Monthly Archive for March, 2005

This gallery on the 1st floor of 31 Mathew St is closing down this Saturday April 2nd. The website www.lennonart.co.uk will be upgraded to focus on online sales of their John Lennon prints and Beatles photographs and artwork by the likes of Robert Whitaker, Klaus Voormann and Astrid Kirchherr. The gallery has been there for 6 years but not many locals seem to know about it but its popular with tourists and many ‘celebrity’ fans have called in.
The manager Melissa Storey tells me they hope to still hold occasional exhibitions at local venues including their usual presence at the Adelphi during the Mathew St festival at end of August.
So do try and call in and see it before it goes, you’ll need more than pocket money to buy a print but there is a bargain desk at the back.

This is a review of Liverpool artist Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney’s recent London performance which I’m posting here in its entirety.

Review of Live Performance and Exhibition of Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney

340 Old Street Gallery, Shoreditch, London

Article written in conjunction with: Tony Knox and Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney

Photographer: Tony Knox

© Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney 2005

In Easter week a series of performances transpired at 340 Street Gallery, Shoreditch. London, by the artist Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney. This was part of the Voyeur exhibition curated by Terry Duffy and an adaptation of the artists ‘Temple Series’.

A crowd formed outside the gallery window, where the general public could observe the performance. Traffic on the main thorough fare of Old Street slowed down and some even reversed to view the strange and surreal exposé.

The performance was combined with an exhibition of photographs from the previous performance in the Liverpool Biennial 2004, including projected footage of the artist in film titled, ‘Anointed by Medici, Paris’.

The performance opened with the artist entering the space of 340 Old Street Gallery dressed in a medical coat and a crown of thorns. The gallery has large windows on either side and passers-by can observe.

The artist held over her face a ream of paper showing a printed reproduced image of her features. Each sheet is cascaded and as the next layer removed the face becomes one of her eyes and her pubic and genitals. When the last sheet remains she drops this to the floor. She takes from her pocket a razor and holds this between her teeth. She unbuttons the medical coat to reveal further printed reproductions of her breasts and genitals across the related body parts. These are then torn from her body and disrobes to place the medical coat on the floor in front of her.

She removes the razor from her teeth and in front of the engrossed audience of the general public, she then ritualistically shaves the pubic hair from her genitals. After all the hair has been shaved completely from the pubis and labia, she puts on a pair of ballet shoes and laces these up her lower legs. She stands on full block point and raises her arms extended to form the crucifixion to become she-Christ. She stands in this position for some time. Her pose compositional, statuesque, almost art and artefact. She lowers herself down and removes the ballet shoes. Dresses in the medical coat and departs the scene. The audience outside are absorbed, titillated and enthralled by the actions they witness.

Here the viewer becomes the voyeur, obliged to observe the act of something within standards of normality and usually hidden. The sentience of the flesh and self divination in terms of body modification has set the individual as the deity, no longer depending on any spiritual mysticism, but to render it to the self. The process of re-portraying our bodies in post-modern society is one where the ritual is imbued by the underlining absolute exposé. The explicit body in contemporary society has been attributed a sentience in the flesh of divine reverence.

Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney has done other performances and live interventions in places such as the Louvre (Paris), the MOMA (New York), the Tate Modern (London) and other large institutions to address the canon and politics of the body and flesh. She has had her art exhibited and performed in other international festivals and biennials. A founding member of the Whores of Babylon Arts Collective and TransVoyeur (an Anglo American Cultural Exchange Programme), she has formed creative relationships regional and global with the objective of research and development in the contemporary arts and culture.

Her next upcoming show is in Manchester and soon to be followed by another London. For further information, please contact the artist at gaynorsweeney@hotmail.com.

Liverpool Academy of Arts has a couple of open exhibitions coming up:
‘Sea Liverpool 2005′ Art related to Liverpool and its involvement with the sea. June 14th – July 15th. Works to be handed in June 1st -3rd.
‘Come Together 2005′ The famous annual Beatles art exhibition, August 15th – September 2nd. Works to be handed in August 4th/5th.
Full details from the Academy, 36 Seel St.