Illuminations by Trace @ ServicePoint Building, Whitworth Street

One of my favourite exhibition experiences of my whole life happened in one room of the Pompideu centre in spring of 2006. Rodney Graham’s film Rheinmetal/Victoria 8 ( 2003 ) was a projection of white powder slowly falling onto and settling on a typewriter. It was eerie and beautiful, a significant personal experience with a work of art, that I have never really spoken about but have carried with my since that time. Some of the aspects which so touched me about Graham's piece seem to be repeated in Illuminations at the ServicePoint Buildings.



I haven’t enjoyed, and been impressed by, an art exhibition as much as Illuminations in an awfully long time. Consisting of work from over 30 recent graduates from the Slade School of Fine Art, they exhibit under the collective name Trace. Although not all of the exhibits are of the same high quality or originality, nearly all are evocative and interesting. The decision to place the show within a blacked out and disused building is rather clever. Individually illuminated pieces seem eerie and beautiful, and the darkness covers a multitude of sins. Weird corporate fixtures and fittings sink into the background, loom strangely and unimportantly in the corner of your eye and while also adding to the whole experience. Another significance of the blackout/illumination choice is that it makes the exhibition difficult to photograph, eliminating one of my major bugbears with peoples behaviour in gallery spaces.

To wander around the building in near dark is a wonderful experience. The projected art is ghostly and beautiful, and seems to bring down a comfortable silence and air of contemplation. I also like that it is not a circular exhibition, that when you get to the end of the exhibition you do not spill out at some predetermined destination complete with shop. You have to retrace your steps, revisiting exhibits which you passed perhaps only minutes earlier. With video art this is a real gift, since with luck you find yourself presented with parts which you may not have seen again. With the most beautiful ones, such as Sam Belinfante's Tube Lines or Permille Leggat Ramfelt and Richard Bevan's Point this is a real gift.

So go find this exhibition and have a relaxed wander, free of excessive curatorial direction and do the interpretation for yourself. It's great, and I hope this style of exhibition can take over from the prissy, didactic and tired trends that seem to rule the roost at the moment. Illumnations is at 4 Whitworth Street West, the Deansgate Station end, and runs till the 30th of November. It is open Mon-Fri 12-7pm, Sat/Sun 1-5pm.

Another busy week: Blacksad, Mervyn Peake @ MAG, Manchester Blog Awards, Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, Illuminations and Dystopian Novels

Wow, what a weekend! Spent today recovering, writing event reviews for the Manchester Literature Festival Blog. Friday's event, Destroy Powerpoint is online and my attempt to render the glourisously beery monstrosity that was Vvoorp Vvoorp! at the Lass O' Gowrie into comprehendible words should follow shortly. I have not even began trying to put into words how utterly divine it was to meet the lovely Hannah Berry and Paul Gravatt on Sunday.

I'm sure Hannah will forgive me, because the second Blacksad book came through my door today and demanded a few hours of my time. Unfortunately, as observed with the previous book by my multilingual goddess of a house mate, the translation is not that great, even clear to an uncultivated hack like me because the spelling of one of the characters name keeps shifting inexplicably.

This week is not quite as geeky, but still has a claim to nerdy fame. It starts a tomorrow with an event I am blogging for the Manchester Literature Festival. with the son of the author of Gormenghast, Sebastian Peake, reading his father's writings by Mervyn's painting of glassblowers in Manchester Art Gallery.

Wednesday is the Manchester Blog Awards, run in conjunction with the Literature Festival and City Life. I wasn't nominated of an award, but still want to attend out of Mancunian blogging solidarity. Prepare to nominate me next year, people, for I shall be queen!

Thursday is the preview of the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, which I am really looking forward to. Craft lies pretty close to my heart, as a daughter of a weaver and craft maker. Yes, that website is pretty ancient, but it's my mama's so be respectful! After the beautiful disappointment which was Cloth & Culture Now, and fully aware of the proverbial meat market which crafts fairs can be, I'm looking forward to see what my reaction will be. Like fine art, there are some rather strange, and to an outsider rather inexplicable, hierarchies within the craft field. The use of contemporary in the title flirts with me shameless, tempting and disconcerting, like a burlesque dancer with an adams apple.

On Friday night is the start of Illuminations, which I have previously blogged about.

If all that wasn't enough, I'm also covering a Dystopian Novel Debate on Saturday.

Good job I'm unemployed, otherwise I would be shaking myself to sublimely cultural pieces!

Illuminations @ ServicePoint Building, Whitworth Street

My good friend Sam pointed this out to me. Interval , a artist led organisation which focuses on digital media practice, are presenting a odd but intriguing sounding show at The ServicePoint Building on Whitworth Street West next Thursday, 23rd of October till the 30th.

Illumination offers:

"Works by more than 30 exiting and innovative young artists, incorporating photography, film, performance, video, drawing and installation are conceived or repositioned for this exhibition.

Individually illuminated, each work interrupts both the darkness and the functionality of this non-gallery space revealing alternative and intriguing approaches to contemporary and traditional media. "

I'm not the biggest fan of media and performance art, often seeming gimmicky and quickly dating, but this group show sounds really quite promising. It sound really quite curatorially interesting and a bit of an experience.

From the 24th it's open Mon-Fri 12-7pm, Sat/Sun 1-5pm and is FREE.