Shezad Dawood and Elín Jakobsdóttir at Leeds Art Gallery
Wednesday, 1st October 2014
LEEDS ART GALLERY, 3 October 2014 to 18 January 2015
Shezad Dawood: Towards the Possible Film
Elín Jakobsdóttir: Eyes Cast
Press Preview Thursday 2 October 3 – 5pm
Shezad Dawood’s Towards the Possible Film brings together new film, textile painting and neon work, alongside his selected works from the collection. Towards the Possible Film is an exhibition that questions and inspires a meeting point between modernism and mysticism, mapping out enquiries into histories of place and the significance of landscape and culture. Elín Jakobsdóttir’s Eyes Cast is a commissioned moving image work shot in Super 8 on location in Leeds Art Gallery. It is a silent, visual poem that traces a route through the building focussing on two bronze portrait busts by the sculptor Jacob Epstein. This new film is shown alongside plumpe Denken Modalities, a new series of paper cut-outs and drawings.
Shezad Dawood is an artist of British and Pakistani heritage. His investigations are rooted in his cultural heritage, life experience, and desire to encourage communication between different cultures, people, the past and future. Shezad Dawood studied at Leeds Metropolitan University from 2004 – 08, and knows the Leeds collection well. This exhibition gives him the opportunity to show works of his own alongside selected historic pieces, offering new encounters for the audience. Dawood’s new film installation Towards the Possible Film, 2014, was shot at Legzira beach in Sidi Ifni, Morocco. Dawood found a deep source of inspiration in the region’s history and the many wars fought in the 1950/60s between Spain, Morocco and the independent Saharan tribes. Dawood’s forms of expression inhabit a place that is both real and surreal. This fantastical plot sees blue skinned astronauts emerge from the sea onto a rocky red landscape to confront the indigenous inhabitants. These collisions are a creative tool that allows the artist to examine fundamental questions of being.
Elín Jakobsdóttir’s Eyes Cast poses questions about the durability of artwork and highlights our own mortality by touching on the enigma of time. The film’s silent and contemplative pace take the viewer into the realm of dreams whilst focusing on the notion of the museum as a place for thought and reflection. Decorative richly coloured tiled surfaces and stairways, in turn fade into the natural forms from which they derive as we move outside into a monochrome landscape. The man-made world re-emerges when the fluttering leaves of a parkland reverie drift into wrought iron vines decorating graves in a cemetery in Berlin.
The expression ‘plumpe Denken’ is taken from the German playwright Bertolt Brecht who stated a preference for working with plump or crude thoughts as opposed to rigorously honed thoughts. The drawings are concerned with the territory of the mind and body, bringing together objects from the everyday environment, body parts and organs, abstract shapes suggestive of mechanical and metabolic processes and lines that trace pathways of thought, humour and poetic ambiguity.
These two exhibitions epitomise Leeds Art Gallery’s aim to bring thought-provoking art to the city. Leeds Art Gallery is a place to see a designated historic collection alongside contemporary art; it is this proviso that makes it a singular art destination and the perfect backdrop for displays by Dawood and Jakobsdóttir.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
Shezad Dawood, born 1974, trained at Central St Martin’s and Royal College of Art, undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University from 2004 – 08. Dawood’s work has been exhibited internationally, including Modern Art Oxford (2012), Busan Biennale (2010), as part of ‘Altermodern’, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, Tate Britain (2009), and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). Recent projects include feature film Piercing Brightness (2013), a solo exhibition at Parasol Unit, London (2014) and group exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation (2013) and MACBA, Barcelona (2014). Dawood is a Jarman Award nominee (2012). He currently lives and works in London, where he is Research Fellow in Experimental Media at the University of Westminster.
The exhibition is accompanied by a full-colour publication that includes an essay by Oliver Basciano, an interview with the artist and an essay by Leeds Art Gallery Curator, Sarah Brown.
Shezad Dawood’s Towards the Possible Film is commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella and Delfina Foundation. In partnership with Leeds Art Gallery, Paradise Row, Art Dubai Projects, Witte de With, Marrakech Biennale, British Council, University of Westminster, Chemould Prescott Road, Galerie Gabriel Rolt, and Dar al Ma'mun. In association with Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art. Developed in close partnership with Dabateatr, Rabat. Film and Video Umbrella is supported by Arts Council England.
Event: The artist will be in conversation with Derek Horton, Director of &Model, on Tuesday 21 October at 6pm (free but booking advised 0113 247 8256 or city.art.gallery@leeds.gov.uk)
Elín Jakobsdóttir (b. 1968, Selfoss, Iceland) lives and works in Glasgow. Her work includes drawings, films and sculptural objects which consider everyday world through the lens of the subconscious. She studied drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Fine Art and theatre studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Her work combines drawing, paper cut-outs, painting, sculptural objects and experimental films shot in 16mm and Super-8. She is co-founder of Fiction House, Berlin and it represented by Krome Gallery Berlin.
Elín Jakobsdóttir’s Eye’s Cast is supported by Arts Council England and Creative Scotland.
Event: The artist will be in conversation with Francis McKee, Director of CCA Gallery, Glasgow on Tuesday 9th December at 6pm (free but booking advised 0113 247 8256 or city.art.gallery@leeds.gov.uk)
Press Preview for Shezad Dawood Towards the Possible Film and Elín Jakobsdóttir Eyes Cast with the artists takes place on Thursday 2 October 6pm to 8pm – welcome speeches 6.45pm. Invitation only.
For invitations to the Press Preview, more information on the artists and their work, high res images, interview opportunities with the artists and Sarah Brown Curator Exhibitions, Leeds Art Gallery, please contact Kendra Grahame-Clarke at Kendra PR on 01904 234 752 or 07910 214474 kendra@kendrapr.co.uk or Corrie Staniforth corrie@kendrapr.co.uk
These exhibitions run concurrently in different locations within Leeds Art Gallery from Friday 3 October to Sunday 18 January 2015.
Leeds Art Gallery, The Headrow, Leeds, LS1 3AA, (adjacent to the Henry Moore Institute) is open as follows:
Monday & Tuesday 10am to 5pm
Wednesday 12pm to 5pm
Thursday & Saturday 10am to 5pm
Sunday 1pm to 5pm
Closed on bank holidays.
Admission to the gallery is completely free.
Leeds Art Gallery holds and exhibits one of the most outstanding collections of modern British art outside London. Leeds Museums and Galleries’ fine art collection is designated by H M Government as of national importance.
The Gallery has always tried to support the work of living artists. Early gifts included Lady Butler's Scotland Forever and paintings by the enduringly popular Leeds artist, Atkinson Grimshaw. The early 20th century is represented in multiple holdings by artists such as Stanley Spencer and Walter Sickert, as well as the Camden Town Group and the development of English modernism is shown through key works by Moore, Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Paul Nash, Jacob Epstein and Francis Bacon. Art from the Leeds Collection is often requested to travel to museums across the world, as well as frequent loans to Tate and other national galleries.
Leeds Art Gallery continues to collect contemporary art; recent acquisitions include works by Simon Fujiwara, Becky Beasley, Fiona Rae and Bob & Roberta Smith. Through the generous support of the Henry Moore Foundation, the Gallery has bought many significant sculptures and can boast a modern sculpture collection second only to that of the Tate. The collection also includes a vast and unique archive; both are managed in partnership with the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.
The internationally acclaimed collection of works on paper at Leeds Art Gallery includes historic watercolours by ever-popular artists such as JMW Turner and John Sell Cotman, prints by Rembrandt, shelter drawings by Henry Moore and work by contemporary artists such as Paula Rego, Rose Garrard and Callum Innes. When not on show these can be seen by appointment in the Print Room; call 0113 247 8256 for information or visit www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery for details on the programme of exhibitions, events and activities.
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The press pack dropbox is available at:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k6htgnjvv7b3bxa/AAC74uTXpFlnPx93H33VpbhLa?dl=0