Out of Body
25 January – 22 March 08
Private View: Thursday 24 Jan 08
28-32 Wood Street
Liverpool L1 4AQ
(T): +44 (0)151 709 9460
Open Eye Gallery is proud to present Out of Body, an exhibition of photographs and moving image works that explore, manipulate and reflect upon the human body. The exhibition looks at the relationship between biological and photographic time, contrasting the continuous life cycle with the still photographic instant. Rejecting the rules of traditional portraiture, Out of Body does not attempt to capture the human body in a stable visual form. Instead it expresses the resistance of our bodies to being coded or pinned down as images, and the limitations of the technologies through which we attempt to do this.
During a trip to Tasmania, Yannick Demerle (France) made long-exposure photographs of himself in gloomy, TV-lit motel rooms. He now presents these images in negative, giving them a lingering, spectral feeling. Namiko Kitaura (Japan) takes us on another journey of self-exploration. She creates a digital animation of herself suspended in a ‘healing pool’, in which tiny fish remove the dead skin from her body. The stillness of this piece contrasts with the frantic movement of Douglas Gordon’s (UK) video in which isolated body parts take on a life of their own. Combining photography and sculpture, Naia del Castillo (Spain) focuses on the trapped body and its struggle for release, while Valie Export (Austria) tracks the image of the female body as it is transmitted, transferred and fragmented by various media.
For further information and/or images, please contact Stephanie Blundell, Gallery Co-ordinator
(T): +44 (0)151 709 9460 / (E): steph@openeye.org.uk
Gallery Events:
In Conversation: Naia del Castillo, Namiko Kitaura and Monica Nunez
Friday 25 Jan, 2pm
The two youngest artists featured in Out of Body will introduce their work and talk about their involvement in the exhibition with curator Monica Nunez.
Free event
Perspectives on Out of Body: Cathy Butterworth
Saturday 16 Feb, 2pm
An informal gallery talk by performance and live art specialist Cathy Butterworth. (formerly Live Art Curator at the Bluecoat and part-time lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University).
Free event
Still Cinema screening: Lightweights
Wednesday 6 Feb, 6.30pm
Valie Export, The Practice of Love (1984, 90mins.)
An extraordinary anti-romance thriller in which the human body serves as an improvised screen for projected images.
Free event
Biographies:
Naia del Castillo (b. 1975, Bilbao) graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2000. Over the past few years, the artist has captured the attention of numerous important photography fairs and festivals including ARCO, Madrid; FIAC, Paris; MACO, Mexico; Printemps Festival, Toulouse; and PhotoEspana, Madrid.
Yannick Demmerle (b.1969, Sarreguemines) did his studies at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Strasburg. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include Arndt & Partner, Berlin; FRAC Alsace, Strasbourg; Chateau d’Oiron, Oiron and Galerie Aline Vidal, Paris.
Valie Export (b. 1940, Linz) has had a highly influential career, producing innovative work in a range of mediums—including film, video, installation, performance, photography, sculpture, and computer animation—for over forty years. Export’s work often focuses on the meaning, transformation and identity of signs, and the way they are interpreted and represented as reality by the technological media.
Douglas Gordon (b. 1966, Glasgow) won the Turner Prize in 1996, followed by the top award at the Venice Biennale. In addition, he has had major showings at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Namiko Kitaura (b. 1977, Tokyo) uses photography to visualize the almost invisible aspects of human condition that lie below the physical. Formerly an artist-in-residency at La Fabrica, she now works as a freelance fashion photographer between Tokyo, London and Paris.
About Open Eye Gallery:
Open Eye Gallery is a photography gallery based in the centre of Liverpool. Since opening in 1977, the gallery has built a reputation for innovation and excellence. In addition to exhibitions, touring programmes, commissions and other artists’ projects, we offer an expanding range of educational activities and events. Through our artistic and education programmes we aim to present the photographic image in a rich context of critical and historical debate.
Open Eye Gallery gratefully acknowledges sponsorship from C3 Imaging, Liverpool, towards printed material
Gallery opening hours: Tue – Sat, 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed: Sundays, Mondays and Bank Holidays
Admission free
