Spin Events
Seamus Harahan and Bedwyr Williams
Video still from Holylands, 2003 by Seamus Harahan (c) Courtesy of the artist and Collective Gallery
Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
29 June 2006, 6-7.30pm
Spin keeps the spirit of the 51st Venice Biennale alive with this duo of exciting contemporary artists . . .
For Northern Ireland’s inaugural group show at the Venice Biennale, The Nature of Things (curated by Hugh Mulholland) Seamus Harahan presented the widely acclaimed film Holylands.
Bedwyr Williams was one of four artists who represented Wales as part of the exhibition, Somewhere Else, curated by Karen MacKinnon. Williams spent three months as artist-in-residence on the Venetian island of Giudecca. He produced a series of humorous, tourist-style publicity posters and the very amusing book, Basta, which details his experiences of Venetian life.
Here in Edinburgh, the Collective Gallery have invited both artists to exhibit works that draw our attention to the cultural, economic and political independence that has affected the UK since devolution in 1999.
Seamus Harahan’s Holylands portrays a series of events shot within a short distance of the artist’s home in Belfast. Filmed in real time over two years, the piece has been edited down to 32 minutes. Like a voyeur spying on other people’s lives, Harahan captures the marginalised and individuals who operate on the edges of society, while at the same time commenting on the lack of social provision that is prevalent in Northern Ireland. You may already have seen his work at Transmission Gallery in 2004. Other past exhibitions include Project Arts Centre, Dublin and group shows at The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and Lux Center, London.
Bedwyr Williams works in a range of media including performance, installation, video, drawing and photography. For the Collective, he has created an installation entitled Sir Bedivere. Written on the walls of the gallery are cocktail recipes which reveal Williams’ strong sense of surrealist humour and sharp critical mind. Williams was recently identified by Adrian Searle, art critic for The Guardian, as one of seven artists who will ‘colour the future’. At only 30, he has already had a solo show at Chapter in Cardiff as well as receiving the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2004.