Tether

Sam Dargan - More Work For The Undertaker
12th November - 6th December, 2009
Thursday - Sunday, 1-6pm

Private View: Tuesday 10th November, 6-8pm

Tether are delighted to present Sam Dargan’s first solo exhibition in Nottingham, ‘More Work For The Undertaker’ at The Wasp Room.

Often responding to cinematic imagery and 20th C...entury literature as well as popular culture (referencing the music of the Fall and Half Man Half Biscuit amongst others) and more recently the melancholy and underlying savagery of photographic reportage, Dargan’s paintings are infused with contemporary commentary. Reminiscent of imagery seen in daily newspapers and depicting scenes and props from unrealised revolutions, these fragmented narratives are packed with hostility; commenting in part on the imbalance of power systems and the inherent paranoia that imbues conspiracy theories.

Disillusioned and listless revolutionaries linger in numb resignation, whilst abused figures in the aftermath of physical harm fathom their lot. Often bound, gagged, bruised or scarred, they exist in a world in which meaning has been lost and ideals have failed. Though their plight is tragic, it is not without a sense of humour. Like Mel Brooks once said “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die”.

For the exhibition, Dargan will be presenting a mixture of new and old works and a specially produced limited edition publication, which will be available from the gallery during the private view, or upon request.

Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council EnglandRead More

The ArtCrawl is a multi-venue, all night event to be held in Nottingham city centre. It will begin at Tether Studios at 8pm, alongside the launch of Murder in the Kremlin at The Wasp Room. Art Crawl guides Andrew Knight and Annette Foster will then take visitors around a number of venues in the city where artworks will... be exhibited and experienced.

Artists from across the UK have been selected to show work with an emphasis on interaction and participation.


Featured artists include:
Alexandra Lockett & Ian England
Ben Dawson
Drunken Chorus
Elena Cassidy-Smith
Emily Hayes
Exit Here
Hamish Walker
Harriet Startin
Jemma Egan
Katie Doubleday & Andrew Brown
Laurence Payot
Miyuki Kasahara
Nathania Hartley
Stuart McAdam

Films by:
Dave Richards
David Blandy
Gemma Marie-Longbottom
Ivar Waldemarson
Mark Bell
Mark Jones
Molly Palmer
Nicky Cary & Antonio DiBenedetto
Pic Pic Andre
Rebecca Bibby
Robert Bidder

Music by:
The Kull
We Show Up On Radar
Tom Thomas Club

The tour will conclude at Tether Studios with music, film and a shared breakfast at sunrise (approximately 5am).

Places are limited, so booking is essential. Visit http://www.tether.org.uk or email artcrawlnottingham@gmail.com for details and booking.

The ArtCrawl is curated by Timothy Dixon, Katherine Webborn and Matthew Cooper in association with Tether and with support from the Arts Council through the National Lottery.Read More

May 30th - June 14th
Private View : May 29th, 6-8pm followed by The Art Crawl

For the third and final show in the Wasp Room gallery’s inaugural season of exhibitions, Tether present ‘Murder in the Kremlin’; a tale of espionage, paranoia and death.

In this age of 24‐hour CCTV, where our daily lives are increasingly recorde...d, newspapers manufacture stories to sell copies and satellite news channels do
anything to keep us watching, who can we trust anymore? Amidst the paranoia and propaganda how can we hope for a simple answer?

With a story slowly unraveling before us, we piece together all we can to make sense of what we see. All that we know for sure is that we are in troubled times.

Collaborating on this large multi‐faceted group installation, Tether will use a variety of methods and media to create frozen moments, or episodes, in an untold narrative, with shades of the Hollywood thriller.

tether.org.uk

Supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England and Nottingham BreweryRead More

Using an article written by Waldemar Janusczak for The Times as a starting point, Tether will be hosting a night of debate exploring the state and trends of the contemporary British art scene. Within his review of the Nicolas Bourriaud curated ‘Altermodern’, Janusczak claims that “British modern art is clapped out” whi...lst “the rest of the world has things to be hopeful about”.

Discussing ‘Altermodern’ and the wider British scene, ‘The Future is Elsewhere’ is an open forum, in which visitors are encouraged to contribute to the debate. Has British art moved on since the YBAs? Where is British art currently, where is it headed, and does the term ‘Altermodern’ fully encapsulate these trends? Where do regional-based artists stand in relation to Janusczak’s criticisms?

A panel of arts professionals will lead the discussion including Wasp Room and Tether Director Liam Aitken, curator, writer and co-founder of critical writing forum Open Dialogues Rachel Lois Clapham, and artist S Mark Gubb.Read More

30TH APRIL – 17th MAY
Thu/Fri, 3-7pm; Sat/Sun, 12-5pm

PRIVATE VIEW: TUESDAY 28TH APRIL 6-8pm


The Wasp Room is pleased to present ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, the first UK exhibition by Parisian artist Anthony Peskine.

Adopting and adapting the visual languages of advertising campaigns and with a keen sense of the absurd, P...eskine’s work is concerned with the predicament of the loser, and how promises are rarely fulfilled.

Peskine seeks to satirise the way in which aspiration and hope are exploited as a manipulative device. He uses his own disappointment and disillusionment to drive a varied artistic practice that ranges from painting and photography, to text pieces, video works and installations.

Offering humorous alternatives to insincere pledges and conceited slogans, mocking intangible fears and superficial aspirations fed by media sensationalism, Peskine’s previous work has included large painted recreations of vouchers printed on ticket stubs which had offered “mega savings of 50p”, and a series of street-based interventions in which he adapted billboard slogans, including a political campaign by Nicolas Sarkozy, adding his own message “ou pas” (or not); rendering their ‘guarantees’ contentious and putting their artificial optimism in jeopardy.

Peskine’s sharp, sarcastic critiques, though cynical and perhaps even childish at times, offer a strategy to fight disappointment; advocating humour as an effective escape philosophy.

For ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, Peskine will be exhibiting a selection of recent works and new pieces, including the deadpan installation ‘My Weight in Potato Crisps’ and a series of manipulated photo works with bizarre and prophetic narratives.


Anthony Peskine was born in France on September 20th, 1982. After he graduated from high school in 2000, he got involved in an artistic career, first by drawing, and eventually with multimedia arts. After two years of studying architecture, he joined the Beaux Arts in Paris from which he graduated in 2007.

Since then, Anthony Peskine has taken part in several exhibitions including the group show Pression à Froid in October 2007, two art fairs in June and October 2008 (Mulhouse 008 and Jeune Création in Paris) and another group show Mieux vaut être un virus que tomber malade.

Peskine likes to work alongside other artists such as Nazheli Perrot, Cyril Aboucaya, Bérengère Hénin and his older brother Alexis Peskine. Some of his inspirations can be found in conceptual and Belgian art but most of it comes from movies, supermarkets, adverts, pop culture and celebrities. For more information, visit www.anthonypeskine.com.

Who Do You Think You Are? has been kindly sponsored by Crips crisps & Nottingham Brewery. The Wasp Room is supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England.

tether.org.ukRead More

To coincide with the exhibition A Far Sunset by Tom Down, Tether will be presenting a screening of a short and a feature on Sunday April 5th, from 7pm.

LA JETÉE, 1962, Chris Marker
After a global holocaust, humanity's hopes for survival hinge on time-travel experiments conducted upon a man whose dreams reveal a clarion r...ecall of a defining moment in his childhood, when he witnessed a murder. The narrative is revealed through a montage of stills and inspired the American film "12 Monkeys".

THINGS TO COME, 1936, William Cameron Menzies
A visually sweeping sci-fi classic full of futuristic vistas and modern cityscapes, based on the story by H.G. Wells and written for the screen by Wells. Beginning before World War II and travelling to 2036 AD, this journey predicts a host of modernities before following a rocketship to the moon. Massey is a future leader determined to restore law and order.Read More

Adopting nostalgic and romanticised archetypes and combining a broad range of references from heraldry and history painting to sci-fi illustration, Tom Down seeks to connect optimistic and aspirational visions of the past, present and future, with stunted attempts to reclaim childhood fantasies.

Taking its title from E...dmund Cooper’s 1968 novel, Tom Down’s first solo exhibition, 'A Far Sunset' unites the various threads of his artistic practice, creating a quasi-archival space, utilising and displaying a collection of diverse images, objects and text, in which distinctions between the found and the constructed are continually blurred.

Down is interested in historical conceptions of conquest as a romantic antithesis to the global conflicts currently presented in the media. Often embodying a simultaneous sense of the epic and the intimate, tinged with an element of the pathetic, his work strives for the unattainable ideal of winning without loss, the glory without the struggle. His cardboard replica of Switzerland’s 4478m mountain ‘Matterhorn’, recalled a vast, untamed landscape, and although impressive in a gallery space, paled in comparison to the reality of the mountain itself.

In 'A Far Sunset' these ideas are unified by the hobbyist-like treatment of materials, which is fueled by the artist's own set of almost naïve, utopian impulses. Who didn’t dream of being an astronaut, sailor, or diver as a child?

More information at www.tether.org.uk
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Traversing Territories is a collaborative project founded in 2005 between Nottingham Trent University School of Art & Design and Musashino Art University. Through the exchange and collaboration of students from both universities, various territories of media, space and time are explored in experimental forms. This year... manifestations of the project will be shown at Tether and Backlit creative spaces established by recent graduates of BA(Hons) Fine Art.

Participating artists include:
Shunsuke Watanabe
Mari Hamaguchi
Yosuke Kobayashi
Emi Nishiwaki
Sarah Duffy
Alia Pathan
Dan Cervi
Vicki Smith
Akiko Kanada
Amy Shaw
Kate Allen
Calvin Sangster
Jai Clarke
Professor Christophe Charles
Dr Rob Flint
Frank Abbot
Andrew Brown
Rob SquirrelRead More

PLEASE NOTE:
Due for unforseen circumstances, Debra Swann - Trouble in Paradise has been postponed.

The new dates are February 26th till March 15th.

Please join us for the private view on February 24th, 6-8pm.
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The Wasp Room will be exhibiting new works by the artist Debra Swann, made during a three-week re...sidency. The exhibition will be running from Thursday 26th February to Sunday 15th March 2009. The private view will take place on Tuesday 24th February, 6 – 8pm.

DEBRA SWANN

Debra Swann’s artwork is driven by her interest in science and time travel and the personas she adopts in everyday life, commenting on the domestic or private space by exploring the boundaries between reality and fantasy. The installations she creates are rich in imagined narrative but use everyday materials like sellotape and brown paper in their construction.

The artworks form props with implied functions, which on closer examination are revealed as illusions with flawed usefulness; the authority of Swann’s alter egos are also exposed as a hoax.

Debra Swann- "I have always been interested in the idea of travelling through time. Taking on personas, such as the Victorian collector or the colonial woman has allowed me to travel into the past. Through all my work I am juxtaposing significance and insignificance, searching to find meaning in things and exploring a desire for importance.

“The installation will create a sense of time gone by, a series of generations of comings and goings, an apocalyptic scene of death, decay and regeneration”Read More