guide PENINSULA ARTS WITH PLYMOUTH UNIVERSITY exhibition film music performance talk Sep-Dec 2016 searching Welcome to Peninsula Arts’ 'Searching' season. PLYMOUTH ART WEEKENDER reactor 23-25 Sep I am delighted to welcome you to a new cultural season and a new look Peninsula Plymouth Art Weekender, an ambitious three-day event celebrating the arts, takes Arts guide. We are always looking for better ways to present our programme and over the city and celebrates Plymouth as a contemporary art destination that this year we have bought together a talented team of curators, artists and academic promotes participation in a wide range of exhibitions and exciting activities for all advisors to present a line-up of exhibitions, films, talks, performances and music ages. events that all respond to the theme of ‘Searching’. Following an open call for ideas, over 50 events feature local, national and The continual search for knowledge and understanding of the world around us is international artists. Exhibitions, talks, music, film, workshops and performances what underpins and fuels university life and so ‘Searching’ seemed a prescient way will be staged across Plymouth, taking over galleries, houses, empty spaces and to launch into the new academic year. Whether the search is for home, for identity connecting communities together across the city together. or new experiences, this season’s programme is sure to delight and stretch your The Weekender prides itself on being open to all and includes artists, school children, imagination in many ways. wrestlers, church congregations, orchestras, parades and street parties. I am also pleased to introduce a new section within the guide that provides an insight The Weekender events can be navigated through the free Art Weekender map, into the development of the artistic programme. This season includes Dr Jenny available from galleries, shops and libraries across Plymouth, as well as online at Graham, Associate Professor in Art History at Plymouth University, who has helped www.plymouthartweekender.com. us pull together a fascinating line-up of talks and films in response to the arresting Searching for Genius exhibition, featuring the work of Turner prize-winner Douglas Gordon in the Peninsula Arts Gallery. Please do visit our website where you will find more information about the ideas that inform our on-going cultural programme, including community and family activities. Dr Sarah Chapman Director of Peninsula Arts Cover image: Douglas Gordon, Self Portrait of You + Me (David Bowie), 2007. Burnt photographic print, smoke and mirror. © Studio lost but found/DACS 2016 2 Searching … 3 Photo Steve Tanner Dance JAMES WILTON DANCE LEVIATHAN It will have you on the edge of your seat and will leave you gasping for air under the sheer ferocity of movement. 21, 22, 23, 24 Sep 19:30 The House £12/£10 Multi-award winning choreographer, James Wilton, re-imagines the epic tale of the search for Moby Dick; the tale of Ahab, a ship captain who is hell bent on capturing the white whale, a beast as vast and dangerous as the sea itself, yet serene and beautiful beyond all imagining. Leviathan has been commissioned by: Barbican Theatre, Plymouth University and Ocean City Festival, Swindon Dance, The Place, Blackpool Grand, Barnsley Civic, The Guilbenkian and BBC Performing Arts Fund with support from Arts Council England. Tickets available via the Barbican Theatre only. Please visit www.barbicantheatre.co.uk or call 01752 267131. 4 Searching … 5 exhibition DOUGLAS GORDON: SEARCHING FOR GENIUS 24 Sep-19 Nov Mon-Fri 10:00-17:00, Sat 11:00-16:00 Peninsula Arts Gallery Free admission From the skill of the international footballer, to the glamour and aura of the pop star, the virtuosic talent of the composer and filmmaker, to the vision of the famed artist, Searching for Genius invites you to explore ideas about talent, virtuosity and genius. Showcasing the work of Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon, Searching for Genius brings together the acclaimed moving image installation Feature Film (1999) and a selection of works from Self Portrait of You + Me, alongside the spectacles of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) a Plymouthian and founder of the Royal Academy. A History Centre partnership project delivered by Peninsula Arts and Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage). Feature Film is part of the Artangel collection, a national initiative to bring outstanding film and video works, commissioned and produced by Artangel, to galleries and museums across the UK. The Artangel collection has been developed in partnership with Tate, is generously supported by The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Foyle Foundation and uses public funding from Arts Council England. Douglas Burnt © Studio Gordon, photographic lost but Self Portrait print, smoke found / DACS of You + Me and mirror. 2016 (David Bowie), 2007. 6 Searching … 7 Art bite Art bite DOUGLAS GORDON’S BLIND STARS REYNOLDS, HITCHCOCK AND ZIDANE 5 Oct 19 Oct 13:00-13:40 Peninsula Arts Gallery 13:00-13:40 Peninsula Arts Gallery Free admission, booking not required Free admission, booking not required Challenging the role of publicity photographs to create uncanny, sinister portraits, Douglas Gordon often raises questions about talent, virtuosity and genius in his work. Douglas Gordon’s Blind Star is an ongoing series of works in which he ‘blinds’ famous Find out more about his works inspired by ‘The Master of Suspense’, Alfred Hitchcock, Hollywood actors and actresses. Find out more about the exhibition pieces in this and one of the greatest players in the history of football, Zinedine Zidane. special art bite. Art bite Talk SEEING IS BELIEVING DOUGLAS GORDON’S 24 HOUR PSYCHO 2 Nov VIA WALTER BENJAMIN 13:00-13:40 Peninsula Arts Gallery 11 Oct Free admission, booking not required 19:00-20:00 Theatre 2 Douglas Gordon’s work takes the familiar and makes it strange – things aren’t what £6/£4.20 they seem. Explore the creative practice of Douglas Gordon with Dr Kayla Parker, 24 Hour Psycho, Douglas Gordon’s video installation in which Alfred Hitchcock’s Lecturer in Media Arts at Plymouth University. Psycho is slowed down to two frames per second for an entire day and night is discussed here. In this talk, Dr Kim Charnley, Associate Lecturer in Art History at Plymouth University, discusses the strangely contemplative provocation of Gordon’s Film piece given its brutal theme. ZIDANE: A 21st CENTURY PORTRAIT (2006) Art bite “Sublime. The greatest film about football ever made”The Observer 28 Nov A CURATOR’S INTRODUCTION 19:00 Jill Craigie Cinema 12 Oct £6/£4.20 13:00-13:40 Peninsula Arts Gallery Dir: Douglas Gordon/Phillipe Pareno Free admission, booking not required Running time: 91 mins Cert: PG Join us for a conversation with Dr Sarah Chapman, Curator and Director of Peninsula Subtitled Arts, for an overview of the exhibition and the positioning of two artists, who working some two hundred years apart, question, in very different ways, ideas concerning This highly acclaimed film consists of a full-length football game (Real Madrid vs genius. Villareal, 23 April 2005) entirely filmed from the perspective of professional footballer Zinedine Zidane. Introduction by Gordon Sparks, BBC Radio Devon presenter and Plymouth Argyle commentator. 8 Searching … 9 Music MUSIC OF MOTIONS AND PRESENCE 25 Sep 17:00 The House Free admission, booking advised Federico Visi researcher, composer, electric guitar Lara Jones saxophone Marco Frattini drummer, percussionist Using the body movements of performers, this series of compositions captures the gestures of musicians playing acoustic and electronic instruments using motion sensors. Adding a new dimension to the performance, their movements generate new sounds and affect the timbre of their instruments in real time. Talk BRITISH CULTURE AND THE COLD WAR 1947-65 4 Oct 19:00-20:00 Theatre 2 £6/£4.20 What was the impact of the Cold War years on British Culture? Expert on Britain and the Cold War period and lecturer at Plymouth University, Dr Nicholas Barnett, explores the topic of his first book:Britain's Cold War: Culture, Modernity and the Soviet Threat (I. B. Tauris, 2017). Federico Visi 10 Searching … 11 Under the Skin Film THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (1965) 17 Oct 19:00 Jill Craigie Cinema £6/£4.20 Dir: Carol Reed Running time: 138 mins Cert: U Nominated for five Oscars® Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison portray two of the Renaissance's most colourful figures in this historical drama based on Irving Stone's best-seller. When Pope Julius II (Harrison) commissions Michelangelo (Heston) to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the artist initially refuses. The project becomes a battle of wills fuelled by Film artistic and temperamental differences that form the core of this movie. Introduction by Dr Jenny Graham, Associate Professor in Art History at Plymouth University. UNDER THE SKIN (2014) The most daring, elusive and unnerving science fiction film of the decade. Quite simply a masterpiece. Talk REMEMBERING AND MEMORIALISING THE WEST 10 Oct COUNTRY CAPTIVES OF BARBARY PIRACY, C. 1600-1675 19:00 Jill Craigie Cinema 18 Oct £6/£4.20 Dir: Jonathan Glazer 19:00-20:00 Theatre 2 Running time: 106 mins Cert: 15 £6/£4.20 Scarlett Johansson plays an alien seductress preying upon lonely men in a cold Exploring the cultural history of Barbary Pirates in the 17th century, Associate Lecturer and wintery Scotland. One of the many things which set this film apart is the for the University of Exeter, Dr Jo Esra, discusses this British-Muslim contact in the delicate exploration of identity and belonging that evolves from an almost wordless West Country with a focus on memorialisation. screenplay. The film is, among other things, a meditation on alienation and the universal need for a sense of belonging.