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.

David Wilkinson

David Wilkinson’s work is based in the iconography of the sausage as a rediscovered archetype. Also to an extent a form of autobiography, as he is involved in producing and supplying sausages in Budapest, Hungary. Another attempt to link art with life. For ‘Meeting Point’ David presents ‘The Birth of Consciousness’ a sculptural work depicting two plaster sausages in a nest of dust made from the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag at Gagosian Gallery, London . David is based in London and Budapest and has exhibited internationally, recently at Ormeau Baths, Belfast, Northern Ireland and in solo show at The Dorottya Galleria Budapest.

‘The Birth of Consciousness’ - sculpture and found objects

David Wilkinson and Beáta Veszely - HÁ

Above: ' Straight from the Heart' by BeataVeszely
Beáta Veszely and David Wilkinson

view by appointment until 2^nd April

Apartment is delighted to present HÁ; an exhibition of work of Hungarian based artists Beáta Veszely and David Wilkinson. Their trip to the U.K has been facilitated by Apartment in conjunction with Castlefield Gallery as part of their Project Space Mentoring Scheme. Their practice is especially relevant to our activities at Apartment as both artists have a history of curatorial projects based in their own homes and the homes of other artists, starting with “Wish You Were Here” in 1994 in Leeds (supported by the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust with Erlend Williamson) and “Wish You Were Here Too” in 1996 in Glasgow, with Charles Esche.

Beáta Veszely and David Wilkinson have collaborated since 1995 as curators, teachers and artists; they have exhibited extensively in the U.K and abroad, while in Hungary they co-direct TIPP, Tihany International Postgraduate Programme a course of study for international artists.’

David Wilkinson

David Wilkinson was born in the U.K and is now based in Budapest his current practice explores the notion of otherness using video, installation and sculptural intervention. ‘Simple Indifference is not enough; eventually curiosity will break your silence. We need them to renew ourselves, but once renewed our interest wanes, we see them as not us. The place where we encounter them and the place where we are most other is the foreign land. I live in a foreign land, for HA I have made a film and a sculpture to try to convey my home to you the viewer; some history, some people and some places that are familiar to me.’

David Wilkinson

'Artuad Waving' above (operated by Paul Harfleet) and right. David Wilkinson constructed a life size mannequin resembling the influencial surrealist figure Antonin Artuad. This was then hung in the bedroom and was visible through a specially drilled hole in the bedroom door. A pully system activated from the living room; animated the 'puppet' creating a disturbing presence of ' other' in the bedroom of Apartment. David also showed 'Playing it for Laughs' a video made in Hungary that referenced the experience of 'other' as a foriegn resident abroad.