In a unique work created for Stolen Space gallery London, the internationally acclaimed artist Pauline Amos will perform ‘live’ in the gallery over 5 days, and work on a new painting, 40 feet by 12 feet, as part of her new exhibition ‘Pity The Meat’ 15 – 24 August 2017.
Pauline Amos is a passionate and creative performance and painting artist, who has pioneered a unique style of work, combining it with live performance and music… developing the thinking of artists Kandinsky and Schoenberg who famously extolled the harmony between art and music in the last century.
This is the first time in 14 years Amos has presented a ‘durational’ performance in a gallery… the previous being in Rome at the Opera Paese gallery producing her renowned Opera Paese painting. Amos launched her first exhibition in London 2005, showing the Opera Paese painting with a price tag of £1.3m. Whilst being interviewed, Amos was asked how long the huge painting had taken to make. Amos replied ‘all my life’. After a brief calculation, basing her time on the average hourly wage in the UK, the £1.3m price came about, ‘The value of life is priceless and our time is given a price tag, an hourly rate’. The inflated price, seen as a comment on the commodification of art and the art market, provoked reactions from the press denouncing her vastly inflated prices.
The Amos performance is a multi-sensory experience of theatre, sound and painting. There are no rules, formula or rehearsal. The work is improvised, spontaneous and responding to the environment and circumstances. Amos builds a ‘stage’. The huge sheets of canvas with paint, charcoal and a sound system are in the gallery. A white space Amos fills with her presence, sound and the making of the work. With a unique style of ‘working in the moment’, she places herself within the painting and becomes part of it. ‘The art is the person – the life that is making the work. The paintings are documents and recordings of an event that happened. The performance, improvised and impulsive moment is the work’.
The music for the performance is that of Paz Caplin with whom Amos has collaborated since 1999.
Photo Credit: Barney Edwards
The exhibition will create a surrealist ‘graffiti ambiance’, with Amos’ bold works with street art aesthetic, combined with her ‘Carcass Canvasses’, large oil paintings hung from the ceiling on meat hooks.
In this way ‘Pity The Meat’ brings together two normally conflicting disciplines of the artistic world… an exciting juxtaposition between sophisticated fine art and street art graffiti.
Also presented for the first time at Stolen Space Gallery, in addition to Amos’ original work, will be her new limited edition screen prints, produced in conjunction with Jealous Gallery, and the first vinyl album by Amos and Caplin, also titled ‘Pity The Meat’. Amos comments ‘The music is a further demonstration of process. We turn up, set up and make work, no rehearsals, structures or formulas. Improvised and recorded as it happens, the sounds of guitars, synths and vocals create a moody theatre.’
The durational performance in the gallery will begin on 15 August and will build towards a closing event on 23 August.
‘Pity The Meat’ will be open to the public for 8 days from 15 August, 11am to 7pm with free entry. Stolen Space Gallery, 17 Osborn St, London E1 6TD.
For further information, please contact:
Natalie Williams
Main Telephone: +44 (0)20 7630 1411
E-mail: [email protected]
