Welcome to Apartment!

Thank you for visiting.

Goodbye Apartment!

Today we took down the vinyl lettering at Apartment, at just a few inches high it was externally an almost invisible indicator of this particular artist led space. Though internally for five years it perpetually cast a jolly shadow over the white walls of the flat. We (Paul Harfleet and Hilary Jack) would like to take this opportunity to thank every person who ever visited our exhibition openings, to each of you that attended our exclusive little 'gigs', and the brave few that made the arduos journey across town and all the way up to the sixth floor for a personal visit. We genuinely enjoyed your company and have appreciated your support hugely. Pehaps most of all, we'd like to thank the artists, writers and musicians that chose to exhibit their work, words and songs in this flat: Just Paul's one bedroom sixth floor flat that became a strange and tiny beacon of creativity in a northern city called Manchester. In the meantime this blog will remain in place acting as documentation for each show, every artist and all events that have happened here, indoors and out. For those of you still interested in Apartment it's perhaps best that you e-mail Paul (pjharfleet@hotmail.com) or Hilary (hilaryjack1@gmail.com) individually as we will check the Apartment e-mail less as time goes on.

Once Again Thanks Ever So Much!.....

Paul and Hilary

Giorgio Sadotti - PAUL PAUL IS THE ART

Giorgio Sadotti is a conceptual artist, he has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad. Giorgio wants things to be easy. He wants things to be simple. By utilising the skills of others Giorgio allows himself a freedom; a freedom to do nothing. For PAUL artist Giorgio Sadotti raised the status of Paul Harfleet, co-curator and tenant of Apartment, to art. A poster (Above) stated 'PAUL PAUL IS THE ART' this was placed directly on the front door of the flat instructing every visitor to the opening to view Paul Harfleet as the art.

Paul Harfleet is allocated as the art when he is in the flat and was given no specific instruction by the artist other than to be himself. A poster 'PAUL PAUL IS THE THING' is for sale, (£50) and aims to be a record of the show. The show runs until April 2^nd and will be the last exhibition at Apartment. This blog will continue to be maintained as a resource and legacy of Apartment's activity over it's five year run.

The exhibition runs until April 2nd, view by appointment. For more information on Giorgio Sadotti click here



Below a Slideshow of the Opening!

Contact

click map to enlarge:
49 Lamport Court,
Lamport Close,
Ardwick,
Manchester,
M1 7EG.
apartmentmanchester@googlemail.com
Paul Harfleet: 07870 244 153
pjharfleet@hotmail.com
Hilary Jack: 07957 398 451
hilaryjack1@hotmail.com

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Life of A Bluestocking ~ E.P. Niblock

Preview ~ 6-9pm

Thursday December 4^th 2008

Afternoon tea and guided tour of Brunswick ~ 3-5pm Thursday December 11^th 2008

Due to demand this show has been extended until January 16th 2009!

subsequently view by appointment

‘Life of a Bluestocking’ is an exhibition that celebrates the end of Euphemia P. Niblock’s year long “Writer in Residence” at Apartment. During this time Miss Niblock has used Apartment as means to explore her idiosyncratic explorations of the city and ‘Archaeology of Now’ through her blog ‘Diary of a Bluestocking’ and by her various contributions to publications on-line and in print.

The show will chart this unique character’s year long journey of self discovery. Euphemia P Niblock is a spinster, an antiquarian, a flaneuse and the epitome of the Edwardian Bluestocking. In 2003, after eighty years in obscurity, she emerged unexpectedly from the revamped Manchester Museum, and is still adjusting to life in 21^st century. Her bemused and astute explorations into the contemporary world have established her as a significant commentator on the peculiarities of present-day life through her examination of art, artists and modern architecture.

E.P Niblock was shortlisted for the Manchester Blog awards and has recently contributed to The Long Night of the Liverpool Biennial, a one off publication commissioned by Open Eye Publication.

Scenes from a Life

Above is the slideshow that is on view at Apartment, revealing a selection of photographs from E.P Niblock's personal archive.

Life of a Bluestocking

Above a selection of images from the preview of 'Life of a Bluestocking', the show consists of a detailed time-line of E.P.Niblock's Life, and a 'Reading Room' with selected texts from 'Diary of a Bluestocking. Also included above are some images of the event at Apartment hosted by E.P Niblock; a walking tour through Brunswick, for a full transcript click here. Below is the text accompanying the show.

“The flaneur, though grounded in everyday life is an analytical form, a narrative device, an attitude towards knowledge and its social context. It is an image of movement through the social space of modernity. The flaneur is a multilayered palimpsest that allows us to move from real products of modernity to a critical appreciation of the state of modernity and its erosion into the past.” Charles Jencks

The flaneur is a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search of adventure and knowledge. The flaneur has stalked the literature, art movements and philosophies of the 20th century, an intellectual chameleon, adapting perfectly to his times and surroundings, an archetype that to successive generations of artists, urbanists and writers is the metaphor for the century, a poster boy for modernity. More than anything he is essentially a male figure, an intellectual voyeur always distanced from the crowd that he is so keen to observe.

However for cultural theorists such as Jenks the flaneur is essentially an analytical device or contrivance to explore the project of modernity itself and its legacy in the emerging 21st century. Euphemia P Niblock is a response to this contrivance - a playful embodiment of the history of the flaneur and the modernist gaze - whilst her Diary of a Bluestocking is an experiment in examining this critical discourse in the context of what might be termed the current post post-modern turn. Life of a Bluestocking charts modernisms journey - her disappearance at the height of the period (its optimism untested and universal narrative unchallenged) and appearance as the 21st century establishes itself enabling us to view the intervening years, our own century, with a critical eye.

Spinster and bluestocking, Niblock is also something of an outsider, an emancipated transgressor in polite Edwardian society, recalling the unsung role of the female intellectual, adventurer and agent in the birth of the modernist period; a playful subversion of the Victorian upper class male. On first inspection an unlikely anachronism and almost comic figure, Niblock is in reality an ongoing research project, a call to arms for the forgotten legacy of the polymath and amateur enthusiast in our prevailing predilection for the specialist and the professional; a more 'curious' gaze than the convention of the dandified flaneur.

Life of a Bluestocking is not only a celebration of Niblock’s tenure as writer in residence at Apartment but a gentle parody of the recent historic or ‘museological’ turn in the contemporary art scene and the ‘Mark Dion’ effect in archaeological and natural history museums across the globe, typified by the successful Alchemy programmes at the Manchester Museum, and an interesting response to the ubiquity of the ‘cabinet of curiosity’ in the Gallery.

The history of Apartment is one that knowingly straddles the peripheries and cut and thrust of knowledge production and critical discourse, a space that reflects an ongoing conversation on the intersections of art, urban and cultural studies on social relations and everyday life. It is surely no coincidence that Apartment has embraced the opportunity to comment on the prevailing trend of sending the artist into the museum by bringing the museologist into the art space, inviting a historian and archaeologist to explore and examine the role of the artist in the documenting of an ‘archaeology of now’, our defining quotidian moment.

http://diaryofabluestocking.blogspot.com

Prizes and Awards!...

We are delighted to announce that artists we have previously supported and who have exhibited at Apartment have been recognised for their artistic practice across the region. Naomi Kashiwagi recently won The Best of Manchester Award in the art category of the prize hosted by Urbis; Paul Harfleet was shortlisted for The Pansy Project in the same category! Previous Apartment Artist-in-Residence Maeve Rendle has been nominated for The Northern Art Prize alongside friends of Apartment, Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson. So Congratulations to all!

Writer in Residence ~ EP Niblock

Our experimental ‘residency’ program continues with selection of writer E.P. Niblock who has employed the methodologies of archaeological practice and theory to investigate Apartment, its location and institutional role. To view the ongoing writings of EP Niblock please visit her blog: www.diaryofabluestocking.blogspot.com.

News!

Hello and welcome to Apartment’s blog, as you can see from the links below we have been busy with Artranspennine08 over the last few weeks, over sixty artists have taken part and we’ve been delighted by the response. Though we have also been busy with other projects, we recently went on a curatorial research trip to Berlin with a selection of Northwest based curators, a blog outlines the trip and is intended to act as a resource for other curators who may be thinking of visiting Berlin so do have a look if you’re interested. In our endeavour to showcase other new activity we were pleased to note a new artist-led space in Manchester, ‘Pavement’ is a new exhibition space housed in a former drapery store, for more information click here, the current exhibition by Rut Blees Luxemburg was of particular interest to us ‘Caliban Towers’ depicts a group of tower blocks at night, (image above). In Liverpool we recently attended the opening of an exciting new commercial space; Ceri Hand Gallery is housed in a converted warehouse on Cotton Street in Liverpool click here for more information. We have also updated our links section to the right with new spaces, activities and projects located in the Northwest so do have a browse. Paul Harfleet and Hilary Jack are artists too and have been busy with their own projects so do have a look here and here.

Artranspennine08

Above is 'The Reading Room' by Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson, curated by Lewis Biggs as part of Artranspennine08; The work is part of the large scale cross-regional exhibition that we are curating with over fifty emerging and established artists working in a variety of disciplines. Artists from across the transpennine route and beyond will be placing work at a variety of locations from painted beer mats in pubs to augmented rugby balls in fields. There will be a special launch event at Internaional3 on Friday June 13th 5-9pm. To view the work above e-mail the above address or atp08@hotmail.co.uk.

Clown Crash } Dirty Honky

Clown Crash - Dirty Honky

a performance and exhibition by Dirty Honky; the pig nosed clown

Thursday 20^th March from 3pm to 9pm

Exhibition will continue until April 25^th, view by appointment.

Unable to pay escalating rent and council tax, Dirty Honky, the pig-nosed clown alter-ego of artist Alexis Milne, has been kicked out of his home and is looking for a place to crash. The solution is to install his purpose built performance shed, in Apartment.

On Thursday 20^th March from 3pm to 9pm Dirty Honky opened his shed doors to the public inviting them inside to play “Honkopoly” his own version of the popular board game Monopoly. In doing so he allowed property starved citizens to become property tycoons, enabling them to temporarily enjoy the prestige and social status that comes with climbing the property ladder. His actions highlighted the urgent need for affordable housing for young creatives, such as Honky, who are all too often ousted from developing urban areas that they have culturally enriched. ‘Clown Crash’ by Dirty Honky subverts the conventional realms of clowning to comment on the social constructs that both celebrate the masses and alienate the individual.

Dirty Honky’s performance shed started its life in a Salford backyard. After receiving backing from Contact Theatre as part of The Manchester International Festival, Milne transported the shed to Selfridges department store in Manchester, inviting shoppers to write their filthiest confessions on the inside walls of his shed. Honky was then invited by the Manchester Doodlebug collective to exhibit his dirty secrets shed at the Big Chill festival in the Malvern Hills. Most recently the shed featured in the ‘Future Can Wait’ exhibition during London Art Week.

Horst - Review

A review of Nikola Irmer's 'Horst'; Apartment's current show can be found on 'INTERFACE' a-n's platform for critical writing, an excerpt from which is below:

"Horst is a sixty year old 18 stone drag queen whose idiosyncratic response to Nikola Irmer’s habit of advertising for models in the personal column of the local paper initiated a three year collaboration. The resulting paintings depict Horst’s creation of a spectacular drag persona; the domestic context of Apartment facilitating an intriguing intimacy to this encounter with a series of works that delves into a usually elusive transformative process.

The cosiness of an art show taking place in the domestic setting of Apartment is of course somewhat disingenuous and deceptive; the gallery and its location always complicit in its playful ambiguity and sense of the absurd, and in this show in particular the traditional 'frame' of paint and canvas adds to the queerness and confusion often accompanying a visit to the tower block. A 60’s modernist design, it has the feel of a clean white cube but is also a fully functioning home, and one too cramped, too snug to be either an impersonal temple to art or the festival circuit’s fashionably industrial temporary ‘unlikely space’. Its proportions are simply too tight for the customary ‘long view’, a convention imposed to appreciate displayed work in the prescribed tradition with which we are encouraged to look at Art; from afar and with due reverence. At Apartment art is almost uncomfortably close; we cannot escape it or the cosy ephemera that disturbs and confronts our contemplation." Read on:

Nikola Irmer ~ Horst

Nikola Irmer ~ Horst

Preview

Thursday January 17^th 2008 - 6pm – 8pm

Exihibtion Jan 18th - Feb 29th

Veiw by Appointment

Apartment is delighted to announce Horst the first UK solo exhibition of German artist Nikola Irmer. Irmer studied Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art and at Hunter College, New York. She now lives in and works in Berlin. Her practice investigates the complexities and revelations of the artist/model relationship; Irmer seeks out her models through the distribution of flyers, and the placement of advertisements in the personal columns of local newspapers. What begins as a simple exchange has the potential to develop into a collaborative relationship which creates sensitive and revealing portraits of unexpected subjects.

Horst is a sixty year old, 18 stone, drag queen whose unusual response to one of Nikola’s advertisements initiated a three year collaboration. A series of these paintings will be shown at Apartment. The paintings depict Horst’s creation of a spectacular drag persona; the domestic context of Apartment facilitates an interesting intimacy to the experience of the work that delves into this private transformative process.

Nikola Irmer

Above one of Nikola Irmer's paintings in Apartment along with a selection of five paintings in the bedroom. The show consists of a series of paintings that depict Horst's transformation into a drag persona. Also included in the show is a collage that reveals a creative dialogue between artist and model; Horst uses sketches and images of the work created during their sessions to create new imagery that celebrates the relationship that the artist and model have developed over a the years. Postcards and collages sent to Irmer by Horst extend the creative process beyond the studio, Irmer's willingness to include these images in this exhibition reveal the value she places on her subjects as model and in this case as collaborator.

Apartment opening....

Here are some images from the opening on Thursday, (above Paul Harfleet, Hilary Jack and Nikola Irmer, below some other visitors). In other news Apartment has just started a group on Facebook; do join for more images and to offer opinion and comment on our program and to easily hear of updates:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6641529143

Apartment currently features in Art World Magazine; in an interesting article by Kate Feld that explores alternative gallery spaces, along with Apartment, Porch Gallery, Phlight, Bog Standard Gallery, Caravan Gallery and 312 feature.

ARCHIVE

Top Right is a full list of the previous shows and events that Apartment has hosted, with full colour images of every work we have shown. Please also explore the list of artists that have shown.

Thanks for visiting!