ROSE FINN-KELCEY AT
KATE MACGARRY

Curated by Andrée Cooke, Artistic Executor for the Estate of Rose Finn-Kelcey and artist and curator Simon Moretti.

14th February - 04th April 2020

Andrée Cooke and Kate MacGarry are delighted to present a solo exhibition of works by Rose Finn-Kelcey (1945-2014). The exhibition focuses on key pieces from the 70’s to the 90’s, exploring a breadth of work central to Finn-Kelcey’s practice. She first came to prominence in the early 1970s as an artist central to the emerging communities of performance and Feminist art in the UK. The nature of Finn-Kelcey’s work is richly diverse, both in form and subject matter, however it is consistently conceptual and “characterised by a dry wit that belies the formidable intelligence and deep humanity that drove her practice [1]”.She deftly offers humour as a point of access into her work, allowing a wide and varied audience to consider topics as varied as life, death and spirituality communicated with great depth and profundity.

The exhibition includes ‘flagworks’, Here is a Gale Warning (1971) and Power for the People (1972) and performance pieces, One for Sorrow Two for Joy (1976) and Mind the Gap (1980).

[1] Modern Art Oxford, public information leaflet and press release to accompany Rose Finn-Kelcey: Life, Belief and Beyond, July 15 – October 15, 2017.

Further information at Kate MacGarry
27 Old Nichol Street, London E2 7HR

ROSE FINN-KELCEY: BUREAU DE CHANGE ON SHOW AT TATE BRITAIN TO COINCIDE WITH THE EY EXHIBITION, VAN GOGH AND BRITAIN.

27 March to 11 August 2019

This major exhibition brings together 45 works by Vincent van Gogh to reveal how he was inspired by Britain and how he inspired British artists. Van Gogh and Britain presents the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings in the UK for nearly a decade. Some of his most famous works will be brought together from around the world – including the very rarely lent Sunflowers from London’s National Gallery. The exhibition also looks at the British artists who were inspired by Van Gogh, including Francis Bacon, David Bomberg, and the young Camden Town painters.

We are delighted that Rose Finn-Kelcey’s Bureau de Change will be on show to coincide with Van Gogh’s exhibition.

Bureau de Change, 1987, consists of a large-scale rendering (2290 x 1520 mms) of one of Vincent van Gogh’s (1853–1890) iconic Sunflowers paintings (see, for example, Sunflowers 1888, National Gallery, London), made using £1,000 worth of British coinage laid out flat on a fragmented section of wooden flooring. The image of the coin ‘painting’ is lit using a theatrical lighting rig. To one side sits a uniformed guard and a video monitor suspended from the ceiling displays an image of the coin ‘painting’ fed to it by a CCTV camera directed at the work. The installation is completed by a viewing platform from which the piece can be appraised.

Finn-Kelcey’s initial motivation for making the work was the sale at auction in 1987 of one of van Gogh’s Sunflowers to the Yasuda Insurance Company of Japan, for the then record price for any work of art, of £24.5 million.

The gold, silver and copper coins that Finn-Kelcey used are close in tone to the tones of the original painting. She explained at the time: ‘Some of the coins are quite dirty to reflect that the money has been in circulation and passed through people’s hands. Once the piece is finished the money has to be bagged up, taken to the bank and goes back into people’s pockets.’

Read more about Bureau de Change on the Tate’s website.

EY Exhibition Van Gogh and Britain.

MARCUS TOMLINSON: MADONNA, SKETCH LONDON

Curated by Andrée Cooke
20th March – 10th May 2019 

sketch presents an exhibition of fashion and landscape photographs, films and wallpaper designs by film and image-maker Marcus Tomlinson.

London-based Tomlinson presents a series of photographic and film works spanning thirty years of his career. Large-scale fashion and landscape photographs and short films are set against a backdrop of wallpaper designed by the artist.

‘Madonna’ is an installation celebrating the essence of the idealized woman through the dual lens of fashion imagery and imagery of ‘mother nature’, Tomlinson’s personal passion.

Tomlinson has created visionary photographs and films that uniquely combine art and fashion sensibilities. His intensely crafted, highly stylized, studio-based imagery has won him international acclaim with showcases in prestigiousfashion and lifestyle magazines, as well as in galleries and museums internationally.

sketch, 9 Conduit St, W1S 2XG

DENIS MASI

Denis Masi 1968-1972, curated by Andrée Cookeand Dan Edwards, is a segment of works which celebrates some of Masi’s most significant performance and photographic pieces from that period. 

In 1968 Denis Masi started presenting himself in his pieces as the subject, using his body as material for creating art works, during which time Body Art became an international trend. Throughout Masi’s career he has been drawn to the subject of performance and the theatrical, whether in the form of photographic ‘private’ and public performance or extending this into large-scale installations. ‘Performance is not (and never was) a medium, not something that an artwork can be, but rather a set of questions and concerns about how art relates to people and the wider social world’, (Jonah Westerman, 2016, tate.org.uk/performance- art). Indeed, Masi’s works question these roles. 

His 1970s performances, or ‘body-works’ were primarily to camera, in which he explored psychological and physical ways of being, both alone and in relation to another person. His 1970s performance pieces, underpin recurrent ideas throughout Masi’s later career, which continues to demonstrate an interest in the shared human experience of questioning and resisting. 

Masi’s artwork and reputation from the 1960s to the 1980s became affiliated with the artistic movements in Europe of that time, and with the genres of Performance and Installation Art. As testament to his significance Masi’s pieces were exhibited in solo presentations in England at Camden Arts Centre (1969), The Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (1976), ICA (1979 and 1984), and The Serpentine Gallery (1988). 

The exhibition is at Darbyshire London, N1 from 26th April to 27th July 2017, viewing by appointment only. 

LIFE, BELIEF AND BEYOND AT MODERN ART OXFORD 15 JULY - 15 OCTOBER

The Estate of Rose Finn-Kelcey proudly announces the first posthumous exhibition of works by the highly acclaimed and influential artist Rose Finn-Kelcey (1945–2014). Life, Belief and Beyond at Modern Art Oxford.

Life, Belief and Beyond focuses on Finn-Kelcey’s explorations of power, performance, political commentary, and perceptions of the self, belief and spirituality.

The exhibition presents works from the early 1970s to 2014, including Divided Self (Speaker’s Corner), 1974; The Restless Image: a discrepancy between the seen position and the felt position, 1975; Glory, 1983; Bureau de Change, 1987; and It Pays to Pray, 1999. These examples of Finn-Kelcey’s diverse and exacting practice are presented alongside photographs, collage, performance documentation, preparatory material and sketches in progress – never before exhibited.

Finn-Kelcey’s work is conceptually powerful, profound and is characterised by a dry wit that belies the formidable intelligence and deep humanity that drove her practice. A central figure in the performance and feminist art scene in
Britain for over four decades, her work is intimately concerned with social dialogue, populism, activism, and how these tools of communication intersect with complex systems of power.

Finn-Kelcey’s far-reaching influence on conceptual art in the 1970s and 1980s extended locally to the generation of YBAs (Young British Artists) in the 1990s as she began to realise large-scale and technically complex installations. Avant-garde in her ideas both in art and politics, Finn-Kelcey’s endlessly inventive practice demonstrates the artist’s interest in creating socio-political statements with a visually arresting quality, often object-based, frequently combining her creative investigations with contemporary technologies.

Life, Belief and Beyond is a celebration of Finn-Kelcey’s work and pays tribute to her extraordinary practice and
influence.

Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP
 

REVOLT OF THE SAGE CURATED BY SIMON MORETTI AND CRAIG BURNETT 24 NOVEMBER - 21 JANUARY 2017 AT BLAIN |SOUTHERN

Revolt of the Sage is an exhibition featuring sixteen artists that takes its title from a work by Giorgio de Chirico painted in 1916.

Selected curated pieces reflect a ‘metaphysical interior’, crowded pictorial spaces overflowing with ephemeral things. Picking up on de Chirico’s vision of a ‘metaphysical interior’, Revolt of the Sage gathers a range of artists who use collage, juxtaposition, fragments, framing devices and layered imagery to explore ruptures in time and the alluring mysteries of the everyday. 

Andree Cooke is proud to announce that a selection of works by Simon Moretti, developed with her, will be on show at this exhibition. For private studio visits or exhibition tours please contact cookeandree@gmail.com

Pictured: Paloma Varga Weisz, Woman, boarded, 2015, Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London

NEW LINDER WORK AT  BRITISH ART SHOW 2015

Having introduced Linder to Dovecot Studios in 2013 the resulting collaboration  
 Diagrams of Love: Marriage of Eyes will feature in the British Art Show 2015, opening in Leeds City Arts Gallery from 9th October. 

Northern Ballet Performance, incorporating Diagrams of Love: Marriage of Eyes in Children of the Mantic Stain, Broderick Hall, Leeds City Museum, 20 November 2015

Image credit
Linder Sterling, Diagrams of Love: Marriage of Eyes (detail), 2015, rug created at Dovecot Tapestry Studio with Jonathan Cleaver, Vana Coleman and Dennis Reinmüller, image courtesy Dovecot Tapestry Studio, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, photo credit Michael Wolchover.