Sunday, March 30, 2008

John Barlow Gone Offshore

Sunday 30 March 2008, 4pm















Meeting point

The Street Headquarters - The Shop
26–28 Toynbee St
London E1


For the launch of The Street, Canal presents John Barlow Gone Offshore, an event orchestrated by Goldin+Senneby, the framework for collaboration between artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby.

Middlesex Street marks the shift from Tower Hamlets to the City of London. Sometimes called the “Wall of Fire”, the border between two economic realities will be host to Goldin+Senneby’s event. From this point, a guide will initiate a movement towards fictitious space, narrating the legal construction of offshore jurisdictions.

John Barlow Gone Offshore is part of Goldin+Senneby’s ongoing investigation of the offshore company Headless Ltd (and its possible connections to Georges Bataille’s secret society Acéphale). For Goldin+Senneby, the juridical construction of the Offshore is a performative act of fictionalising place and staging a realm of invisibility. In their research, they focus on a specific offshore company known as Headless Ltd, incorporated in Nassau, Bahamas, in 2002. Their enquiries and findings are continuously traced in a docu-fictional novel by writer John Barlow, also called Headless. As part of his collaboration with the two artists, Barlow travels to the Bahamas in search of the physical manifestations of Headless Ltd and, in a wider sense, the material staging of the fictitious place – or non-place – of the offshore incorporation.

For John Barlow Gone Offshore, two city guides lead the public into Barlow’s travels across the Bahamas and his possible findings. Mediating and contextualising the performative research in the offshore, the event proposes a staged inquiry into the undisclosable.

John Barlow Gone Offshore has been developed in collaboration with Disclosures, a Gasworks seminar (29-30 March 2008).

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Canal as part of The Street, a project conceived by the Whitechapel Gallery

30 March 2008 - April 2009

Canal has been invited to take part in the year-long project which uses Wentworth Street (home to Petticoat Lane market) as a site around which international artists Minerva Cuevas, Jens Haaning, Henry VIII’s Wives, Bernd Krauss, Shimabuku and Nedko Solakov have been commissioned.

Canal's contribution will consist of responding - whether fairly directly or metaphorically - to the projects proposed by the other artists, to the local context as well as to the premise set by the curators Anthony Spira and Marijke Steedman. Canal's interventions will take place throughout the year.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Canal at Peer

During Winter 2007, Canal was hosted by Peer and presented: 'Make Everything New: a discussion', 'Evil Sisters' and 'Phyllida Barlow presents'.

Monday 19 March 2007, 7pm

Make Everything New: a discussion

Canal presented a discussion between Maria Fusco, Susan Kelly and Grant Watson based around the recent publication Make Everything New: a Project on Communism. The evening featured a presentation by Susan Kelly of her work What is to be done?, with an open invitation for the audience to respond to the question. The written replies formed the starting point for the discussion.

"Communism is routinely defined as defeated and its conquest the subject of regular celebration. Caught in the disappointment and negative connotations of the past, it has become all but unthinkable. Make Everything New seeks to rescue the idea of Communism from this trap. Collaborating with artists, writers and collectives, this project has commissioned and collected counter-narratives, abstract and unrealistic ideas, engaged political commentary and satirical work, that presents neither an historical or comprehensive overview nor a requiem for the past. It is a collection of partial and subjective accounts of various creative practices, an experimental platform for ideas and an attempt to see in what ways the communist imagination can be materialised as art."

(From Make Everything New: a Project on Communism, edited by Grant Watson, Gerrie van Noord and Gavin Everall; published by Book Works, London and Project Arts Centre, Dublin. For more information: www.bookworks.org.uk)

Reading suggestion: "Interview with a Ghost", by Grant Watson.

Hosted by

Peer
99 Hoxton Street
London N1 6QL
www.peeruk.org

Canal would like to thank Ingrid Swenson, Tom Morton and Book Works for their support.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Canal at Supermarket 2007

At Konstnärshuset, Stockholm

Friday 23rd February 2007, 3-6pm

Money changes everything: the impact of commerce on the artist-run space

This discussion is set up to question and respond to the backdrop of Supermarket, a fair for artist-run spaces. Is the artist-run space a route into the commercial arena? What alternative can the artist-run space propose to the power structures of the art world? Does commercial activity compromise criticality? Such issues will be debated with people involved in artist-led initiatives mainly established in Scandinavian countries. Confronting contexts and exchanging viewpoints rather than falling into a debate about the funding situation is the aim of this event.

Contributors

3pm: presentation by artist Ralf Homann of schleuser.net, a lobby organisation co-founded with Manuela Unverdorben and Farida Heuck.

3.45pm: Natalya Pershina aka Gluklya of Chto Delat and Factory of Found Clothes, St Petersburg presents two films.

4.30pm: presentation by Canal

5.00pm: Opening up the discussion with the respondents and the public.

Respondent

Felice Hapetzeder of AK28


Ralf Homann's intervention.


Glucklya and public.

Context

SUPERMARKET art fair is a collaborative effort between artist-run spaces and organisations in Stockholm. In 2007 SUPERMARKET has evolved into an international art fair for artist-run spaces and organisations. SUPERMARKET art fair 2007 takes place in February 22-25 at Konstnärshuset (The Artists’ House).

Canal would like to thank Diana Kaur for her support.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Canal at AK28, Stockholm

Thursday 22nd February 2007, 8.30pm

Canal presents:
Wall Street (dir. Oliver Stone, 1987)

The film is a morality tale about a young stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) and his attempt to scramble to the top in 1980s New York. The plot is centred on Bud's relationship to high-powered (but ruthless and greedy) broker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) whose expounds a "Greed is Good" philosophy. When he's not asset stripping companies Gekko collects art, and so for Bud art and interior decoration become vehicles with which to gain acceptance within the (ultimately immoral) Capitalist elite that he wishes to enter.

Context

This film screening is being shown as part of the discussion Money Changes Everything: the impact of commerce on the artist-run space at Supermarket 2007, on Friday 23rd February, 3-6pm.

Hosted by

AK28
Krukmakargatan 28
1tr ned, porttelefon
118 51 Stockholm
www.ak28.org

Canal would like to thank Felice Hapetzeder and all at AK28 for hosting the event.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Canal at Peer

Tuesday 13 February 2007, 8pm

Canal presents:
‘Evil Sisters’, an event curated by Gyonata Bonvicini

Borrowing its title from American scholar Bram Dijkstra’s essay about the iconic figure of the femme fatale, ‘Evil Sisters’ combines a video by Gian Domenico Sozzi and a cult ‘giallo’ movie by Italian director Pupi Avati that address the complex and ever-present conflicts between desire and domination, madness and control.

Programme

Introduction by artist Gian Domenico Sozzi, actress Francesca Marciano (who played in 'The House with Laughing Windows') and Gyonata Bonvicini.

'Brava', Gian Domenico Sozzi, 2006.

'The House with Laughing Windows' (La casa dalle finestre che ridono), dir. Pupi Avati, 1976.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Canal at Peer

Tuesday 23 January 2007, 8pm

Phyllida Barlow presents: A Man Escaped (1956) by Robert Bresson

Followed by a short reading, 'How to make (or artist as hostage)'.



Hosted by


Peer
99 Hoxton Street
London N1 6QL
www.peeruk.org

Canal would like to thank Ingrid Swenson, Tom Morton, Niru Ratnam and Louise Hayward for their support.