Bad Year Blimp

Preview Thursday June 5th 6pm-9pm

'Bad Year Blimp' is a presentation of film and video at Alma Enterprises and a series of newly commissioned performative works.

The show includes a special performance by Belgian Fluxus artist Ludo Mich and a weekend inhabitation of the space by Matthew Stone.

The title refers to the ‘Goodyear Blimp’ - the advertising balloon which was based on the design of a First World War Zepplin and utilised as a floating marketing tool. It was also used as a surveillance device in the Second World War and then afterwards returned to advertising tyres.

It’s this switching of identity and its ease of adapting to the political climate that is relevant to the show - the idea of the harmless balloon providing both aid as well as spying on the enemy. The constant weight of the surveillance device overshadowing sporting arenas whilst remaining unchanged in design since its war time use and now a seemingly redundant tool of advertising as it can only shout one word, one logo.

There are comparisons in the neo-repetitions of histories and the overlapping of ideas that merge horrors of conflict and mundanity. Not so much the reactionary conservatism of Colonel Blimp, but still aware of the complex distance between different ages and conscious of ‘Inconvenience’.

Film and Video Works

Suzanne Treister’s film ‘Crossing’ consists of continuous footage shot on Walpurgisnacht at the Hexentanzplatz (witches dancefloor), a high peak above the Harz Mountain town of Thale in Germany. On Walpurgisnacht, an old pagan festival, witches are believed to ride on broomsticks to places of old pagan sacrifices in the Harz Mountains.

Anne-Marie Creamer’s film ‘Meeting The Pied Piper in Brasov’ records a chance encounter of Transylvanian children dancing in traditional dress in the town square of Brasov. The tale of the Pied Piper this is where the spirited-away children emerged and ended their days after being coaxed into the mountain near Hamelin.

Jon Fawcett’s film, ‘Observation Project 04-05’, is a scrolling text describing the observations of several individuals searching the planet for non-physical phenomena. “…On the 21st May 2005, 180 kilometres west of Albuquerque, USA, Mary encountered a sheet form, fragmented at its edges, measuring 16 kilometres across and over 38 kilometres in length…”

Paul Wiersbinski’s film ‘King Nothing’ is a terrifying and hilarious indictment of the pressures put upon artists by their collectors whilst transforming the exhibition space into a rogue safari playground.

Ludo Mich’s film Lysistrata (1976), is a re-imaging of the classic Aristophanes satire. Based in Ancient Greece the story centres on the Athenian women’s anti-war stance by their refusal of sex to their soldier husbands. Ludo Mich’s version uses an all-nude cast with dialogue in Flemish and English.

Performances

14th June 5am - 9pm: boyleANDshaw will perform ‘16 Hours with Sister Corita’; a durational performance piece that will encompass film, drawing, painting that reflects and expands on the continually looped 35 minute segment of film ‘On Teaching and Celebration’, by Baylis Glascock.

3rd July 7.30pm: Ludo Mich will be performing a newly commissioned piece based on ‘singularity’. Ludo Mich has been performing and making film since the 1960’s. As part of the Belgian Fluxus movement his work is an important source of inspiration for the new Antwerp art scene.

5th and 6th July 3pm until late: Matthew Stone and collaborators will inhabit the space. Utilising a stage as an architectural device allowing different situations to take place the two day manifestation of the gallery will also witness an early morning disco and an art salon.

Bad Year Blimp

mit Ludo Mich, Matthew Stone, Suzanne Treister, Anne-Marie Creamer, Jon Fawcett, Paul Wiersbinski