artangel27

The Artangel Collection

‘Over the past two decades, we’ve been fortunate to collaborate with a range of remarkable artists whose powerful visions have set a new benchmark in film and video. We want their work to be seen as broadly as possible and under the best available conditions. Thanks to the generosity of those artists, the funders of this timely initiative and the creative energy of our new co-commissioning partners, the Collection will allow Artangel to spread its wings even more widely.’

James Lingwood and Michael Morris, Co-Directors

‘Artangel has consistently brought into being extraordinary works by contemporary artists. We are delighted that Artangel will be collaborating with Ikon and the Whitworth Art Gallery to produce new works and that James Lingwood and Michael Morris have announced they will donate to Tate film and video works commissioned by Artangel over the last two decades. This most generous and imaginative gesture would ensure that these remarkable works of art could be enjoyed by generations to come and would be made available for loan to galleries in the UK and beyond.”

Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate

The Artangel Collection is a national initiative enabling notable film and video installations – commissioned and produced by Artangel over the past 20 years – to be presented in galleries and museums across the UK, as well as in spaces beyond the gallery.

Centred around ground-breaking moving image projects, the collection comprises work by contemporary artists and film-makers including Francis Alÿs, Yael Bartana, Jeremy Deller, Atom Egoyan, Douglas Gordon, Paul Pfeiffer, Tony Oursler and Catherine Yass. The Artangel Collection has been developed in partnership with Tate and thanks to support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation, these works are all now available for loan.

Introduction

‘Over the past two decades, we’ve been fortunate to collaborate with a range of remarkable artists whose powerful visions have set a new benchmark in film and video. We want their work to be seen as broadly as possible and under the best available conditions. Thanks to the generosity of those artists, the funders of this timely initiative and the creative energy of our new co-commissioning partners, the Collection will allow Artangel to spread its wings even more widely.’

James Lingwood and Michael Morris, Co-Directors

‘Artangel has consistently brought into being extraordinary works by contemporary artists. We are delighted that Artangel will be collaborating with Ikon and the Whitworth Art Gallery to produce new works and that James Lingwood and Michael Morris have announced they will donate to Tate film and video works commissioned by Artangel over the last two decades. This most generous and imaginative gesture would ensure that these remarkable works of art could be enjoyed by generations to come and would be made available for loan to galleries in the UK and beyond.”

Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate

The Artangel Collection is a national initiative enabling notable film and video installations – commissioned and produced by Artangel over the past 20 years – to be presented in galleries and museums across the UK, as well as in spaces beyond the gallery.

Centred around ground-breaking moving image projects, the collection comprises work by contemporary artists and film-makers including Francis Alÿs, Yael Bartana, Jeremy Deller, Atom Egoyan, Douglas Gordon, Paul Pfeiffer, Tony Oursler and Catherine Yass. The Artangel Collection has been developed in partnership with Tate and thanks to support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation, these works are all now available for loan.

Introduction

Francis Alÿs Seven Walks, 2005

Exhibiting at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, December 2012

‘A short film shows him rattling a stick along the railings of Nash’s Park Crescent. He does it seemingly casually, puffing a cigarette as he goes, a scrawny figure in a raincoat, but keeps to a strict tempo. Then the film cuts to Onslow Gardens where his stick-rattling becomes a percussion piece. Railings, he has noticed, are a very London thing’.

Hugh Pearlman, The Sunday Times, 18 September 2005

Guards, 2004–5, video projection, 28 minutes

The Nightwatch, 2004, installation of 20 monitor screens, 19 minutes

Railings, 2004, 3-screen video projection, 9 minutes, 15 seconds

Ice4Milk, 160 colour slides shown via two slide projectors

+ Pebblewalk, 1999; Sunny/ Shady, 2004; Knots, 2005; The Commuters, 2005; A Personal Repertoire of possible Behaviour While Walking the Streets in London Town, 2005; Associated drawings and archive

With Seven Walks, Francis Alÿs offers a poetic intervention into the everyday life of London. Over five years, he walked the city’s streets, mapping its habits and rituals in a range of different media – the ensuing films, videos, paintings and drawings were presented at 21 Portman Square in 2005 for the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. Guards follows 64 Coldstream Guards as they march through the City of London; The Nightwatch uses

surveillance cameras to trace a fox let loose in the National Portrait Gallery at night; and Railings explores the rhythmic possibilities of characteristic feature of Regency London. These video works, made in collaboration with Rafael Ortega, are presented alongside drawings, maps, photographs and an archive of research materials, all of which was acquired by Tate in 2006.

View slideshow online

Francis Alÿs Seven Walks, 2005

Exhibiting at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, December 2012

‘A short film shows him rattling a stick along the railings of Nash’s Park Crescent. He does it seemingly casually, puffing a cigarette as he goes, a scrawny figure in a raincoat, but keeps to a strict tempo. Then the film cuts to Onslow Gardens where his stick-rattling becomes a percussion piece. Railings, he has noticed, are a very London thing’.

Hugh Pearlman, The Sunday Times, 18 September 2005

Guards, 2004–5, video projection, 28 minutes

The Nightwatch, 2004, installation of 20 monitor screens, 19 minutes

Railings, 2004, 3-screen video projection, 9 minutes, 15 seconds

Ice4Milk, 160 colour slides shown via two slide projectors

+ Pebblewalk, 1999; Sunny/ Shady, 2004; Knots, 2005; The Commuters, 2005; A Personal Repertoire of possible Behaviour While Walking the Streets in London Town, 2005; Associated drawings and archive

With Seven Walks, Francis Alÿs offers a poetic intervention into the everyday life of London. Over five years, he walked the city’s streets, mapping its habits and rituals in a range of different media – the ensuing films, videos, paintings and drawings were presented at 21 Portman Square in 2005 for the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. Guards follows 64 Coldstream Guards as they march through the City of London; The Nightwatch uses

surveillance cameras to trace a fox let loose in the National Portrait Gallery at night; and Railings explores the rhythmic possibilities of characteristic feature of Regency London. These video works, made in collaboration with Rafael Ortega, are presented alongside drawings, maps, photographs and an archive of research materials, all of which was acquired by Tate in 2006.

Clio Barnard The Arbor, 2010

Digital Video, 94 minutes

‘The overall effect is devastating, as multi-layered and dissonant as a Schoenberg symphony, and a nightmarish impression of how the writer experienced both reality and performance. Barnard’s original vision was justly rewarded with the best new documentary filmmaker prize.’

Sebastian Doggart, The Telegraph, 21 May 2012

Andrea Dunbar, the tenacious young playwright once described as ‘a genius straight from the slums’ grew up on the notorious Buttershaw Estate in Bradford. When she tragically died at the age of 29 in 1990, her daughter Lorraine was just 10 years old. Now 29 and in prison for drug rehabilitation, the film follows Lorraine’s personal journey as she is introduced to her mother’s plays and letters. Artist and director Clio Barnard (who also grew up in the Bradford region) spent two years interviewing members of the Dunbar family and local residents before creating an audio ‘screenplay’ that was lip-synched by actors. The result, as Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian, is ‘a new kind of ‘verbatim cinema’ ... a modernist, compassionate biopic.’

View video online

Clio Barnard The Arbor, 2010

‘The overall effect is devastating, as multi-layered and dissonant as a Schoenberg symphony, and a nightmarish impression of how the writer experienced both reality and performance. Barnard’s original vision was justly rewarded with the best new documentary filmmaker prize.’

Sebastian Doggart, The Telegraph, 21 May 2012

Andrea Dunbar, the tenacious young playwright once described as ‘a genius straight from the slums’ grew up on the notorious Buttershaw Estate in Bradford. When she tragically died at the age of 29 in 1990, her daughter Lorraine was just 10 years old. Now 29 and in prison for drug rehabilitation, the film follows Lorraine’s personal journey as she is introduced to her mother’s plays and letters. Artist and director Clio Barnard (who also grew up in the Bradford region) spent two years interviewing members of the Dunbar family and local residents before creating an audio ‘screenplay’ that was lip-synched by actors. The result, as Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian, is ‘a new kind of ‘verbatim cinema’ ... a modernist, compassionate biopic.’

View video online

Matthew Barney Cremaster 4, 1994

‘Amongst the lapiths and centaurs, the gods and men, we find footballers, boy-races and post-Freudian gladiators playing out an ancient gameplan in the Elysian fields of art’

Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 29 April 1995

Cremaster 4 was the first work from Matthew Barney’s acclaimed project The Cremaster Cycle. Set on the Isle of Man, the film offers up a dream-like drama of compulsive forces that course through the body of the island and the famous 37-mile TT track. Barney himself plays the Loughton Candidate, an immaculately dressed satyr who tap dances and writhes through underwater canals while three fairies picnic on the grass above. The Island race propels the bikers and satyr through the Manx landscape to an ambient soundtrack of bagpipes and motorbikes; like the heroes of medieval tales or futuristic film, they appear as expressions of pure drive and desire.

Matthew Barney Cremaster 4, 1994

‘Amongst the lapiths and centaurs, the gods and men, we find footballers, boy-races and post-Freudian gladiators playing out an ancient gameplan in the Elysian fields of art’

Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 29 April 1995

Cremaster 4 was the first work from Matthew Barney’s acclaimed project The Cremaster Cycle. Set on the Isle of Man, the film offers up a dream-like drama of compulsive forces that course through the body of the island and the famous 37-mile TT track. Barney himself plays the Loughton Candidate, an immaculately dressed satyr who tap dances and writhes through underwater canals while three fairies picnic on the grass above. The Island race propels the bikers and satyr through the Manx landscape to an ambient soundtrack of bagpipes and motorbikes; like the heroes of medieval tales or futuristic film, they appear as expressions of pure drive and desire.

Yael BartanaAnd Europe Will Be Stunned, 2011

life and achievements, and it is clear that ideals and utopias, particularly when they are embodied in one person or movement, are deeply antithetical to Bartana’s interests.’

Rebecca Lewin, This Is Tomorrow, 1 July 2011

And Europe Will Be Stunned (2011) is the extraordinary trilogy of films by Israeli artist Yael Bartana that premiered in the Polish Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, which was the first time that a non-national had represented Poland at the Biennale. Revolving around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers, the films traverse a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and militarisms, overflowing with the narratives of the Israeli settlement movement, Zionist dreams, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the Palestinian right of return.

Exhibiting with Artangel at Hornsey Town Hall, London 22 May – 1 July 2012 and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 12 September – 4 November 2012

RED transferred to HD video, Mary Koszmary (Nightmares) 11 minutes, Mur i Wieza (Wall and Tower) 15 minutes, Zamach (Assassination) 35 minutes.

‘Zamach (Assassination) is nightmarish… Bartana’s ability to undermine her subject matter even as it unfolds is unnervingly successful. For anyone who has seen images of fascist architecture hung with flags, footage of Stalin’s funeral, or state-led mourning, the film is not presenting a fictionalised ‘other’ but a weaving-together of a number of narratives from twentieth-century European history. The excessive bathos reaches its nauseating height during the speeches and songs commemorating Sierakowski’s

Yael BartanaAnd Europe Will Be Stunned, 2011

life and achievements, and it is clear that ideals and utopias, particularly when they are embodied in one person or movement, are deeply antithetical to Bartana’s interests.’

Rebecca Lewin, This Is Tomorrow, 1 July 2011

And Europe Will Be Stunned (2011) is the extraordinary trilogy of films by Israeli artist Yael Bartana that premiered in the Polish Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, which was the first time that a non-national had represented Poland at the Biennale. Revolving around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers, the films traverse a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and militarisms, overflowing with the narratives of the Israeli settlement movement, Zionist dreams, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the Palestinian right of return.

Exhibiting with Artangel at Hornsey Town Hall, London 22 May – 1 July 2012 and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 12 September – 4 November 2012

RED transferred to HD video, Mary Koszmary (Nightmares) 11 minutes, Mur i Wieza (Wall and Tower) 15 minutes, Zamach (Assassination) 35 minutes.

‘Zamach (Assassination) is nightmarish… Bartana’s ability to undermine her subject matter even as it unfolds is unnervingly successful. For anyone who has seen images of fascist architecture hung with flags, footage of Stalin’s funeral, or state-led mourning, the film is not presenting a fictionalised ‘other’ but a weaving-together of a number of narratives from twentieth-century European history. The excessive bathos reaches its nauseating height during the speeches and songs commemorating Sierakowski’s

Richard BillinghamFishtank, 1998

Fishtank features hi-8 footage of Richard Billingham’s family at home in their council flat in the West Midlands. Filmed almost entirely within the claustrophobic confines of the flat, Billingham’s film features his mother Liz, brother Jason and alcoholic father Ray as well as various pets. A natural history film of a dysfunctional family, it alternates between alienation, altercation and affection. Following Billingham’s acclaimed book of photographs

‘Billingham’s TV debut pushes you so close to his fighting, drinking, low-income family that it hurts. His photographs have always wrong-footed any neat interpretation, and now Fishtank uses a camcorder to up the emotional ante with an often excruciating, sometimes exquisite fusion of intimacy and objectivity.’

Louisa Buck, Artforum, 1998

Ray’s a Laugh (1996), Fishtank was Billingham’s first film and was considered a groundbreaking television work of pathos and intensity. Screens appear throughout the film, reminding us of their power to absorb and create opportunities for escapism whether it be through television or a computer game. Dispassionately yet compassionately, Fishtank crafts a terrible beauty from the landscape of family life.

Single-screen video with sound, 43 minutes. Made in collaboration with Illuminations TV for BBC 2.

View video online

Richard BillinghamFishtank, 1998

Fishtank features hi-8 footage of Richard Billingham’s family at home in their council flat in the West Midlands. Filmed almost entirely within the claustrophobic confines of the flat, Billingham’s film features his mother Liz, brother Jason and alcoholic father Ray as well as various pets. A natural history film of a dysfunctional family, it alternates between alienation, altercation and affection. Following Billingham’s acclaimed book of photographs

‘Billingham’s TV debut pushes you so close to his fighting, drinking, low-income family that it hurts. His photographs have always wrong-footed any neat interpretation, and now Fishtank uses a camcorder to up the emotional ante with an often excruciating, sometimes exquisite fusion of intimacy and objectivity.’

Louisa Buck, Artforum, 1998

Ray’s a Laugh (1996), Fishtank was Billingham’s first film and was considered a groundbreaking television work of pathos and intensity. Screens appear throughout the film, reminding us of their power to absorb and create opportunities for escapism whether it be through television or a computer game. Dispassionately yet compassionately, Fishtank crafts a terrible beauty from the landscape of family life.

Single-screen video with sound, 43 minutes. Made in collaboration with Illuminations TV for BBC 2.

View video online

Jeremy Deller and Mike FiggisThe Battle of Orgreave, 2001

Exhibiting at the Hayward Gallery until 13 May 2012; Wiels, Brussels, 1 June – 31 August 2012; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia, 1 August – 31 December 2012; Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, 1 January – 30 April 2013

Video for television and screenings, 62 minutes; associated archive

rekirts ztasre na tnemom ehT‘ shouted, “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!” I felt compelled to roar along with the rest, “Out, out, out!” and memories swept through me, The 1980s. That horrible woman. There was a revolting whiff of her as the mounted policemen galloped at the fleeing miners, truncheons raised. From then until the end, when the actors took a deserved curtain call and the Maltby Miners Welfare Brass Band marched down the road, trailing an NUM banner, my eyes were filled with tears.’

Arthur Smith, The Guardian, 21 June 2001

The violent confrontation between police and miners outside the coking plant at Orgreave in South Yorkshire was one of the crucial episodes in the 1984 Miners’ Strike. Made 17 years later in the same village, The Battle of Orgreave centres on a re-enactment of the brutal confrontation made with the participation of many relatives of former miners as well as re-enactment specialists. Mike Figgis’s film of Jeremy Deller’s re-enactment, originally shown on Channel 4, combines footage of the day’s event with interviews with several key protagonists. Mac McLoughlin, a former miner and serving policeman on the field in 1984, reveals details about the build-up within the police force prior to the stand-off; David Douglass (NUM) talks about the meaning of the confrontation in relation to the trade union movement; Stephanie Gregory (Womens’ Support Group) reminisces about the effects on family life; and Tony Benn talks about the media’s role in covering up the truth about the strike in 1984. The video is accompanied by Deller’s rich archive of research materials.

View video online

Jeremy Deller and Mike FiggisThe Battle of Orgreave, 2001

Exhibiting at the Hayward Gallery until 13 May 2012; Wiels, Brussels, 1 June – 31 August 2012; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia, 1 August – 31 December 2012; Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, 1 January – 30 April 2013

Video for television and screenings, 62 minutes; associated archive

rekirts ztasre na tnemom ehT‘ shouted, “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!” I felt compelled to roar along with the rest, “Out, out, out!” and memories swept through me, The 1980s. That horrible woman. There was a revolting whiff of her as the mounted policemen galloped at the fleeing miners, truncheons raised. From then until the end, when the actors took a deserved curtain call and the Maltby Miners Welfare Brass Band marched down the road, trailing an NUM banner, my eyes were filled with tears.’

Arthur Smith, The Guardian, 21 June 2001

The violent confrontation between police and miners outside the coking plant at Orgreave in South Yorkshire was one of the crucial episodes in the 1984 Miners’ Strike. Made 17 years later in the same village, The Battle of Orgreave centres on a re-enactment of the brutal confrontation made with the participation of many relatives of former miners as well as re-enactment specialists. Mike Figgis’s film of Jeremy Deller’s re-enactment, originally shown on Channel 4, combines footage of the day’s event with interviews with several key protagonists. Mac McLoughlin, a former miner and serving policeman on the field in 1984, reveals details about the build-up within the police force prior to the stand-off; David Douglass (NUM) talks about the meaning of the confrontation in relation to the trade union movement; Stephanie Gregory (Womens’ Support Group) reminisces about the effects on family life; and Tony Benn talks about the media’s role in covering up the truth about the strike in 1984. The video is accompanied by Deller’s rich archive of research materials.

View video online

dna noitanigami erbmos s’nayogE‘ unsettling sense of space make his commission by Artangel a sensual goodbye to cinema.’

Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 16 February 2002

Atom EgoyanSteenbeckett, 2002

Exhibiting as part of the International Beckett Festival, Enniskillen, August 2012

Video projection on large screen, 20 minutes, and installation with Steenbeck editing suite, 2,000 feet of 35 mm film and film cannisters

Steenbeckett features an obsolete editing machine, 2000 feet of 35mm celluloid and a video projection of a solitary man musing on memory as he eavesdrops on his younger self. Internationally-acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan conceived the work based on his experience of directing John Hurt in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. The short film was shot on 35mm and edited on a Steenbeck – now something of a dinosaur in the digital post-production age. Egoyan collaborated with Artangel to make the last reel of film – a single, 20-minute take – the centrepiece for an installation

at the former Museum of Mankind on Burlington Gardens. Visitors stood in an empty projection booth and looked down on a forest of travelling celluloid, driven precariously around the room by a lone Steenbeck. In an adjoining room, Krapp’s Last Tape played in a very different environment: a state-of-the-art, clinically precise, home-cinema set-up. As the 35mm film picks up dust, dirt and scratches, the audio and image irreversibly deteriorate while the digital projection remains unchanged for the course of the exhibition.

dna noitanigami erbmos s’nayogE‘ unsettling sense of space make his commission by Artangel a sensual goodbye to cinema.’

Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, 16 February 2002

Atom EgoyanSteenbeckett, 2002

Exhibiting as part of the International Beckett Festival, Enniskillen, August 2012

Video projection on large screen, 20 minutes, and installation with Steenbeck editing suite, 2,000 feet of 35 mm film and film cannisters

Steenbeckett features an obsolete editing machine, 2000 feet of 35mm celluloid and a video projection of a solitary man musing on memory as he eavesdrops on his younger self. Internationally-acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan conceived the work based on his experience of directing John Hurt in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. The short film was shot on 35mm and edited on a Steenbeck – now something of a dinosaur in the digital post-production age. Egoyan collaborated with Artangel to make the last reel of film – a single, 20-minute take – the centrepiece for an installation

at the former Museum of Mankind on Burlington Gardens. Visitors stood in an empty projection booth and looked down on a forest of travelling celluloid, driven precariously around the room by a lone Steenbeck. In an adjoining room, Krapp’s Last Tape played in a very different environment: a state-of-the-art, clinically precise, home-cinema set-up. As the 35mm film picks up dust, dirt and scratches, the audio and image irreversibly deteriorate while the digital projection remains unchanged for the course of the exhibition.

Music always underscored Alfred Hitchcock’s vision – most notably through his collaboration with one of the greatest of all film composers, Bernard Herrmann. In Feature Film, Douglas Gordon arranged a divorce – between sound and vision – and orchestrated an affair – between what you remember and what you see. The large projection is a portrait of conductor James Conlon featuring his face and hands as he conducts Hermann’s score for Vertigo, Hitchcock’s

Douglas GordonFeature Film, 1999

Exhibiting at the Mead Art Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre 1 May – 23 June 2012

Video with sound, 122 minutes, large-scale projection and small monitor screen with DVD player

gnikool otni su tloj ot stnaw nodroG‘ at a medium whose technological tricks have become so familiar that we no longer see how magical it really is. Spend an hour or so in Feature Film and I promise that you’ll never take the movies for granted again.’

Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1999

classic tale of mistaken identity. The orchestra can be heard but not seen. A domestic monitor showing a video of Vertigo accompanies the cinema-scale projection of the conductor’s features.

Music always underscored Alfred Hitchcock’s vision – most notably through his collaboration with one of the greatest of all film composers, Bernard Herrmann. In Feature Film, Douglas Gordon arranged a divorce – between sound and vision – and orchestrated an affair – between what you remember and what you see. The large projection is a portrait of conductor James Conlon featuring his face and hands as he conducts Hermann’s score for Vertigo, Hitchcock’s

Douglas GordonFeature Film, 1999

Exhibiting at the Mead Art Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre 1 May – 23 June 2012

Video with sound, 122 minutes, large-scale projection and small monitor screen with DVD player

gnikool otni su tloj ot stnaw nodroG‘ at a medium whose technological tricks have become so familiar that we no longer see how magical it really is. Spend an hour or so in Feature Film and I promise that you’ll never take the movies for granted again.’

Richard Dorment, The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1999

classic tale of mistaken identity. The orchestra can be heard but not seen. A domestic monitor showing a video of Vertigo accompanies the cinema-scale projection of the conductor’s features.

In 1993, Bethan Huws orchestrated a memorable performance called A Work for the North Sea. The work was made in collaboration with a group of Bulgarian grandmothers, The Bistritsa Babi, who, for an hour each evening for three days that summer, stood at high tide and sang to the sea. Huws first researched the music that she had heard in the National Sound Archive in London. It appeared to be a particular form of antiphonal choral singing which was still practised in Bulgaria, based on groups of women singing in the open air – calling out to each other.

With the help of a choral expert she found the Bistritsa Babi, who she invited to perform in Craster on the unspoilt Northumbrian coastline. In this 16mm film that documents the performance, their haunting melodies combine with the rumbling of the sea to create a unique polyphony of sound and voice.

Bethan Huws & The Bistritsa BabiSinging to the Sea, 1993

16mm film with sound, 12 minutes on – gnittes eht fo yticilpmis ehT‘ lights, no amplification, no scenery beyond what nature supplied – had its magical effect. None of the local people I spoke to afterwards found it anything less than delightful.’

Robert Hewison, The Sunday Times, 1 August 1993

In 1993, Bethan Huws orchestrated a memorable performance called A Work for the North Sea. The work was made in collaboration with a group of Bulgarian grandmothers, The Bistritsa Babi, who, for an hour each evening for three days that summer, stood at high tide and sang to the sea. Huws first researched the music that she had heard in the National Sound Archive in London. It appeared to be a particular form of antiphonal choral singing which was still practised in Bulgaria, based on groups of women singing in the open air – calling out to each other.

With the help of a choral expert she found the Bistritsa Babi, who she invited to perform in Craster on the unspoilt Northumbrian coastline. In this 16mm film that documents the performance, their haunting melodies combine with the rumbling of the sea to create a unique polyphony of sound and voice.

Bethan Huws & The Bistritsa BabiSinging to the Sea, 1993

16mm film with sound, 12 minutes on – gnittes eht fo yticilpmis ehT‘ lights, no amplification, no scenery beyond what nature supplied – had its magical effect. None of the local people I spoke to afterwards found it anything less than delightful.’

Robert Hewison, The Sunday Times, 1 August 1993

Cameron JamieKranky Klaus / Spook House, 2003

2 DVDs with sound, 25 minutes, 44 seconds and 20 minutes, 49 seconds

ro sdik era ereht erehwyrevE‘ mannequins dressed as vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, aliens, leering clowns, disembodied heads, headless bodies, Freddie Krugers, Frankensteins and Osama bin Ladens. Black and white segments make some of these scenes resemble the early horror films that inspired them, while colour sequences return one to the prosaic reality of the suburban backdrop… the effect is hallucinatory and archaic, like a voodoo ceremony.’

Alex Farquharson, Frieze, May 2004

Filmed on a hand-held video in the white working-class suburbs of Detroit and in the conservative communities of the Austrian Alps, Spook House and Kranky Klaus reveal modern-day communities revelling in pagan rituals. In Spook House, front lawns are transformed into cemeteries, kitchens become mausoleums and dismembered ‘bodies’ are prepared for cannibal feasts. Jamie’s camera tracks the celebrants as the nights become longer and darker and the celebrations become more menacing. In the run up to Christmas in small villages across the Austrian Alps, groups of bestial figures roam the streets and threaten the inhabitants. As St Nicholas rewards the good, so the Krampus punish the bad. Jamie’s film Kranky Klaus tracks a herd of Krampus as they work their way through the villages mauling and menacing to the very limits of acceptable intimidation. Soundtracks by the cult LA heavy metal band The Melvins emphasise the malevolent darkness of each film. 00.49

Cameron JamieKranky Klaus / Spook House, 2003

2 DVDs with sound, 25 minutes, 44 seconds and 20 minutes, 49 seconds

ro sdik era ereht erehwyrevE‘ mannequins dressed as vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, aliens, leering clowns, disembodied heads, headless bodies, Freddie Krugers, Frankensteins and Osama bin Ladens. Black and white segments make some of these scenes resemble the early horror films that inspired them, while colour sequences return one to the prosaic reality of the suburban backdrop… the effect is hallucinatory and archaic, like a voodoo ceremony.’

Alex Farquharson, Frieze, May 2004

Filmed on a hand-held video in the white working-class suburbs of Detroit and in the conservative communities of the Austrian Alps, Spook House and Kranky Klaus reveal modern-day communities revelling in pagan rituals. In Spook House, front lawns are transformed into cemeteries, kitchens become mausoleums and dismembered ‘bodies’ are prepared for cannibal feasts. Jamie’s camera tracks the celebrants as the nights become longer and darker and the celebrations become more menacing. In the run up to Christmas in small villages across the Austrian Alps, groups of bestial figures roam the streets and threaten the inhabitants. As St Nicholas rewards the good, so the Krampus punish the bad. Jamie’s film Kranky Klaus tracks a herd of Krampus as they work their way through the villages mauling and menacing to the very limits of acceptable intimidation. Soundtracks by the cult LA heavy metal band The Melvins emphasise the malevolent darkness of each film. 00.49

Two films, digital video, 63 minutes 45 seconds and 43 minutes, 51 seconds

ylemertxe era snoisrev htoB‘ affecting, and both have their humour: the fear of the populace transmuted into absurd relay races at the crossroads, rubbernecking in the shadow of buildings, the same feelings of solitary, hopeless exposure, the shuffled herding at street corners. The two films become a stereoscopic view of the same thing. Or is it the same thing?’

Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 4 July 2011

Šejla Kameric and Anri Sala1395 Days Without Red, 2011

1395 Days Without Red is a cinematic project by Šejla Kameric and Anri Sala in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers. It comprises two separate works made from material developed and filmed together in Sarajevo. The title refers to the fact that, during the siege of the city, Sarajevans were advised not to wear bright colours that might alert the snipers in the hills above to their movement. Retracing the route of Sniper Alley today, the camera follows a woman, played by Maribel Verdú, as she makes her way through the city on foot. At every intersection on her journey she makes this existential decision – whether to stop or to run, whether to run on her own or with others. Elsewhere in the city, an orchestra is rehearsing passages from Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony, the Pathétique. Approaching each crossing, her breathing quickens and settles as she hums the music...

Two films, digital video, 63 minutes 45 seconds and 43 minutes, 51 seconds

ylemertxe era snoisrev htoB‘ affecting, and both have their humour: the fear of the populace transmuted into absurd relay races at the crossroads, rubbernecking in the shadow of buildings, the same feelings of solitary, hopeless exposure, the shuffled herding at street corners. The two films become a stereoscopic view of the same thing. Or is it the same thing?’

Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 4 July 2011

Šejla Kameric and Anri Sala1395 Days Without Red, 2011

1395 Days Without Red is a cinematic project by Šejla Kameric and Anri Sala in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers. It comprises two separate works made from material developed and filmed together in Sarajevo. The title refers to the fact that, during the siege of the city, Sarajevans were advised not to wear bright colours that might alert the snipers in the hills above to their movement. Retracing the route of Sniper Alley today, the camera follows a woman, played by Maribel Verdú, as she makes her way through the city on foot. At every intersection on her journey she makes this existential decision – whether to stop or to run, whether to run on her own or with others. Elsewhere in the city, an orchestra is rehearsing passages from Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony, the Pathétique. Approaching each crossing, her breathing quickens and settles as she hums the music...

Mike Kelley Mobile Homestead, 2012

Three videos, Part 1 Westbound one hour 16 minutes, Part 2 Eastbound one hour 16 minutes, Part 3 Event 51 minutes

lainneiB yentihW eht ni mlfi rehto oN‘ had the complexity and gravity of Kelley’s Mobile Homestead movies … They are a study of depression economics and of a nearly stereotypical midwestern resilience in the face of loss. They are also landscape, cityscape, and skyscape movies, amazing to behold.’

Amy Taubin, Artforum, 2012

On 25 September 2010, Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead – a facsimile of his childhood home created out of a trailer – made its maiden voyage from the grounds of MOCAD in Detroit to the ‘mother ship’, his original home in the suburbs. These films chart this journey along a never-ending stretch of Michigan Avenue, reversing the historic ‘white flight’ that occurred in the mid 1960s as the decline of the automobile industry and increasing racial tensions caused an exodus in middle-class communities from the city centre. The footage of this extraordinary road trip is interspersed with interviews that chronicle the varied lives of those who populate Detroit today, at a moment when the city is considering its post-industrial prospects.

Mike Kelley Mobile Homestead, 2012

Three videos, Part 1 Westbound one hour 16 minutes, Part 2 Eastbound one hour 16 minutes, Part 3 Event 51 minutes

lainneiB yentihW eht ni mlfi rehto oN‘ had the complexity and gravity of Kelley’s Mobile Homestead movies … They are a study of depression economics and of a nearly stereotypical midwestern resilience in the face of loss. They are also landscape, cityscape, and skyscape movies, amazing to behold.’

Amy Taubin, Artforum, 2012

On 25 September 2010, Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead – a facsimile of his childhood home created out of a trailer – made its maiden voyage from the grounds of MOCAD in Detroit to the ‘mother ship’, his original home in the suburbs. These films chart this journey along a never-ending stretch of Michigan Avenue, reversing the historic ‘white flight’ that occurred in the mid 1960s as the decline of the automobile industry and increasing racial tensions caused an exodus in middle-class communities from the city centre. The footage of this extraordinary road trip is interspersed with interviews that chronicle the varied lives of those who populate Detroit today, at a moment when the city is considering its post-industrial prospects.

The Influence Machine is a multi-media work which haunts an urban landscape with spectres, sounds and smoke. Picking up on ideas from historical phantasmagoria and son-et-lumiere animations of historic sites, videos of talking heads are projected on to smoke, trees and buildings, their fractured monologues combining to make a dissonant confessional chorus of the mass media age. One of these figures, appearing and disappearing in the smoke, is a long-standing collaborator, Tracy Leipold, who Oursler calls “the medium”. Her dialogue makes references to key names from media history such as television pioneer John Logie Baird and Etienne Gaspard Robertson who founded the first moving image theatre in a Paris crypt in 1763. Running through it all is a soundtrack composed by Tony Conrad and performed on a glass harmonica. It is as if the ghosts of the machines of disembodied communication from the telephone to television and the internet have been let out to roam at night.

Tony OurslerThe Influence Machine, 2000

6 video projections with sound on loops, projected onto trees, smoke and walls

.sugam a eb ot gnimialc t’nsi relsruO‘ He’s a child of the Seventies, of the television age, the same age as systems such as cable and satellite and the web. The polyphonic aural universe fascinates Oursler… In his art, he listens in and collects evidence of the senses in the altered conditions of consciousness that now prevail.’

Marina Warner, Tony Oursler: The Influence Machine (London and New York, 2000)

The Influence Machine is a multi-media work which haunts an urban landscape with spectres, sounds and smoke. Picking up on ideas from historical phantasmagoria and son-et-lumiere animations of historic sites, videos of talking heads are projected on to smoke, trees and buildings, their fractured monologues combining to make a dissonant confessional chorus of the mass media age. One of these figures, appearing and disappearing in the smoke, is a long-standing collaborator, Tracy Leipold, who Oursler calls “the medium”. Her dialogue makes references to key names from media history such as television pioneer John Logie Baird and Etienne Gaspard Robertson who founded the first moving image theatre in a Paris crypt in 1763. Running through it all is a soundtrack composed by Tony Conrad and performed on a glass harmonica. It is as if the ghosts of the machines of disembodied communication from the telephone to television and the internet have been let out to roam at night.

Tony OurslerThe Influence Machine, 2000

6 video projections with sound on loops, projected onto trees, smoke and walls

.sugam a eb ot gnimialc t’nsi relsruO‘ He’s a child of the Seventies, of the television age, the same age as systems such as cable and satellite and the web. The polyphonic aural universe fascinates Oursler… In his art, he listens in and collects evidence of the senses in the altered conditions of consciousness that now prevail.’

Marina Warner, Tony Oursler: The Influence Machine (London and New York, 2000)

Paul PfeifferThe Saints, 2006

Large interior space with 16 channel sound, 16 speakers, 2 projected videos, each approx. 30 minutes. One small wall-mounted monitor with black-and-white video on 3-minute loop

‘My pulse is still racing. I’ve just been to Wembley and watched probably the greatest football match played in my lifetime. The atmosphere was incredible: deafening crowd noise, amazing passion on the pitch, bizarre twists in the game. And the most astonishing thing? Apart from the man on the door, I was the only person there.’

Richard Morrison, The Times, 6 October 2007

American artist Paul Pfeiffer has long been fascinated by the dynamics of great sporting occasions, by the iconic figures at the heart of the spectacle and the crowds who flock to the stadium to watch and cheer and worship. For the large-scale sound and video installation The Saints, Pfeiffer took as a starting point the most famous sporting occasion in England – the 1966 World Cup Final between England and Germany. Moving between bubbling enthusiasm,

edgy anxiety and intense communal joy, a largely empty interior reverberates to the sounds of a now phantom spectacle moving around the space as if the crowd itself were still there. In a self-contained room within the space, original footage of the match plays alongside a video of Filipino fans cheering and chanting as if they were the crowd in 1966. On a tiny monitor in the large space, a solitary figure runs around the Wembley pitch, as if lost in time and space.

Paul PfeifferThe Saints, 2006

Large interior space with 16 channel sound, 16 speakers, 2 projected videos, each approx. 30 minutes. One small wall-mounted monitor with black-and-white video on 3-minute loop

‘My pulse is still racing. I’ve just been to Wembley and watched probably the greatest football match played in my lifetime. The atmosphere was incredible: deafening crowd noise, amazing passion on the pitch, bizarre twists in the game. And the most astonishing thing? Apart from the man on the door, I was the only person there.’

Richard Morrison, The Times, 6 October 2007

American artist Paul Pfeiffer has long been fascinated by the dynamics of great sporting occasions, by the iconic figures at the heart of the spectacle and the crowds who flock to the stadium to watch and cheer and worship. For the large-scale sound and video installation The Saints, Pfeiffer took as a starting point the most famous sporting occasion in England – the 1966 World Cup Final between England and Germany. Moving between bubbling enthusiasm,

edgy anxiety and intense communal joy, a largely empty interior reverberates to the sounds of a now phantom spectacle moving around the space as if the crowd itself were still there. In a self-contained room within the space, original footage of the match plays alongside a video of Filipino fans cheering and chanting as if they were the crowd in 1966. On a tiny monitor in the large space, a solitary figure runs around the Wembley pitch, as if lost in time and space.

Gregor SchneiderDie Familie Schneider, 2004

Two-channel video, 13 minutes, 12 seconds. 144 black-and-white photographs

os saw sesuoh eht fo ecneserp ehT‘ powerful that ever since, from time to time, I have briefly imagined myself back in their claustrophobic space. Sometimes it will be a sweet, rotten smell of the kind that impregnated the gloomy rooms that acts as a

Die Familie Schneider consists of two films made by German artist Gregor Schneider moving through a claustrophobic installation realised in two neighbouring houses – 14 and 16 Walden Street. Bringing his long-standing obsession with repression, reproduction and repetition to a very ordinary street in London’s East End, Gregor Schneider constructed identical interiors inhabited by identical twins doing the same unseemly things; a woman, perpetually washing the same dishes, a child wrapped in a dustbin bag, and a naked man in a shower. The hand held camera tracks its way through the interiors of each house,

dwelling in an almost forensic way on the ordinary but nonetheless disturbing details. The ‘double’ film can be accompanied by a display of over one hundred framed black and white photographs from inside the house.

trigger. Or I have come across others who made appointments to see the houses, all of whom want to share their survivors’ stories: Did you make it down into the cellar? Or: Did you see the pornography? Or: Did you hear a baby crying? There have not been many installations that so successfully isolate the viewer with his or her own fears.’

Tim Adams, The Observer, 2 January 2005

View slideshow onlineView slideshow online

Gregor SchneiderDie Familie Schneider, 2004

Two-channel video, 13 minutes, 12 seconds. 144 black-and-white photographs

os saw sesuoh eht fo ecneserp ehT‘ powerful that ever since, from time to time, I have briefly imagined myself back in their claustrophobic space. Sometimes it will be a sweet, rotten smell of the kind that impregnated the gloomy rooms that acts as a

Die Familie Schneider consists of two films made by German artist Gregor Schneider moving through a claustrophobic installation realised in two neighbouring houses – 14 and 16 Walden Street. Bringing his long-standing obsession with repression, reproduction and repetition to a very ordinary street in London’s East End, Gregor Schneider constructed identical interiors inhabited by identical twins doing the same unseemly things; a woman, perpetually washing the same dishes, a child wrapped in a dustbin bag, and a naked man in a shower. The hand held camera tracks its way through the interiors of each house,

dwelling in an almost forensic way on the ordinary but nonetheless disturbing details. The ‘double’ film can be accompanied by a display of over one hundred framed black and white photographs from inside the house.

trigger. Or I have come across others who made appointments to see the houses, all of whom want to share their survivors’ stories: Did you make it down into the cellar? Or: Did you see the pornography? Or: Did you hear a baby crying? There have not been many installations that so successfully isolate the viewer with his or her own fears.’

Tim Adams, The Observer, 2 January 2005

View slideshow onlineView slideshow online

Catherine YassHigh Wire, 2008

Exhibiting at the Museum of Comtemporary Art, Chicago, 30 June – 23 September 2012

Blacked out space with 4 video projectors, 7 minutes, 23 seconds, 4 active speakers. Adjacent space with 2 lightboxes

eht ni ylno ton detseretni saw I‘ dream of walking in the air, but also sort of broader, wider social dreams. I was thinking about utopias or dreams of better societies, which are higher in the air.’

Catherine Yass, 2008

High Wire is a video installation comprising four projections, which was filmed at the Red Road housing scheme in North Glasgow. While one screen shows an overview of the estate, another shows a high-wire artist attempting to walk a wire strung between two of the high-rise blocks, 100 metres above the ground. Built in the early 1960s, Red Road was once the highest social housing in Europe, a triumph in city planners’ dreams. Into the void between the planners’ concrete dreams, another kind of dreamer, the French high-wire artist Didier Pasquette, steps out – at first gracefully, then hesitantly, and then he stops. High Wire is the ultimate expression of Yass’s enduring interest in the vertiginous view. It juxtaposes the containment of the concrete blocks and the modernist idealism of streets reaching into the sky, with the freedom of walking in the air. The videos are accompanied by two reversed negative light-boxes of different views of Red Road into which she has cut a sharp line to represent the high-wire.

Catherine YassHigh Wire, 2008

Exhibiting at the Museum of Comtemporary Art, Chicago, 30 June – 23 September 2012

Blacked out space with 4 video projectors, 7 minutes, 23 seconds, 4 active speakers. Adjacent space with 2 lightboxes

eht ni ylno ton detseretni saw I‘ dream of walking in the air, but also sort of broader, wider social dreams. I was thinking about utopias or dreams of better societies, which are higher in the air.’

Catherine Yass, 2008

High Wire is a video installation comprising four projections, which was filmed at the Red Road housing scheme in North Glasgow. While one screen shows an overview of the estate, another shows a high-wire artist attempting to walk a wire strung between two of the high-rise blocks, 100 metres above the ground. Built in the early 1960s, Red Road was once the highest social housing in Europe, a triumph in city planners’ dreams. Into the void between the planners’ concrete dreams, another kind of dreamer, the French high-wire artist Didier Pasquette, steps out – at first gracefully, then hesitantly, and then he stops. High Wire is the ultimate expression of Yass’s enduring interest in the vertiginous view. It juxtaposes the containment of the concrete blocks and the modernist idealism of streets reaching into the sky, with the freedom of walking in the air. The videos are accompanied by two reversed negative light-boxes of different views of Red Road into which she has cut a sharp line to represent the high-wire.

Working with museums and galleries

‘Projections’ at the Whitworth Art Gallery (2 July – 4 September 2011) demonstrated how successfully these projects can come alive in a new context.

‘Works from The Artangel Collection were a great success at the Whitworth with more that 37,000 visitors seeing the exhibition in the summer of 2011. Its success was thanks to the seriously exciting art made by Tony Oursler, Atom Egoyan, Francis Alys, Catherine Yass, Anri Sala and Sejla Kameric, the intelligent curatorship of Artangel at the time of commission, and the way in which we all worked together to re-present the work anew in Manchester.’

Mary Griffiths, Curator, Whitworth Art Gallery

Working with museums and galleries

‘Projections’ at the Whitworth Art Gallery (2 July – 4 September 2011) demonstrated how successfully these projects can come alive in a new context.

‘Works from The Artangel Collection were a great success at the Whitworth with more that 37,000 visitors seeing the exhibition in the summer of 2011. Its success was thanks to the seriously exciting art made by Tony Oursler, Atom Egoyan, Francis Alys, Catherine Yass, Anri Sala and Sejla Kameric, the intelligent curatorship of Artangel at the time of commission, and the way in which we all worked together to re-present the work anew in Manchester.’

Mary Griffiths, Curator, Whitworth Art Gallery

Contact us

All of these works are now available for loan – with no hire fee – to organisations across the UK. A minimum of 6 months’ notice is required for some works already accessioned by Tate.

To enquire about borrowing works from The Artangel Collection please contact Eleanor Nairne, Collection Coordinator: [email protected]

For all press enquiries, contact Emily Bromfield:[email protected]

Artangel31 Eyre Street HillLondon EC1R 5EW020 7713 1400

Contact us

All of these works are now available for loan – with no hire fee – to organisations across the UK. A minimum of 6 months’ notice is required for some works already accessioned by Tate.

To enquire about borrowing works from The Artangel Collection please contact Eleanor Nairne, Collection Coordinator: [email protected]

For all press enquiries, contact Emily Bromfield:[email protected]

Artangel31 Eyre Street HillLondon EC1R 5EW020 7713 1400

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