TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED
18 APRIL – 21 JUNE 2009
30 Pembroke Street,
Oxford OX1 1BP
Modern Art Oxford’s spring exhibition, Transmission Interrupted, looks at how contemporary artists disrupt prevailing forms of registering and representing the world. Featuring the work of over fourteen artists working internationally, the exhibition suggests art’s ability to make visible and audible what remains unseen and unheard in a world of constantly shifting social, political and ideological values.
Many of the works in the exhibition are poetic testaments to events and experiences that have a passing or recurring presence in the public domain. Adel Abdessemed’s Practice Zero Tolerance (2006) a burned-out car fashioned from black clay is a mute witness to the riots that took place in Paris’ working-class districts in 2005. Sislej Xhafa’s installations and performances render visible experiences and relationships that are barely recorded. His live performance piece elegant sick bus (2001/9), which involves a group of men pushing a mirrored tour bus through the streets, draws a parallel with the burden imposed by tourism on local populations.
A number of artists in the exhibition offer meditations on fleeting realities in cities and their inhabitants, which are at odds with the impacts of globalisation and heightened public fears and prohibitions. Simryn Gill’s uses found materials to create replicas of our material world and her photographic projects map the in-between spaces of borderlands and margins. Jem Cohen’s mesmeric film, NYC Weights and Measures (2006), documents New York street life at a time when filming in the city is becoming increasingly controlled due to national security concerns.
Presented in Modern Art Oxford’s galleries and in sites in the city, the exhibition is accompanied by a programme of screenings, artists’ talks and in conversation events, and a fully illustrated book designed by Åbäke with contributions from Human Rights scholar, Thomas Keenan and poet Mourid Barghouti.
Transmission Interrupted is curated by Suzanne Cotter, Senior Curator, Modern Art Oxford and Gilane Tawadros, independent writer and curator.
See www.modernartoxford.org.uk for further details.
EVENTS PROGRAMME
PERFORMANCE
Friday 17 April, 3.00pm
Sislej Xhafa: elegant sick bus
Along Cornmarket Street, Oxford
FREE, Just turn up
Monday 20 April, 7.00pm
Yara El-Sherbini: A Pub Quiz
Jam Factory, 27 Park End Street, Oxford
FREE, Booking recommended
SCREENING
At Modern Art Oxford:
Wednesday 12 May, 6.00pm
Screening of Harun Farocki’s, Videograms of a Revolution, 1992, and Respite, 2008
Wednesday 10 June, 6.00pm
Short video and film works from Jem Cohen, Claire Fontaine and Samuel Stevens
FREE, Just turn up
At Phoenix Picturehouse, 57 Walton Street, Oxford:
Tuesday 26 May, 6.00pm
Jem Cohen, Empires of Tin, 2008
Tuesday 3 June, 6.00pm
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Je Veux voir, 2008
Booking essential 0871 704 2062
TALK
Wednesday 29 April, 6.00pm,
Maja and Reuben Fowkes: Art and Sustainability
Booking essential
Thursday 16 May, 6.00pm
Thomas Keenan, Director, Human Rights Project and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Bard College, New York.
Department of History of Art, 2nd Floor, Littlegate House, St Ebbes, Oxford
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, Sunday 12pm to 5pm, Closed Mondays. Admission Free.
Visit www.modernartoxford.org.uk or call 01865 722733.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
For further information and images please contact Frances Arnold, Press and Marketing Assistant on 01865 813804, frances.arnold@modernartoxford.org.uk
