out plane. Whilst this is very unlikely (my mother doesn’t recall any American East Coast accents) Different Planes takes this reverie forward, musters all portrayed crew members, and turns them into one vocal ensemble.

So, fasten your seat belts, get ready for take-off, and enjoy the flight!

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Different Planes

by Gabor Stark, August 2021

Voices // Credits

John Cage: Excerpts from ‘Écoute’ (1992), directed by Miroslav Sebestik, and from ‘John Cage – Journeys in Sound’ (2012), a film by Allan Miller & Paul Smaczny 

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Excerpts from the second of three short film introductions on Stockhausen by Birmingham Opera Company as part of the London 2012 Festival, and an interview with Danish TV (1986)

Blixa Bargeld: Excerpts from video interviews with MTV (1991), Internazionale, Italy (2017), and ABC News, Australia (2018)

Teho Teardo: Excerpt from a video interview with Internazionale, Italy (2017)

Annelie Stark: Telephone recording, August 2021

Additional music sample: Excerpt from ‘Über den Wolken’ (‘Above the Clouds’), cover version of the original song by Reinhard Mey (1974), performed by Xavier Naidoo for Songpoeten (2019)

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Original postcards

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As part of the DAD Digital Festival Different Planes is featured on Cantium Arts

curated by Anna Phoebe and Richard Bundy

FINISSAGE – Voices in an exhibition

I’m delighted to be exhibited at the Museum of Openness. At the invitation of MOO founder and director Alf Löhr, I produced a mini-/ collage opera for twenty-two voices and a bicycle. To watch the video by Alf Löhr and to download the libretto, please visit the MOO online.

museumofopenness.com

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FINISSAGE – Voices in an exhibition

A collage opera for twenty-two voices & a bicycle

by Gabor Stark, July 2021

PERSONAE DRAMATIS | A-Z

Theodor W. Adorno // Carl Andre // Hans Arp // John Baldessari // Joseph Beuys // David Byrne // John Cage // Nick Cave // Leonard Cohen // Marcel Duchamp // Kim Gordon // David Hockney // Agnes Martin // Taylor Mead Georges Perec // Lou Reed // William Rice // Kurt Schwitters // Nina Simone // Gertrude Stein // Karlheinz Stockhausen // Tom Waits // & a bicycle 

anachoresis – upon inhabiting distances

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Photography © Ugo Carmeni

Here the press release for, and a few glimpses into the Cyprus Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. For more info on Peripatetic Landscapes please visit the previous posts on this blog.

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Cyprus Pavilion // Press release

“The Cyprus Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia addresses the spatial experiences that occur when inhabiting distances becomes a paradigm for the development of new socialities. The notion of anachoresis, as explicated by Roland Barthes in “How to live together,” denotes an abrupt departure into spaces of atypical and idiorrhythmic manifestations of cohabitation. In the Cyprus Pavilion, anachoresis is introduced as an act that takes place on the convergence of urban-public and domestic-private space, where the distance between the two is blurred and inhabited.

The horizontal site-specific installation scales up one of the most archetypical structures and social objects, the table. Designed by Era Savvides and Nasios Varnavas (Urban Radicals) in conversation with Marina Christodoulidou and Evagoras Vanezis, it takes the pavilion’s original domestic typology as a point of departure, with the table expanding to a quasimonumental form. The architectural gesture unifies the indoor and outdoor areas, guiding one through a paced walk with spaces for pause and activation – implementing new protocols of distancing whilst balancing our need for being together.

The table’s foundations reference Cypriot landscapes, both raw materialities and terrains. The tabletop is fragmented and re-assembled into a mosaic of ‘islands’ which allow for cultural and social multiplicity of languages. Embedded into the surface are objects of play, infrastructure and craft, which archive narratives of collectivity and exchange by creating the basis for a cartography of places and characters, operating between local-global scales and rhythms.

Gathered on the table are proposals by architects and interdisciplinary groups from Cyprus and abroad, inviting reflections on the physical and social aspects of architectural practice. Through the perspectives of urban and domestic landscapes, queerness, play, architectural tradition, and technology, a micrography of fantasized communities is proposed.

The project re-envisions spatial relations by furthering into the mediums of sound and movement. In collaboration with composer Yiannis Christofides, the soundscape “Things in the Distance” amplifies the reversibility of the indoors and the outdoors, while the choreographic score “ANEW” developed as part of Michalis Theophanous and Georgia Tegou’s dance-as-design practice, suggests counter-structures to our daily acts and typical behaviours.

Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances is accompanied by a publication and a newspaper edition. The publication includes texts on the various thematics explored by the curatorial team and the project’s contributors, while it opens itself to projects and texts by invited collaborators. The newspaper collects articles by curators and exhibitors of this year’s Biennale, as well as other cultural practitioners, and is available as Free Press throughout the duration of the exhibition.

As part of the project, a series of collateral events will be announced via the Pavilion’s website and social media.”

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17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

The Cyprus Pavilion 2021 // Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances 

Curated by Marina Christodoulidou, Era Savvides, Evagoras Vanezis, and Nasios Varnavas

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Associazione Culturale Spiazzi

Castello 3865

30122 Venice

(Arsenale vaporetto stop)

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May 22–November 21, 2021

Tuesday–Sunday

10:00–18:00

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http://cypruspavilion.org

https://www.instagram.com/cypruspavilion/

https://www.facebook.com/cypruspavilion2021/

peripatetic landscapes – handle with care

peripatetic landscapes by Emilio Koutsoftides & Gabor Stark

All casts completed; material samples, speaker and rack assembled; crate delivered to the drop-off point at Nicosia – ready to be shipped to Venice.

Link to audio track

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17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021

The Cyprus Pavilion 2021 // Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances 

Curated by Marina Christodoulidou, Era Savvides, Evagoras Vanezis, and Nasios Varnavas

https://cypruspavilion.org

https://www.labiennale.org/it

peripatetic landscapes – work in progress

peripatetic landscapes by Emilio Koutsoftides & Gabor Stark

Here some glimpses of the making-of of our sound sculpture for the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2021. The casting process is nearly complete, the rebar rack is welded, and we started to configure the object. We’ll (literally) wrap up everything by the end of March, ready to send the crate on its Grand Tour to Italy in April. More updates coming soon…

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17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021

The Cyprus Pavilion 2021 // Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances 

Curated by Marina Christodoulidou, Era Savvides, Evagoras Vanezis, and Nasios Varnavas

https://cypruspavilion.org

https://www.labiennale.org/it

Peripatetic Landscapes at La Biennale di Venezia 2021

peripatetic landscapes | ,pɛrɪpəˈtɛtɪkˈlan(d)skeɪps |

A project by Emilio Koutsoftides & Gabor Stark

Following on from a successful submission to the Open Call for the Cyprus Pavilion, Peripatetic Landscapes will be exhibited at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia from 22 May to 21 November 2021. Organised by the Cyprus Architects Association and the Cyprus Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth, and curated by Marina Christodoulidou, Era Savvides, Evagoras Vanezis, and Nasios Varnavas, the theme of the Cyprus Pavilion is Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances.

Our proposal plays with distance and proximity through the combination of material and sound sampling. The composite object incorporates material specimens of a Cypriot landscape and the transmission of field recordings of the same location. Using the surface of the sampled topography as the mould, sixteen plaster casts present inverted 1:1 replicas of the micro-geology of Lemba Valley in the Pafos District. The pristine white surface of the material is juxtaposed by mineral and organic residues captured during the casting process. Held in position by a steel rack, the stacked pieces form a stratigraphic cube which hovers over the surface of the exhibition table in the pavilion. The centre of this porous vessel holds a wireless speaker transmitting the sound of a looped audio track through the artefact’s crevices and interstitial spaces. The immersive sonic portrait comprises recordings of natural habitats and phenomena – wind, water, and bird calls – as well as cultural soundscapes – footsteps, ambient village and workshop noise. Removed from its original place of topographic and audio recording, the peripatetic object resonates acoustically, haptically, and visually. Its perception oscillates between that of a site-specific portrait of a distant geography and a scale-less object inviting visitors of the Cyprus Pavilion to project their own imaginary landscapes.

Here some images of our first test casts, drawings from the Open Call submission, and links to the demo version of the audio track, the Cyprus Pavilion and the Venice Biennale.

Coda

“Sound carries messages. It functions as a communicational medium. As a physical and spatial movement, sound carries a collection of information related to the conditions of the original object or body, and the related environment. Importantly, this information also grants animation to things: by stemming from an object or body, sound signals that movement is occurring, and more so, that life is happening.” 

Brandon LaBelle (2009)  // In OASE #78: Immersed. Sound and Architecture

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The Cyprus Pavilion 2021 // Anachoresis: Upon Inhabiting Distances 

Curated by Marina Christodoulidou, Era Savvides, Evagoras Vanezis, and Nasios Varnavas

https://cypruspavilion.org

https://www.instagram.com/accounts/login/

https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FCyprus-Pavilion-la-Biennale-di-Venezia-2021-102585555002243

Αnachoresis

17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021

https://www.labiennale.org/it

Proud to be a DAD Guardian

I’m excited to take up my new role as a DAD Guardian. DAD Dover Arts Development is an artist-led not-for-profit limited company that functions as a collaborative framework within which its artist directors, Joanna Jones, Clare Smith, and Louisa Love, conceive, manage and deliver ambitious projects of artistic excellence within the visual arts, poetry, sound and music.

In December 2020, DAD appointed eight ‘Guardians’: Alice Bryant, Charles Holland, Colin Priest, Edda Salander-Jones, Gabor Stark, Helen Lindon, Richard Bundy & Simon Bill. Their function is summed up in the term ‘guardian’ and the means is through a non-formalised structure where each, as well as helping steer DAD, can continue working on projects with DAD.

Founded in 2006 and established as a limited company in 2008, DAD has worked with over 150 visual artists, architects, designers, film-makers, musicians and writers as well as other local, regional, national and international partners on the delivery of art projects in and for Dover. The various art and placemaking projects instigated and managed by DAD have linked culture and heritage stakeholders and public authorities with each other and thus contributed to the revitalisation and activation of Dover’s cultural, public and civic realm.

For more information, please visit the DAD website