[WEEK 9]
Dear Friends,
The creative output of humanity is our uplifting companion. Although we are still all socially distanced, our community remains deeply connected through our passion for art, our love of culture and our shared humanity. We know that art is now more important than ever to our quality of life. The gallery has responded to the challenges of this unprecedented time by continuing to support artists – both gallery and non-gallery affiliated, and connect with our audience through new online projects.
It gives me great satisfaction to be able to announce that not only have we managed to maintain the gallery’s programme in new and creative ways, but we have also managed to launch a new online platform, [The art happens here], dedicated to showcasing digital art.
We are now entering the ninth week of Annka Kultys online exhibition, Stay at home which opened on 5 April, and presents new digital works produced by artists responding to the coronavirus pandemic. On each Sunday of the lockdown, a new artist will be showcased as part of Stay at home, while the exhibition itself will continue for the duration of the lockdown (however long that may prove to be).
We are also pleased to announce all gallery benefits (i.e., profits after the artist has been compensated in the usual manner) from featured digital works sold via [The art happens here] will be donated to the National Emergencies Trust. The purchasers’ generosity will also help to financially support the featured artists during this difficult time when non-essential shops are closed (including in particular art museums and commercial galleries, leading to postponed exhibitions for artists), thereby ensuring at least part of artists’ incomes can be maintained.
To date the gallery has presented nine artists during Stay at home. This week we are presenting Stine Deja‘s video 4K Zen. The 4K Zen ‘distraction installation’ encourages the audience to put their worries on standby and recharge themselves physically and emotionally, via the use of an isolating hat that allows uninterrupted and mindful screen-time.
Previous weeks include Jeremy Bailey‘s video Nail Art Museum. Using images of works such as the Venus de Milo to Albrecht Dürer’s self-portrait to a Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog, dating from antiquity to the contemporary, Bailey exhibits the power of the technology artist to curate their own virtual art museum shows, while also satirically commenting on the nature of creativity, celebrity and artistic value within the virtual art sphere. Marc Lee’s TV Bot, filtering the latest Twitter and YouTube posts, marked with the hashtags for Coronavirus. The bot weaves the posts into a wild continuous (24/7) feed TV show in which images, tweets and videos flicker across the screen in real time. Alice Bucknell’s video Welcome to Nütropix, produced while in lockdown, Welcome to Nütropix is the latest instalment of the E-Z Kryptobuild video series. E-Z Kryptobuild is a speculative real estate company that offers high-net-worth individuals the opportunity to invest in a luxury life raft for the end of times. A collaborative AV Collage from Allan Gardner & Michael Sangster’s, Infowars Made Me Hardcore (2020), was the fifth instalment of the gallery’s online exhibition Stay at home. Infowars Made Me Hardcore is a reaction to a seemingly inexorable societal death drive, our unalterable course towards the impending apocalypse.
Two videos from Canadian artist James Knott’s, Crisis Du Jour series. Episode 1 Eggs and Episode 2 Beans in Isolation, in which the artist explores the mundanity of millennial anxieties through existential monologue, absurdist humour, food and camp drag, followed Jillian Mayer’ video. The third week Jillian Mayer presented You’ll Be Okay, a 4 minute looping animation of the title’s reassuring text written against a background of white clouds in a blue sky. We are delighted to note You’ll Be Okay is also currently featuring over the skies of Los Angeles, having been selected by the City of West Hollywood to be shown on a giant video screen in the city as part of its own response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Seven weeks ago we featured Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Video Portraits, unedited videos of people he encountered during lockdown on the streets of Burnaby, Vancouver in his native Canada. While technically short, non-narrative videos, Hannah’s brief portraits inhabit the penumbra between still and moving images, as the subjects pose while gazing directly at the camera, creating intensely intimate studies of the featured individuals. We opened Stay at home with James Irwin’s project Surface Collider (23032020), a digitally manipulated video of British prime minister Boris Johnson’s historic speech of 23 March 2020 announcing the lockdown of the United Kingdom as part of his government’s response to coronavirus.
From 23 April- 23 May, we ‘opened’ as initially planned Please enter TITLE here, Aaron Scheer’s second solo show at the gallery featuring his new digital abstract paintings. Instead of the physical installation, the gallery documented the exhibition using the digital renderings of how the installed show would have looked in the gallery space had we been able to install it.
This is not the end of the programme. Mid June will see our first solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Kazakhstan-born Munich-based artist Hell Gette and our annual group exhibition organised by a guest curator Anton Svyatsky will open in July.
Finally, during these challenging times, we will continue to prioritise the health and safety of our community and support one another. We look forward to the day when we can once again gather to connect and celebrate our achievements.
With best wishes for your good health and continued success,
Annka
TEAM
Annka Kultys | Founder & Director
Virginia Bianchi | Digital Marketing
Holly Pollard | Marketing Intern
Oliver Matich | Technician
Gina Morelli | Graphic Designer
John Brennan | Editing & Publications
VISIT & OPENING TIMES
Temporary Gallery Closure
During our closure, we invite you to continue to explore our current and upcoming exhibitions online.
472 Hackney Road | Unit 3, 1st Floor | London E2 9EQ | T +44 20 3302 6070 | Map
Thursday – Saturday | 12 pm – 6 pm or by appointment
We regret that Annka Kultys Gallery is not wheelchair accessible.
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