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.