Press Release
The Showroom relaunches in Central London on 8 September, 6 - 9pm
A 3000 square foot small warehouse on Penfold Street, reconfigured by ifau and Jesko Fezer, Berlin, and Working Architecture Group, London, has become the new home for The Showroom, one of the most respected publicly funded art spaces.
The programme opens with the second part of The Otolith Group’s first solo exhibition in London, A Long Time Between Suns. Following the first installment at Gasworks February 2009, Part II premieres The Otolith Group‘s new film Otolith III (HD, colour, sound, 45 mins, 2009).
Informed by Satyajit Ray’s unmade film The Alien (1967) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Appunti per un film sull’India (1968), Otolith III replays Ray’s unrealised science fiction as a series of competing past potential futures. As with Part I, it will be situated in an installation conceived and designed by Will Holder. Otolith III is accompanied by Otolith Timeline (video, colour, 30 minutes, 2003) which situates The Otolith Trilogy in a speculative history of the 20th and 21st Century. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of events, including discussions with filmmaker Eyal Sivan and Bidoun magazine.
A new book, A Long Time Between Suns, has been edited as an archival assemblage that links the two stages of the exhibition, designed by Will Holder. It contains an extensive conversation with the artists and new texts by Diana McCarty, Jean Matthee and TJ Demos. During the exhibition, areas of The Showroom’s space will be configured to facilitate the book’s production. The book will be co-published by Sternberg Press, The Showroom and Gasworks, London, If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam, MACBA, Barcelona, and Fondazione Galleria Civica - Centro di Ricerca sulla Contemporaneità di Trento.
The Otolith Group was formed in 2002 by London-based artists Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar. Their works include films Otolith I (2003), Otolith II (2007), Nervus Rerum (2008), the curation of The Ghosts of Songs: The Film Art of The Black Audio Collective, exhibited at FACT. Will Holder is a designer and writer based in London. He recently curated ‘Talk Show’ at the ICA, and is editor of FR DAVID, published by de Appel, Amsterdam.
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