[curatorial.net] NEW EXHIBITION BY ANDY HOLDEN

Sat Jun 6 12:21:40 BST 2009

PRESS RELEASE

ANDY HOLDEN

Desert Project

(or Hard On in the Desert)

4 July – 8 August 2009

Preview Friday 3 July, 6~8pm

PISTACHIO FRAGMENT (THE TOSSED PISTACHIO)

“It was thanksgiving day, the desert roads were empty.  My brother who  
had been with me for the previous four weeks had flown home that  
morning, so I was now left to drive alone.  I had tuned into a radio  
station specializing in alternative stand up comedy.  There was this  
host, Pete Correale, a young, relatively unknown comedian, who had  
been standing in for his friend on the afternoon drive-time show.   
Somehow he had persuaded the legendary American voice-over man and Top  
40 Billboard announcer, Casey Kasem, to be a guest on the radio show.   
The program was not running too well. Casey, who is in his mid 70’s,  
seemed irritated, and kept making it clear that he did not need to  
come on the show, and that he deserved more respect.  It was hard to  
know if he was serious, although he did threaten to leave the studio  
on several occasions.

Then this curious shift happened. Casey Kasem asked our host if he  
hoped to make it as a successful comedian, to earn a lot of money.   
Correale replied, “I don’t aspire to be a millionaire or anything, I  
just want to have enough money so that if I’m ever eating a bag of  
pistachio nuts, and I come across a nut that’s not opened up, I can  
just toss it aside.”  From then on the mood lifted, Casey relaxed,  
settled into the show.  He was asked if he had ever sung before in  
public and he said he hadn’t.  They sang Bridge Over Troubled Water  
together.  I headed on north towards Nevada.”

                                                                                                                                                 Andy 
  Holden, May 2009

Andy Holden’s work incorporates monumental outdoor structures, plaster  
and bronze sculpture, film, painting, recorded music and musical  
performances.  Often showing these diverse media together, his work  
builds a fragmented yet richly textured collision of ideas, references  
and forms.

For his first exhibition at WORKS|PROJECTS Andy Holden presents a  
collection of works that form a mental journey of influence and a type  
of travel writing - an attempt to negotiate a response to a road-trip  
through California inspired by advice from the late Jason Rhoades to  
spend some time in the desert to reassess his idea of scale.

In a display simultaneously reminiscent of small town American museums  
and the eccentric charm of the British amateur handyman, the artist  
presents a collection of souvenirs which attempt to question how  
narrative attaches itself to objects - bronze casts of plastic soft  
drinks lids and straws, enlarged ceramic pistachio nuts, paintings of  
casino carpets, gramophone records melted into bowls and decorated  
with abstract patterns and repeated images of Charlie Brown, plaster  
slices that look like the candy coloured strata of Arizona rock faces.  
They are a procession of propositions, fragments and clauses that  
attempt to negotiate influence (after beat poetry, after Hunter S.  
Thompson, after Ed Ruscha, after Roadrunner, after Tom Waits, after  
Charles M. Schulz, after Claus Oldenburg…). This ensemble of  
fragments, are works both conceived after the landscape and works that  
attempt to pre-empt the landscape. And then there is still the  
question of scale….

About Andy Holden

Andy Holden was born in Bedford, UK, in 1982 and graduated from BA  
Fine Art at Goldsmith’s College in 2005.  He now lives and works in  
Bedfordshire.Recently selected for Frieze Magazine’s Emerging Artists  
of 2008, Holden has been selected for a solo exhibition as part of the  
Art Now series at Tate Britain in January 2010.

Andy has exhibited widely both internationally and throughout the UK.  
Recent solo exhibitions include A Series of Small Encounters, Hidde  
Van Seggelen, London (2009), The World is Round and Mr Wrigley Makes  
Chewing Gum, Kuntsfort Vijfhuizen, NL (2008), You Go On Without Me,  
Hex Projects, London (2008), Here, Gallery 54, Toronto, Canada (2007)  
and So Long See You Tomorrow, Hidde Van Seggelen, London (2006).  
Significant group exhibitions include Performed, The Wysing Arts  
Center, Cambridge, UK (2009), Experimenta Folklore, Frankfurter  
Kunstverein, Germany (2008) and Colour Now, Gallerie Van Gelder,  
Amsterdam and The Thing-In-Itself, Peles Gallery, curated by Mark  
Leckey (2006).

Notes to editors

Exhibition open 12-6pm, Friday – Saturday

4 July ~ 8 August 2009

or by appointment. Admission free.

Special Events:

Andy Holden will perform with his band The Grubby Mitts at the Cube  
Microplex on Saturday July 4th from 8pm. Admission £5 adv / £6 door.  
See www.cubecinema.com to book.

Andy Holden will talk about his work on Thursday 23rd July, 6pm. This  
event is staged in collaboration with Spike Island Associates.

About WORKS|PROJECTS

WORKS|PROJECTS is the new gallery established by the independent  
curator Simon Morrissey. WORKS|PROJECTS will work with a small stable  
of distinctive British artists and is located on Sydney Row in  
Bristol’s harbour side, which has steadily developed into the centre  
for visual arts in the city. The gallery is located on the same block  
as both Spike Island and Picture This and is only 10 minutes walk from  
Arnolfini.

WORKS|PROJECTS receives support from Spike Island and the University  
of the West of England.

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WORKS|PROJECTS

Gallery: Sydney Row, Bristol, BS1 6UU

Postal address: c/o Spike Island, 133 Cumberland Rd, Bristol, BS1 6UX

07714480849

info at worksprojects.co.uk
www.worksprojects.co.uk

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