Tuesday, May 30, 2006

News

Despite there currently being no show on at Apartment It's been a very busy time. We recently attended the NAN-NANA event in Nottingham; each artist-led organisation gave a presentation; Apartment presented 'Tea and Sympathy', we served tea and biscuits to each participant (Left,Paul Harfleet serving tea to Candice Jacobs from Stand Assembly). The main objective of the weekend was to create 'new adventures in networking', for more information on this event follow this link. In other news; Apartment is mentioned briefly in this months 'Museums Journal' (right) the article called 'Home Truths' explores the concept of living in a museum, exploring in this case Adam Nankervis and his museumMAN project. We're also featured in 'The Critical Friend' (full article below) a lovely 'fanzine' written and edited by Alex Michon and Olly Beck for more information follow this link The Critical Friend

The Critical Friend

"So here we are in Manchester in the early evening dusk in the 60's tower block home of the artist Paul Harfleet which doubles as the Apartment gallery. We are looking at the work of the Hungarian artist Beata Veszely. Simple pen drawings of horse archery superimposed onto found art and fashion magazine pages. Horse-archery was the national sport of pre-communist era Hungary. Of Course I am nosily looking around the (very tidy) flat thinking about the chaos of my own back home which doubles as my studio. 'How do you manage it?' I ask Paul. 'well I'm used to it now' he says, 'and anyway it's an appointment basis so I can plan when I show people around. As we sit in the flat/gallery in the ever growing darkness, up in the skies surrounded by a vista of cranes of Manchester's great 'march forward' of neo-yuppie flat building, we watch the twinkling lights from the cars zooming by in the road below, the scene unfolds into an interesting whole with each part adding to the mix. There is a melancholic wistfulness, in these simple lovingly drawn horses and archers, floating like ghosts from another century onto these self important magazine pages. There is the whiff of lost socialist utopias, the sheer romanticism of Eastern European history all mixed up in a Judy Garland Mickey Rooneyesq 'lets put the show on right here in our barn' idealism. Liked it."

Alex Michon
Taken from Spring 2006 issue of 'The Critical Friend'
for more on this show follow this link

Compartment

Surface Gallery recently invited Paul Harfleet and HIlary Jack to curate a show that would explore the position of Surface Gallery in the context of the British Art Show 06 and it's arrival in Nottingham. Everyone on the gallery's mailing list was invited to submit one work that would be no taller than 100cm. The show is on til May 11th. 64 artists took part in the show, a huge variety of work painted a complex picture of Surface gallery's position in Nottingham. One of the most exciting works was Tomas Chaffe's 'Get over it' pictured below. For more information visit Surface Gallery and Compartment.

www.nyartsmagazine.com

Follow this link to read an article on the Manchester art scene; featuring Apartment!