News

I have been invited to Fundacion Valparaiso on a one-month residency along with seven other artists, writers and composers. Valparaiso, a converted olive mill, is set in the hills just outside the village of Mojacar on the Andalusian coast.
I shall be there from 2nd - 27th November.

A solo exhibition including brand news works can be seen at the Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University, Lancaster. The show is the first of a revamped new arts programme curated by Richard Smith (previously of the  Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Manchester) and will be up for a month. Private View is on October 12th. Exhibition runs from 13th October - 14th November.

I am in a group exhibition opening at The Vaults, Birmingham on Wednesday 28th April. Gloria's Crew is an exhibition of work curated by Jenine McGaughran and takes its name from Alice Sheldon's 1976 novella 'Houston, Houston, Do You Read?' in which an all female society presents a feminist utopian vision aboard spaceship Gloria. The exhibition will showcase an international selection of seminal and contemporary works.

I have been accepted back onto the I-Park international residency programme. I-Park, just outside East Haddam in rural Connecticut is set in 450 acres of beautiful woodland with clapperboard studios (see below). If you're around NY, please do come and visit. Exact dates TBC. http://www.i-park.org/index.html

I am lucky enough to have been selected to participate in ISCP's international residency programme. This will be for three months next year in Brooklyn. Exact dates TBC. 
See link: http://www.iscp-nyc.org/

Sound artist Jan Hendrikse and I made a sound and visual art installation for the Deptford X art festival with children from Myatt Garden and Tidemill Schools in Lewisham. See images below.

We're just back form a hard-working final week at Aldeburgh Music. See some photos below. Video stills from the project on their way.

Some design-type people who are obsessed with paper and all things stationary-like, wrote a nice piece about the catalogue and design for the solo exhibition in Aberystwyth last year. See blog below: http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.com/

I am fortunate enough to have been invited on the JOYA Artists' Residency at the beautiful Cortijada Los Gazquez. Last two weeks in September this year. See photographs below:

http://www.losgazquez.com/blog/
http://www.losgazquez.com/en/

This is a really nice article about me and my work on the Welsh Arts Council's website.
http://www.artswales.org.uk/viewnews.asp?id=1439

Long but interesting article in The Guardian about the Jerwood Opera Fellowship. Jack, Elspeth and I do get our say at the end.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/06/opera-suffolk-aldeburgh

Really nice review in AN for the Aberystwyth exhibition.
http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/577677

October 10th is the start of a solo exhibition 'Pretty Eyed, Pirate Smile' at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. The exhibition is a culmination of around six video works made over the past two years, including the title piece, above. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

Join us on Saturday 10th for the preview drinks.

http://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/whatson/exhibitions/info/7855/

With thanks to the Esmee Fairbarn Foundation.

September 16th is the preview night of 'British Subjects: Identity and Self-Fashioning 1965-2009' at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York.

This group exhibition includes nine of my video works alongside work by other British artists including: Gillian Wearing, Douglas Gordon, Ryan Gander, Ian Breakwell, Georgina Starr and Steve McQueen. 

Please visit http://www.neuberger.org/ for more information.

Elspeth, Jack and I are just back from a week of workshopping our opera, 'The Commission' at Aldeburgh Music in Snape. Working with an amazing group of musicians and conductor Dominic Wheeler 'The Commission' has developed to become a contemporary opera where 1940s film noir meets Italian Renaissance art. We 'scratch' perform the piece at Aldeburgh Music early next year. Dates TBC.

With thanks to the Jerwood Charitable Foundation.

I have written an essay for 'Caught in the Act' - a group exhibition of recent Chelsea graduates all working in the realm of performance. See below for details:

Caught In The Act

Chelsea Futurespace, London

18th February - 28th March 2009

Private View: Tuesday 17th February | 6 - 8.30 pm

Please see the preview of the ArtSway Open 2008 in the Guardian Guide.

www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/dec/06/artsway-open08-sway

Please join us at the private view of 'Reader I Married Him' on November 28th. New work made this year in London, Connecticut and Wales. Deleadus Gallery, 4 Sutton Lane, London, EC1.
Closes December 14th.
 

My work has been selected for the ArtSway Open 08. The exhibition will run from December 6th - February 8th.
See website for further information: www.artsway.org.uk

Last week I was awarded the Jerwood Opera Fellowship along with Jack Underwood, poet, and Elspeth Brooke, composer. We were one of five successful group applications from nearly a hundred. The fellowship, in conjunction with Aldeburgh music, gives us the opportunity to write, devise, design and produce a full length opera to be showcased in 24 months at the Britten-Peers School in Snape Maltings, Suffolk.

Theatre of Possibilities in conjunction with the Cy Twombly show at Tate Modern, finished at The Almeida last week to a great response.
I designed the sets and video. The Musical Director was Richard Bernas (Musical Director of Tate) and the Director was Mike Ashman . Mezzo Soprano Sally Burgess performing Tancredi and Clorinda by Monterverdi, below:

 
 

 
Sadly the residency in CT, USA is nearly over. Much fun has been had and work made. Moments of cabin fever (literally in a cabin in the woods) and the need to escape to NY. See our blog:

See WIP images below:
 

 

Lucy Newman-Cleeve, Director of Man and Eve Gallery will be curating an evening of films to be shown at The Ritzy Cinema, Brixton, on April 29th. Unfortunately I won't be there, but some of my new work will. Showing alongside Sophie Clements and Sophy Rickett.

I am currently designing the set for a production of Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress - libretto by W.H. Auden. It will be performed by students from Trinity College of Music at Blackheath Hall, end of June. See Hockney's wonderful 1975 design below.

The Wallis Gallery are screening some of my work at their 'Making Mistakes' evening of performance events on April 5th. Come along. It promises to be intriguing...
www.thewallisgallery.eu

Man and Eve gallery will be screening a new piece of work on Tuesday 18th as part of their Walls Have Ears exhibition. The piece uses original music composed by John Barber. Unfortunately the screening room only seats thirty so it's by invitation only. www.manandeve.co.uk

 

I'm going to I-Park in Connecticut for a four-week residency. I will live and work within the artists' community, located in 450 acres of beautiful woodland. Let me know if you're in NYC late April or early June.

The Aberystwyth Arts Centre has just had a series of artists' studios designed and built by Heatherwick Studios see: www.heatherwick.com Part of the new art programme at the centre involves a series of three and six month residencies. I will be artist in residence from September to November this year.
Come and visit - please.

I have recently been invited to design a video set for two pieces by John Cage and a piece by Monteverdi for the Almeida Theatre's opera festival this summer. More details to follow. www.almeida.co.uk/opera

The Embassy are screening two new Rees pieces tomorrow evening (October 31st). Please join us if you're Scotland bound - (or already there, of course). at Edinburgh College of Art, Sculpture Court at 7pm. 0044 (0) 131 667 2808 www.embassygallery.co.uk

Just back from the final week of the residency in Suffolk. Pigbeast, a twelve minute opera, was performed on the final day.



 

Exhibiting in the Claremorris Open this year. The adjudicator is Ingrid Swenson and the Private view is next Saturday the 8th September for those of you anywhere near County Mayo, Ireland. Runs until 29th September inclusive.

'How We May Be' was a project at Tate Lightbox, Tate Britain for Late at Tate co-curated by me and some of the postgraduate students I work with at Chelsea: Andy Best, Zoe Darling and Nick Hornby. The showreel of images was in response to the photographic exhibition at Tate Britain 'How We Were'. The work was selected by the curators from applications made by postgraduate students at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

Back from Spain after 5 days in the sunshine.

Back last week from Aldeburgh, Suffolk after a week-long residency at Snape Maltings. Workshops run by Opera Director Stephen Langridge, Designer Ally Chitty and Composer Harrison Birstwhistle (AKA Sir Harry). A wonderful week of rigorous discussion, singing Roy Orbison, and drinking copious amounts.

Our team consists of: Bijan Sheibani, director, Jack Underwood, poet, Elspeth Brooke, composer and me. (See below). We will be devising a 12 minute opera to be performed at Snape Maltings in October. I think we have a singing pig...

Rosie (of the NYO) playing the harp behind an Anish Kapoor sculpture during the Tate Modern site-specific performance.

Sunday 22nd July sees a one-off performance of a newly devised piece of music by the National Youth Orchestra. The project is directed by composers Jan Hendrikse and Fraser Trainer. I will be making a video work in response to the musical score. The works will be performed and shown at Tate Modern, London.

Just back from Vara, Sweden, where I was Artistic Director on Share Music Sweden summer 2007. Amazing and hilarious, as ever. Our theme was 'silence' based on John Cages' various writings on the subject. Team: Jan Hendrikse, Veera Suvalo-Grimberg, Pelle Cello Helene Karabuda and Myriam Mazzoni.