After The End
Elysium Gallery, 96 – 97 Mansel Street, Swansea.
14 May – 11 June 2010 (preview 7-late on Fri 14 May. Gallery open Wed – Sat 12-5 or by appointment)
Elysium Gallery has moved and will be opening the doors for the first exhibition in their massive new three-storey home this coming Friday. The epic show After The End will feature 60 national and international artists working across all mediums from painting, photography, performance and sculpture to written word, film, installation and anything in between. It will be the only time the directors will be using all three floors in this vast maze of a building before the top two floors are carved up into artist’s studios available for rent.
The spectrum of work is diverse and encompasses both up-and-coming young talents including local emerging artists Ann Jordan, Gemma Copp, Sarah Williams and Richard Monahan as well as the more established including top names like tactileBOSCH Director Kim Fielding and Swansea Met’s landscape painter Robert Newell.
It is perhaps appropriate, given the current political climate to be calling an exhibition after the end. Labour have been in power for 13 years. What comes next, following last week’s General Election results is currently anyone’s guess. If it is the end of Labour’s current reign what comes next? What comes After The End? 10 years ago the influential art critic and author Arthur Danto announced that art had ended in the 1960s. For Danto, the art that emerged after this had lost its spirit and its purpose. The past was no longer a place from which to react against, art no longer had to pit an agenda or conform to a certain aesthetic. The meta-narrative was over and so was art’s significance and influence.
- Is it all over for art?
- What happens to the characters of a film when it has ended?
- What happens to a house after the lights have gone out and everyone has left?
- Memories become more distant everyday and so history dies everyday…what happens after the end?
This group show will attempt to answer all these questions and more.The 60 artists appearing include: Marina Moreno, Dalit Leon, Hannah Lawson, Richard Monahan, Mike Murray, Cyrus Iravani, Paola Minekov, Tom Goddard, Suzy Williams, Fran Williams, Tim Stock, Shellshock Theatre, Lou Reade, Kelly Gorman, Marius Grainger, Helen Finney, Penny Hallas, Kaori Homma, Steph Goodger, Andrew Cooper, Kim Fielding, Alexander Gordon, Nicola Kelly, Jayne Smith, Rabab Ghazoul, Thomas Smith, Naomi Smith, Peter Roseman, Marie Helgesen, Ann Jordan, Economy Art Biscuit & Netley Marshall, Shelley Davis, Claudia Borgna, Roger Lougher, Nazma Ali, Edward Jeavons, Rose Davies, Dawn Lippiatt, Melissa Hinkin, Lucy Read, Emma Rylance, David Theobald, Robert Newell, Erin Rickard, Alex Duncan, Sean Puleston, Bernard Basil Bailey, Kieron Da-Silva Beckerton, Megan Hall, Gemma Copp, Anna Barratt, Stewart Dunwell, Sarah Williams, John Abell, David Marchant, Mark Houghton, Robin Campbell and Thomas Newton.
There will be refreshments, Curry and music by THE DARTH VADER BLUES BAND as well as performances by various artists to enjoy on the opening night.
