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Studio Voltaire: Jo Spence: Work (Part II) - 12 June 2012 to 11 Aug 2012 Current Exhibition |
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Jo Spence: Work (Part I) 1 June – 15 July 2012, Monday – Friday, 10am – 5pm, Saturday and Sunday, 12 – 6pm Preview: Thursday 31 May 2012, 6 – 9pm Press view: Thursday 31 May 2012, 10am – 12pm SPACE 129—131 Mare Street, London E8 3RH www.spacestudios.org.uk Jo Spence: Work (Part II) 12 June – 11 August 2012, Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm Preview: Monday 11 June 2012, 7 – 9pm Press view: Monday 11 June 2012, 10am – 12pm Studio Voltaire 1a Nelsons Row, London SW4 7JR www.studiovoltaire.org In Summer 2012, SPACE and Studio Voltaire will present a major twovenue exhibition of the work of the celebrated British photographer Jo Spence. The presentation will be the UK’s largest exhibition to date of Jo Spence’s work since her death in 1992. Jo Spence (1934 – 1992) was a key figure on the UK photographic scene from the mid seventies and crucial in debates on photography and the critique of representation. Both as an artist and teacher Spence rigorously explored complex issues of class, power, gender, health and the body; combining personal experience, political understanding and critical theory in a practice that, despite its enormous influence, remains somewhat neglected today. The exhibition offers UK audiences an unprecedented opportunity to experience a major survey of her work across both SPACE and Studio Voltaire. The content will comprise of key photographic works alongside documentary and archive material. Chronologically split across the two sites, the exhibition will bring together rarely seen works loaned from international public collections as well as materials from the Jo Spence Memorial Archive that have not been previously exhibited. SPACE’s presentation will focus on Spence’s work from the late 1960s to the early 1980s and will explore the explicitly social and political dimensions of her early solo and collaborative work. Key here is Spence’s engagement with the mode of documentary photography, her growing awareness of the social context of art and her movement to disrupt formal artist authorship through multiple group encounters. Central to the exhibition will be two major projects: Beyond The Family Album (1978 -79) and Remodeling Photo History (with Terry Dennett, 1982), both of which will be shown in full. Studio Voltaire will present later works from the early 1980s up to the artist’s death in 1992. These works broadly deal with issues of health, therapy and self-empowerment. The exhibition will also include The Final Project (with Terry Dennett, 1991-92), a series conceived when Spence was diagnosed with leukaemia that has not been previously been exhibited. Elements of the exhibition will tour to White Columns, New York in 2013. As an integral part of the project, Studio Voltaire is launching Not Our Class . This new long-term programme of education and participatory projects will take the work of Jo Spence as a starting point for investigating the legacy and potentials of her work in relation to contemporary culture and life. Through a series of commissions, offsite projects, workshops, public events and reading groups situated both within Studio Voltaire’s neighbourhood and contemporary art discourse the programme will explore the new turn towards education and participation within contemporary art practice. The programme will include new commissions by artists Emma Hedditch, Marysia Lewandowska and Rehana Zaman, working with The Jo Spence Memorial Archive, Lambeth Women’s Project, Intoart, King’s College Hospital and Body & Soul. The exhibition is made in collaboration with Terry Dennett and the Jo Spence Memorial Archive Supported by Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. Not Our Class is supported by Bloomberg and by the National lottery through Arts Council England. BIOGRAPHY Jo Spence (London, 1934-1992) was a key figure on the English photographic scene from the mid seventies. After beginning work as a studio photographer she focused on documentary photography from the early 1970s, motivated by her political concerns. Both a socialist and feminist, she worked to represent these issues through her photographic practice. For Spence, photography offered a tool for self-empowerment and a means to address gender inequalities, the body and notions of wellbeing. In 1973, with Terry Dennett, she founded the Photography Workshop , an independent organisation devoted to education, research and publishing, which included an exhibition and resources space for photographic production. They were also co-editors of Photography/Politics One (1979). Spence w as a founder member of the Hackney Flashers (1974), a collective of broadly feminist and socialist women who produced exhibitions such as Women and Work and Who's Holding the Baby . Between 1978 and 1979, Jo Spence produced Beyond the Family Album , a series of panels that intersperse autobiographic texts with personal photographs and press clippings. Through the reconstruction of the kind of traumatic events that are usually left out of family photos – deaths, divorces, conflicts, abuses and illnesses – Spence explores new approaches to her own image and that of the roles in which she projects in society. In the early 1980’s she studied with Victor Burgin as a mature student at the Central London Polytechnic. As a part of the course, she worked collectively as Polysnappers , a group of fellow students. Shortly after graduating, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A key work, The Picture of Health (1982), recorded her treatment and growing dissatisfaction with the NHS and conventional medicines. Using dramatised staging techniques inspired by the epic drama of Bertolt Brecht and the writings of Augusto Boal (Theatre of the Oppressed), she began her phototherapy experiments with Rosy Martin in 1984 . Although there have been retrospectives of Spence’s work at MACBA, Barcelona (2005) and Camera Austria, Graz (2006), her work has been somewhat neglected within contemporary art practice, and especially with a younger generation of artists and curators. Yet the relevance and potential of her work and working methods remains as sharply radical and transformative today as they were over two decades ago. Critical dialogues between photographic practice/uses, feminism, body politics and by extension queer theory, as well as issues relating to health and the rights of patients have continued and increasing relevance to contemporary life and culture. ABOUT STUDIO VOLTAIRE Studio Voltaire is a leading independent contemporary arts organisation that exists to support artistic practices and create a space for thinking, experimentation and reflection; its main activities are the provision of affordable studios, a renowned programme of exhibitions, performances and commissions, and a pioneering education programme. Together, these strands of activity provide a special synergy and environment for the production, display and dissemination of contemporary art. Through these contingent parts, we provide multiple entrypoints for audiences through a diversity of practices and programming, fostering critical engagement with contemporary culture. We place the artist at the centre of everything we do: providing opportunities to produce work in an open and discursive environment and allowing a closer relationship between the artist, production of work and the audience. Previous solo exhibitions and commissions include Nairy Baghramian, Phyllida Barlow, Alexandra Bircken, Spartacus Chetwynd, Thea Djordjadze, Ruth Ewan, Intoart, Dawn Mellor, Shahryar Nashat, Henrik Olesen, Emily Roysdon, Hayley Tompkins, Allison Smith and Cathy Wilkes ABOUT SPACE SPACE provides support and resources to artists to make the great art of our day. We are one of the largest arts organisations in England and have been at the vanguard in promoting the role of artists in society since our inception in 1968. We provide platforms which enable creative people to experiment, develop and thrive, and for a broad public to engage with this creativity. As a result of our activities we cultivate the growth of individuals, support the arts to flourish and nurture a creative, vibrant society. |
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