Juneau/Projects/ Driving off the Spleen f a projects are pleased to announce the first exhibition at the gallery of the young British duo Juneau/Projects/. "Driving off the Spleen" relates an arduous Lake District episode in the lives of Juneau Projects. Grappling with nature, technology and the haunting characters they meet there, the Juneaus recount their journey in all its horrific detail. They will always remember the crowing of the Former Professional; the poetry of Small Hands Paul, redolent with the beauty and heartbreak of the lakes reflected in an ale glass; the powers of darkness that swarm around the landscape painter Meg and the solitary figure of The Man of Speed. Ben Sadler and Philip Duckworth started making work together in Birmingham under the name Juneau/Projects/ in the late 1990s. Their works consist of installations of elements - photographic, sculptural, documentary - which conjure up characters to populate their Chaucerian narratives. They draw on ephemera, outmoded and defunct technological equipment, video documentations of performances and events, a painted crash helmet or bottles, customised TVs and computer monitors, all of which become components in their narrative journey. Juneau/Projects/ are equally alienated from nature, which is often their subject, and from the consumer items of computer hardware, walkmans, broken TVs, mobile telephones, which are their medium. This alienation becomes a critical position in their work, which has a performative element as much as a sculptural form. "Walkman/Lake", 2001, documents a Walkman continuing to play a recording of Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen while being lowered by a man into a lake from a rubber dinghy. In "The Beauty Royale", 2003, lengths of wooden dowel, with contact microphones attached, are fed through a chipper. What is unique in these works is the fluidity with which the artists negotiate the transition from performance to documentary to sculptural form. Philip Duckworth, British, born Iselohn, Germany 1976, BA Coventry 1996-1999. Ben Sadler, British, born Birmingham 1977, BFA Ruskin School of Art 1996-1999, MA Goldsmiths 2002-2004. Exhibition: September 9 - October 9, 2004 Gallery hours: Tue-Fri 10am - 6pm, Sat 12 - 5pm f a projects 1-2 Bear Gardens GB-London SE1 9ED Telephone +44 020.7928 3228 Fax +44 020.7928 5123 Email info@faprojects.com www.faprojects.com |
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