Apartment ~ News

Apartment is awaiting news on funding to inform visitors to our blog of forthcoming exhibitions. Berlin based artist Nikola Irmer is the next confirmed show, details will follow soon. Lamport Court where Apartment is based continues to be a centre of various cultural activity. LoneLady (above) continues to create electrifying music on the seventh floor, and has just released a vinyl; ‘Early the haste comes’ is available in all good outlets, for more information on LoneLady visit Lamport Court based independent record label Filthy Home Recordings. Lamport Court poetry magazine continues to support new writing. Paul Harfleet is about to feature his Pansy Project at the Homotopia Festival in Liverpool. Hilary Jack is currently exhibiting at CUBE in Manchester and is preparing a show for Transition Gallery in London. This is not to mention the other bands, artists, DJ’s and musicians based in this unlikely artistic hub.

Meeting Point - Axel Lapp Projects, Berlin

Apartment are currently in Berlin at Axel Lapp Projects. We are showing a selection of Apartment’s previous exhibitors at the space (Invalidenstraße 161, D-10115 Berlin); so if you happen to be in Berlin; do come to see us we will be there hosting the gallery until the show ends on June 23rd. Entitled ‘Meeting Point’ the exhibition features; Dave Gledhill, Paul Harfleet, Hilary Jack, Naomi Kashiwagi, Lisa Penny, Maeve Rendle, Cherry Tenneson, Martine Myrup, David Wilkinson and Beáta Veszely; more details below:

Twice a year Axel Lapp Projects invites and showcases the work of artist-run spaces based outside Berlin in a programme entitled INTERLUDE. For the first of this programme Axel Lapp has selected Apartment, a project and exhibition space, run from a sixth floor one bedroom council flat in central Manchester, UK, co-directed by Hilary Jack and Paul Harfleet. For INTERLUDE 1, Hilary Jack and Paul Harfleet have brought together the work of ten artists from Manchester, Budapest, London and Glasgow in a show entitled ‘Meeting Point’. The work offers an insight into the breadth of activity that Apartment has facilitated over the last three years and reflects Lapp’s own interest and commitment to this Manchester based exhibition space.

Above; visitors to the preview,

Apartment is based in a flat, and unlike many artist led spaces that operate in this way, the curators choose to present the work alongside the possessions that Paul Harfleet lives amongst. This curatorial decision enables the artwork to position itself in contrast to the objects or to hide within them, camouflaged by the everyday detritus. Each artist presented here, at Axel Lapp Projects, has exhibited at Apartment and has dealt with this reality in a variety of interesting ways.

When artwork is shown at Apartment the interior of the flat frames the work. At Axel Lapp Projects, Apartment itself is an absent participant, no longer available as a supporting framework for the presentation of the art work. Therefore the works are able to be re-seen without the context of Apartment, revealing to the curators, the complex relationships that have been formed between the artists and their practices over the three years that Apartment has existed. For the audience the various works are seen within the gallery context and with the knowledge that these relationships were forged in a domestic location; here the artists come together creating a meeting point where the work can be seen in a group show and in a totally new context.

Hilary Jack

Hilary Jack works across media focusing on the repair and re-use of discarded material found on city streets. In doing so she references the excesses of an economy based on built-in-obsolescence. Co-curator of Apartment she has exhibited internationally, most recently in Conflux 06, New York and at Transition Gallery, London. For ‘Meeting Point’ Hilary Jack uses Axel Lapp projects as studio, workplace and exhibition space to focus on themes of loss and separation. Throughout the duration of the exhibition Jack will create a new partner for a single, lost, black glove, found and photographed, on waste land at the site of the Berlin Wall on a previous research trip to Berlin.

‘Glove’ - found glove and knitting

Visitor Assistance

Visitor Assistance premiered during Apartment's contribution to SOCIAL WORK: FOUR LIVE PROJECTS at the Cornerhouse (14th January - 16th April): The project during the show has developed into an informal network of artists that are willing to assist cultural visitors from Dublin, London, Glasgow, The Hague and beyond, e-mail Apartment for more information.

Have you ever said to a friend; I know someone in the city you’re traveling to, here’s their number give them a call?

Visitor Assistance takes this occasional gesture between friends and transforms it into a global network of artists that operate as cultural city guides. So called Visitor Assistants are specially selected for their social adeptness and intimate knowledge of their native city. A visitor simply calls the number on specially distributed Visitor Assistance cards. The caller will be connected to an amiable artist who will help in any way they can.

The launch of Visitor Assistance is part of the exhibition Social Work: Four Live Projects (14 January – 16 April 2006) for Cornerhouse Projects. Business cards will be placed on the public telephone in the lobby at Cornerhouse and will be regularly replenished in order to maintain Visitor Assistance’s presence over the three month period. Badges will be worn by allocated visitor assistants; identifying the wearer as a friendly face and representative of Visitor Assistance.

“I arrived in London, I was overwhelmed by the listings, I called the number and my Visitor Assistant was so helpful. She told me where the best art preview was in town, and how to get there. When I arrived, I spotted someone wearing a visitor assistant badge and I knew I had a friend in London! She introduced me to some really interesting people; I had a great time.”

The number on the card; 07799 204455 is the number of a mobile telephone that will be passed from assistant to assistant depending on the artists availability; a recorded message will be in place when no one is available, although every effort will be made to be available as frequently as possible during the running of The British Art Show 2006.

Disclaimer

• Visitor assistance is an artwork, though the project is taken seriously by all concerned, the actual visitor assistant availability is dependant on realistic artist availability.

• Each assistant will endeavor to offer correct information as much as possible though each visitor should be made aware that this is an artwork.

• Every visitor assistant is an artist; this is their only qualification to participate with this project any expectations by visitors should take this into account.

Cyclists Dismount

Cyclists Dismount, the exhibition showcases the work of Apartment Collective; Cath Corlett, Paul Harfleet, Zac Ingham and Hilary Jack; this term refers to the artists who have researched, developed and made work specifically in reference to issues surrounding Apartment's location. Through discussion and collaboration the collective are able to act as producers, facilitating ideas from members. For Cyclists Dismount a selection of work and ongoing research is presented and also includes the work of two artists who are recent additions to the collective; Cherry Tenneson and Maeve Rendle.

Cath Corlett

'Flat' by Cath Corlett; using A4 sheets of typing paper white-tac and sellotape Cath Corlett, Paul Harfleet, Zac Ingham and Hilary Jack covered every surface of the emptied living room of 49 Lamport Court. The resulting covering was then cut and bound into a three volume document which becomes a physical record of the interior space. For 'Cyclists Dismount' video documentaion was shown along with the three bound volumes.

Above the video documentation projected on the living room wall. A special thanks to Janet Griffiths for lending us the projector.

Hilary Jack

'Sparrow House' by Hilary Jack; The alarming decline of one of Britain’s favourite birds; the house sparrow, to less than half its population in recent years has prompted the British Ornithology Trust to appoint a “Sparrow Tsar” to investigate. Alongside many modern day problems facing the birds, which prefer to live in large colonies, is the loss of nesting sites in urban areas. Hilary Jack has responded to this ornithological crisis by designing and installing a utopian, multiple occupancy bird house in a tree on the Lamport Court housing estate in the hope that they will return in large numbers to the area.

Paul Harfleet and Hilary Jack

For ‘Ascent’ Paul and Hilary have chosen a fragrance to spray whenever they use the lift. This anonymous action will contribute to the aromatic experience of using the lift, creating a fragrant signature that will slowly seep into the resident’s sensual experience of the block, extending the emerging mythology surrounding the activity of Apartment within Lamport Court.

Radio Appearance

Tune in to GMR to hear Hilary Jack and Paul Harfleet talking about 'joined' and Apartment on the Michelle Mullane show 'Around Midnight'.

8020

The following was published in Eighty Twenty Magazine in January.

There was a time when attaching a couple of tin cans to a piece of string and dangling one out of your bedroom window was a simple way to communictae with a friend. We quickly moved on to walkie talkies, mobile phones and instant messanging services that cross continents in nano seconds and its with this in mind that I find myself standing beside the Mancunian Way on a wintry afternoon to document an event that we've been planning for some time.
Its cold and my fingers can barely operate the camera. Cath holds her arm up above her head, her hand tightly clutching a thin transparent wire which leads up high into the grey Manchester sky. Passers by stare up squinting, looking for the kite. But there is nothing. They walk on puzzled.

In a flat on the seventh floor of Lockton Court 100 yards away, a coffee mug anchors the same nylon thread between the opened window and its frame. The line leads diagonally out and down six storeys, skimming the tops of puny urban trees, running neatly beside the roofs of council houses, under telephone wires, street lamps, across security fencing and down into Caths hand.

From the walkway of the sixth floor of Lamport Court, Zac reels the nylon thread in, its pulled taut and it snaps into place like a giant guitar string. Its carefully passed through ballustrades and round glass partitioning, along the corridor and through the open window of number 49. Theres a flurry of activity as pots and pans are moved out of the way just as the clock strikes three. The thread is passed through the window, and finally is tied round the stainless steel kitchen tap and the connection is made.

Theres a sigh of relief and we all go outside to see what we've done. The coffee mug and the tap, the two flats, the two tower blocks are joined, by an alomost but not quite invisible thread, which spans the abyss. Paul takes his mobile phone and dials his freind in Lockton Court to tell her the job is done. We can hear her voice as she answers imediately. An invisible connection that has taken just a couple of seconds.

Hilary Jack

Apartment Collective

Apartment Collective has been formed as a result of the close working relationship developed over the past year between Cath Corlett, Zac Ingham, Paul Harfleet and Hilary Jack. 'Joined' marked the inception of the collaboration and the collective have other projects in mind, with a focus on our common interests; the politics of location being the most presient.

Hilary Jack

Hilary Jack installed her collection of single bone china teacups on occasional tables in the living room and served hot tea to all visitors while "Time and Tide" a video of the same teacups and tables being washed out to sea played in the same room.

The above is a still from Hilary Jack's 'Time and Tide', shown alongside the teacups placed in the living room.