Can Altay: The Church Street Partners’ Gazette
13 October – 27 November 2010
Preview:
12 October 2010, 6.30-8.30pm
The Showroom
63 Penfold St.
London NW8 8PQ
T/F 020 7724 4300
Opening hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm
Altay will transform The Showroom into the production site of a single edition newspaper: The Church Street Partners’ Gazette. The project will draw on research and dialogues with a wide range of people connected to the local area, who Altay terms ‘partners’, trying to expand the notion of partnership beyond its economic and juridical use. The Gazette will be created through open workshops of headline writing and graphic design, and discussion events at The Showroom under the headings of ‘Partnership’, ‘Boundaries’ and ‘Transformation’. Areas of investigation will include rights to space, promises and threats related to regeneration, and limits presented by physical, social, political and economic boundaries.
The Showroom’s director Emily Pethick comments: ‘Can Altay’s Gazette furthers The Showroom’s focus on research and process-based artistic practices and participation, creating a playful open editorial situation that responds on the ground to pertinent unreported issues that transcend the local context.’
The installation will have two centres of activity: a meeting area, where the content of the paper is generated through open discussions and research, and a changing display of the Gazette, incorporating large headline boards, announcing the most recent fragments of the editorial, which are updated and reconfigured as copy is produced. The installation will spread outside of The Showroom, with posts in the area displaying the ongoing process of the Gazette. The final version of the Gazette will go into print at the end of the show, offering its readers a study of the overlooked issues of local urban life.
Altay’s work is known for its focus on improvised architectures in the city, unauthorised systems of organisation and models of co-habitation. The Gazette continues his interest in ‘setting a setting’, a body of work where he proposes and constructs provisional spaces for gathering and production.
The Gazette is part of Circular Facts a collaborative endeavor between Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, and The Showroom, London in partnership with Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and Electric Palm Tree. The project is an informal think-tank and a mutual support structure that works as a hub for the production and dissemination of artistic projects, the sharing of imaginative thinking, and open-ended forms of circulation.
For dates of workshops and events, please see www.theshowroomgallery.org.
For further information please contact Natasha Tebbs on 020 7724 4300 or natasha@theshowroom.org
Can Altay (born Ankara, Turkey in 1975) has a PhD in Art, Design, and Architecture from Bilkent University (2004), an MFA and BFA from Bilkent University, and a degree in Critical Studies from Malmö Art Academy and Lund University, Sweden. He has had solo exhibitions in Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Germany (2008), Sala Rekalde, Spain (2006) and Spike Island, UK (2007) and has presented work at Istanbul, Havana and Gwangju biennials, as well as at the Walker Art Center (USA), Van Abbe Museum (The Netherlands), ZKM (Germany), PS1 MoMA (USA), and Platform Garanti (Turkey).
The Gazette is generously supported by Outset and Tansa Mermerci Eksioglu, and is part of Circular Facts, funded with support from the European Commission. The Showroom is supported by Arts Council England and members of the gallery’s Supporters Scheme.
