12-Pages Issue 7: Radicals

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

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12-Pages Issue 7: Radicals Cover and Introduction

Introduction by Paul Mendez

A group of artists, writers, musicians and thinkers in the early nineteenth century, among them the British notables Mary Wollstonecraft, Lord Byron, Thomas Paine, William Blake and Mary Shelley, became known as the Romantics. Priding intuition and imagination over reason and empiricism, their original thought and free speech was a radical departure from Enlightenment rationalism, yielding a cannon of seminal works, such as Paine's Rights of Man and Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, whose legacies are enduring.

It has become a topic of contention as to what the term 'radical' means today, such is its ever-changing context. Arguably, since the events of September 11, 2001, pejorative connotations have been dominant. Radical Islam and the threat of terror hang over the globe like the Armageddon of Revelation, precipitating a war between the secular and pious that has prattled on bloodily for a decade. Indeed, the 'radicalisation' page on Wikipedia focuses almost solely on the path to jihadisation and subsequent commitment to the performance of terrorist acts. It can thus be argued that, paradoxically, radicalisation today serves to create something conventional: a homogenous army of self-destructive followers as opposed to the individual, free-thinking, independent agent for positive change that each of the Romantics is remembered as being.

Indeed, worryingly, the gloved hand of the state, fearing the might of the people as demonstrated in the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, is frequently creeping round to silence such independent voices, even in the second decade of the 21st century. Following Ai Weiwei's arrest and detention by the Chinese government, the Booker-Prize-winning Indian novelist Arundhati Roy told The Guardian of the increasing persecution she has received as she continues to polemicise about the problems of the Indian state, its stance on Kashmir, its scant regard for the environment in favour of rapid development and its record on corruption.

Two hundred years after the Romantics paved the way for independent minds to help change the world for the better, and in a world where each individual has the capacity to express and propagate their opinions via free blogging software and microblogging sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it seems inevitable that governments will stymie the potential for anarchy these technological and social developments can engender, for better or worse. Individuals become more radical as societies homogenise. Something must break.

Project News: Slice Project Documentation

TBC developing new work in Catherine Wheel Alley E2

Yesterday TBC Artists' Collective completed the first stages of their contribution to the international Slice project. Filmmaker Timothy Knights, Photographer Valerie De La Rochette and TBC Intern James Tuitt documented the work made on location in Catherine Wheel Alley, London E2. TBC members Beverley Bennett, Charley Peters, Laura Davidson and Paul Mendez are collaborating to create a new piece of work for Slice, a performative drawing responding to an area on the one mile stretch of London from Liverpool Street Station to Whitechapel Station.

Stay tuned to 12-Pages for more project news and check out lahorelondon.wordpress.com for ongoing developments on Slice from London and Lahore.

12-Pages Issue 6: Movement

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

For its sixth issue, 12-Pages asked artists to respond to the theme of Movement. Contributors from Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Norway, the US and the UK combined with members of TBC Artists' Collective to comment on change, stasis, dynamism and process in contemporary art practice.

Contributors: Beverley Bennett, Jeffrey B. Childs, Laura Davidson, Sarah Duncan, Fred.L'Épée, Duncan Fallowell, Paul Mendez, Milos & Slavica, Elizabeth Oniri, Charley Peters and Preben Van der Straete.

Co-edited by Charley Peters and Paul Mendez.
Design by James Tuitt.

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12-Pages Issue 6: Movement Cover

Cover design by James Tuitt

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A Message To...

TBC Artists' Collective are working on a new long-term project called 'A Message To...' The project will take members of TBC to various UK and international locations to make ephemeral interventionist works based on the cities they travel to. On 22 January 2011 members of TBC Artists' Collective - Charley Peters, Beverley Bennett, Laura Davidson, Paul Mendez, James Tuitt - travelled to Oxford to complete the first part of the project. Each artist made a piece of work specifically as a message to a person linked to Oxford who has contributed to national cultural, creative or academic history. 

Charley Peters, A Message To… Ann Oakley (2011)

Installed in Pitt Rivers Museum and Modern Art Oxford

Peters' work pays homage to Ann Oakley, a writer and a sociologist who graduated from Somerville College, Oxford. She has written extensively and influentially around issues of sex and gender, housework, childbirth and feminist social science. Her 1974 book 'Housewife' inspired Peters work for this 'A Message To' project, in which she wrote, 'Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualisation'. Peters' drawing is made from dirt samples collected in her studio.

Peters installed one of her dirt drawings in a display cabinet in the Pitt Rivers Museum. The cabinet, on the first floor of the museum, is directly underneath a vitrine containing ethnographic objects relating to marriage, which seemed particularly relevant to the research concerns of Oakley. The second of Peters' drawings was installed in Modern Art Oxford, hidden in a rack of postcards representing artworks that have been shown in the gallery in past exhibitions.

Beverley Bennett, A Message To… Richard Baker (2011)

Installed in Blackwells Music, Broad Street, Oxford

Richard Baker (born 1972) is a British composer and conductor, known equally for his own highly charged and distinctive music and for his performances of contemporary music, especially the music of his contemporaries in the UK. Bennett chose Baker as her subject due to his connection to her place of birth in the West Midlands, and the striking rhythms of his compositions which complement the visual tones of her drawings. 

Bennett installed her drawing on a notice board in Blackwells Music store on Broad Street, Oxford.

Laura Davidson, A Message To… Maurice Bowra (2011)

Installed in a bicycle basket on Parks Road, Oxford

Maurice Bowra was an Oxford Don who was just as famous for his private life as he was for his academic career. He studied the classics and wrote several books on the subject. He wrote poetry based on his experiences of the First World War. He lived from 1898-1971. He attracted infamy when he was caught bathing nude at Parsons Pleasure in the River Cherwell by the police. Bowra apparently said to them "I don't know about you, gentlemen, but in Oxford I, at least, am known by my face."

Davidson left a message in a bottle for whoever came across her work first - a set of written instructions for how the recipient should undertake a recorded performance as a reference to Bowra.

Paul Mendez, A Message To… John Ruskin (2011)

Pad of Khadi papers deposited at the Western Computer Store, Broad Street, Oxford

‘John Ruskin was a generous man, and so am I…’

One of Oxford University’s most celebrated alumni, John Ruskin was a man who used his means for the benefit of progress, both as stern sage writer and philanthropist, evinced by the plethora of streets, schools, colleges and foundations named after him. His disciples included the likes of Mahatma Ghandi, Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy and Oscar Wilde.

Khadi paper is associated with Ghandi and the Khadi movement of 1930s India, where the focus was on decentralisation, taking work back to the villages and making things by hand. By installing a pad of Khadi papers at an Apple Authorised Retailer Mendez gave someone the opportunity to explore their own creativity through drawing or handwriting, thus invoking the generous spirit of John Ruskin.

James Tuitt,  A Message To… Wilbert Vere Awdry (2011)

Installed at Oxford Station

Wilbert Vere Awdry OBE, (15 June 1911 – 21 March 1997), studied in Oxford, and was the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine. Tuitt produced his drawing for Awdry  as his stories were a part of his childhood.

The work Tuitt created came from his interest in pattern and repetition and the feelings (frustration, impatience etc.) that come from using these processes in drawing. He chose train tracks as a motif in direct relation to W.V.Awdry, and as it was also reminiscent of the time consuming drawings he did as a child of trains, train tracks etc., all because of his fondness of Awdry's story.

Using wrapping paper on which to produce a checked pattern inspired by the identity/fabrics of Burberry, Tuitt suggests its classic/traditional appeal, the iconic status of its pattern (much like the enduring strong status of Thomas among children), and also how this fascination with trains seemingly disappeared.

Tuitt left this piece of work in the only place he felt suitable; Oxford train station. He bound the work together with string, and wrote on the covering piece of card:

Dear Wilbert Vere Awdry, 

Thanks for helping to make me feel almost normal. 

I needed it back then.

The 'A Message To...' project will continue to develop as TBC travel to national and international locations and intervene, through drawing, where they visit. Updates will be posted on 12-Pages.

Project News: A Message To...

The locations of TBC's 'A Message To...' artworks in Oxford

Yesterday TBC members Beverley Bennett, Charley Peters, Laura Davidson, Paul Mendez and James Tuitt travelled to Oxford to take part in the first stage of a long-term project, 'A Message To'. Each artist made a new artwork in homage to someone linked to Oxford who has contributed to national culture. These works were then installed in various locations across the city, intervening in public spaces. The locations chosen by each artist were as follows:

Beverley Bennett: Blackwells Music store on Broad Street
Charley Peters: Pitt Rivers Museum & Modern Art Oxford
Laura Davidson: A bicycle basket on Parks Road
Paul Mendez: Western Computer store on Broad Street
James Tuitt: Oxford Station

More details about the 'A Message To...' project and the artworks created for it coming soon...

12-Pages: Do It Again, and Again, and Again

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http://issuu.com/tbcartcollectiv

Featuring: Charley Peters, Paul Mendez, Elizabeth Oniri, Beverley Bennett, Philip Weiner,
James Tuitt, Alex McIntyre, James Jeff Lindley
Editor: James Tuitt

12-PAGES Online Project Space: October 2010

CHARLEY PETERS

Displacement (2010)

    Graphite square (erased) and accrued erasings.

12-PAGES introduces the Online Project Space, a monthly project set to create specially-prepared works for the 12-PAGES blog, that interrogates individual theory and presents works on a digital wall space.

The theme for October was notions of the home, incorporating the importance of having a home, and perhaps experiences of not having a home. Contributing artists were asked to spend a short time applying this theme to the process of their current practices.




SUSANNAH KING

Home and my Camera Obscura (2010)

I am a Key Worker (I teach) and  live in Key Worker rented accommodation (intermediate housing, they call it). I don’t get to choose whom I live with; it could be any other eligible key worker. Someone, I don’t know who, has decided that Key Workers are all young and single and don’t mind sharing with strangers. I live there, as it is just about all I can afford and is easy to get to work from.

I’m priced out of buying or renting a place of my own as it’s London and this city is affordable to but a few. But I like where I live, I like the area and I love my balcony. It is a shared balcony but few others use it. In June this year I transformed an unoccupied room near the balcony into a temporary camera obscura. I spent the month watching in full colour, the world upside down, from traffic jams on the A40, to airplanes and birds flying across clouds or observing windows from neighboring flats anonymously opening and closing.  The environment surrounding me is projected directly into my own camera space.
I might not own the space I inhabit, but I can certainly lay claim to a month-long period where this space and the territory surrounding us belonged to my camera obscura and I.


ELIZABETH ONIRI

Moving Slowly with Collar Pulled High (2010)

JAMES TUITT

Run Away (2010)

This drawing aims to tell us that sometimes, we need to run away from home. Home is often referred to as a place of comfort, warmth, security, familiarity and so on. although this is very true, these ideas can also be the things that hold us back. sometimes, one needs to get away from the security and the familiarity and the constraints of home in order to be achieve physical, mental, emotional and creative freedom. this is home in the physical walls, windows and doors sense, but also in the mental sense.

BEVERLEY BENNETT

Untitled (2010)

PAUL MENDEZ

Dear Jonathan,

How are you? It has been a long time, indeed. I’m touched that you thought of me and took the time to write such a heartfelt message. Only you and my brother have ever done so.

So what’s going on? Are you married? Kids? How are your family? What do you do for a job? Are you baptised now?

I’m struggling along in London as an artist and writer. I have my first exhibition at the end of this month and a second following quickly after, so I’m very busy – and stressed – at the moment. I’ve had small pieces of writing published here and there but, like most people, I’m still waiting for something real to happen. I’ve been here for six years now and can’t imagine living in another city.

I live with, amongst others, a girl from my year at high school, who is also an artist. We produce a magazine of contemporary art, for which I am the editor. Busy, busy, busy.

I have been through some bad times since I left the truth ten years ago, and wallowed in dreadful emotions that I still feel twinges of now and then, even today. Nobody’s life is perfect, or totally happy, but I do genuinely feel that I am being true to myself and leading the only possible life I can lead. Of course I can see the world for what it is – the very streets of London manifest the declining apocalyptic world painted in prophecy – and I’m sure that something will happen soon. Trust that I am not simply pretending that nothing is happening; I just feel that my time now is best spent outside of Jehovah’s organisation, knowing both good and bad, just as Christ did.

I know that you will think I'm just brushing you off and making excuses. Jehovah's people gave me my education, which has gone on to inform and ask questions of everything I have subsequently thought or acted upon. Thank you for reminding me of what I should be thinking about, however. ‘You are still my brother, and I love you’ is what my sister Sarah said to me once, and I repeat that to you now.

Best wishes,

Paul

Look out for more news from the 12-PAGES Online Project Space next month.