3 STREETS AWAY : EXHIBITION & HAPPENING
1st – 7th MAY -12:00 -21.00 | DOYCE STREET STUDIOS | SE1 0EU
A piano pulling pilgrimage, a furry road, rainy day canapés, chairs that aren’t chairs and finely stitched tumbleweed.
3 Streets Away from the Dorothea Tanning show at Tate Modern, a vibrant art scene has formed to remix dada and surrealism in response to the American artist’s work.
From 1st – 7th May experience a small, surreal and interactive exhibition and a seven day series of happenings, with live performances, sculpture, moving image and paint.Doyce Street Studios
1 – 2 Doyce Street
SE1 0EU
Exhibition open daily
Coffee and canapés
1st – 7th May
12 – 9pm
Events & happenings free, booking required.
ThreeStreetsAway@gmail.com
Further information:
On a shoestring budget and with not a corporate interest in sight a collective of contemporary artists – mostly women – are making work in response to the surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning’s exhibition currently showing at the Tate Modern.
The exhibition will be punctuated with a series of happenings and events over the May Bank holiday weekend.
“We are a mixed bunch that represents the diversity of Tanning’s practice – the core group comprises a furniture maker, a painter, a photographer. a storyteller, a film maker and a dancer but there will also be guest artists coming through over the seven day exhibition to do impromptu performances on the furry road.” says organiser Alannah Currie
“Some of us older artists remember a time when London was an experimental playground and we had space and buildings to make loud music, big performances and play with ideas. Now it’s too expensive and restrictive. We are not just making good work for an exciting show but we are also protesting the utter dreariness that corporate takeovers have brought to inner city London life.”
Private View
1st May 2019
6-9pm
RSVP ThreeStreetsAway@gmail.com
Angel Zatorski opens the show with a Dada performance: Pilgrimage.
Starting at the doors of the Tate Modern riverside entrance at 5pm Zatorski will singularly haul a piano on ropes through the streets, carving a trail from the Dorothea Tanning show at Tate to the 3StreetsAway exhibition at Doyce Street. The public are invited to welcome her arrival with fanfare at Doyce Street at 7pm.
The street outside the exhibition itself will be transformed into a luxuriantly fuzzy installation by artist Miss Pokeno. Completely carpeted from end to end in soft faux fur the public are invited to kick off their shoes and roll on the furry road. Guest artists including Sarah Maple and Jeremy Deller will use the shaggy installation for short performance pieces during the exhibition.
Flying high above the furry road looms a large marionette of elegant but disjointed body parts made of silk and plastics made by textile artist Fernando Mialski.
Contributing Artists
Inside the studio painter Gail Sagman has constructed No Exit, an installation prompted by Tannings’ painterly statement of ‘dissolving into and breaking out from space’. Within No Exit musician and performer Georgia Collins will perform a piece playing on Tanning’s reference of her art being “the raft”.
Beginning on the first night avant-garde dance artist Gaby Agis will perform her new site-specific work, Hoist, daily at 6:30pm for the duration of the exhibition.
In contrast to the Please Do Not Touch Policy of most exhibitions textile worker Jude Dennis has constructed strange anthropomorphic soft sculptures that visitors can roll about like tumbleweed both inside and outside the studio space.
Polly Penrose, a photographer who takes nude self portraits on a ten second timer, has hammered herself into the landscape of the studio and created images that entwine with that of the other artists as well as producing stunning new images that transform Tanning’s abstract paintings into distorted images of flesh.
Angel Zatorski‘s second piece for 3StreetsAway, A at Sea, is durational story work, chalked over 6 days on a blackened wall of the exhibition space. Taking inspiration from the surrealist writings of Tanning, drawing on imagined events, real happenings, tall stories and live interaction, the piece with no logical strategy or narrative destination starts simply with the letter A.
Alannah Currie/Miss Pokeno has constructed three pieces of furniture for the show that incorporate multiple sculptural forms in direct response to Tanning’s later soft sculptural works. A 12 foot chaise called Transit Lounge plays with ideas of women being consumed by their domestic world. Women bodies as objects indistinguishable from furniture.
Alice Humphreys, a young film maker who documents reality through her photography and films, but with the aim to blur the line between observation and imagination. Humphreys making a short abstract film in response to the artists involved, as well as documenting the exhibition.
Selected Events & Happenings:
1st – 7th May
Daily
6:30pm
Hoist performed by Gaby Agis
Thursday 2nd May
1pm
Body Form by Sarah Maple
Sarah Maple will perform a series of live sculptures on the furry road using her own body, a beanbag and her unique combination of irreverence and sharp intelligence.
Free, no booking required.
Thursday 2nd May
7-8pm
Hammering Myself Into the Landscape by Polly Penrose
Polly Penrose discusses her work, her process, and journey as a photographer and artist.
Free, booking essential via Eventbrite.
Friday 3rd May
1-2pm
Women, Sex and Surrealism talk by Alyce Mahon
Dr Alyce Mahon, curator of the Dorothea Tanning exhibition at Tate Modern, discusses the centrality of sexuality and gender in Surrealism that resonate powerfully in today’s cultural & political climate.
Free, booking essential via Eventbrite.
Sunday 5th May
3pm
Artist discussion with introduction by Catriona McAra
Dr Catriona McAra is University Curator at Leeds Arts University, and has published extensively on Dorothea Tanning with a particular interest in her writing and effects on contemporary art and literature.
Introduction followed by exhibiting artists’ informal discussion about the 3StreetsAway project and their response Dorothea Tanning.
Free, no booking required.
Monday 6th May
3-5pm
No-Exit by Gail Sagman featuring live performance by Georgia Collins.
Abstract Painter, Gail Sagman discusses her work and process. Followed by a Live performance from Performance Artist Georgia Collins AKA Silky Disturbance.
Free, booking essential via Evenbrite.
Tuesday 7th May
7-9pm
Soft Sculpture Salon with Miss Pokeno, Jude Dennis & Fernando Mialski
Discussion and exchange of ideas for artists and makers interested in soft sculpture in contemporary art.
Free, booking essential via Eventbrite.
Links:
Facebook: 3StreetsAway
Instagram: @3StreetsAway
Email: ThreeStreetsAway@gmail.com
Press images available on request.
