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ar t sway’s new f orest pavilion a collateral event of the 53 rd international art exhibition, la biennale di venezia ar t sw a y’ sn ewf or e s t p avi l i on | ar t sw a y sally o’reilly on jordan baseman francis mckee on alex frost dr jean wainwright on dinu li cherry smyth on hannah maybank dan fox on nathaniel mellors artsway’s new forest pavilion a collateral event for the 53rd international art exhibition - la biennale di venezia nathaniel mellors the time surgeon co-commissioned by artsway with thearts institute at bournemouth & biennale d’art contemporain de lyon in 2007.dinu li’s familly village co-commissioned by artsway with the arts instituteat bournemouth, with support from halcrow limited in 2008/9. jordan baseman’s nasty piece of stuff co-commissioned by artswaywith the photographers’ gallery, london in 2009.published on the occasion of the exhibition: artsway’s new forest pavilion a collateral event for the 53rd international art exhibition - la biennale di veneziapalazzo zenobio | fondamenta del soccorso | dorsoduro 2596 | venice | italy7 june - 28 june 2009published by artsway | station road | sway | hampshire | so41 6ba | englandand text + work | the arts institute at bournemouth | wallisdown | poole | dorset | bh12 5hh | england editors : peter bonnell | josepha sanna | jack lewis© artsway | the arts institute at bournemouth | the artists and the authorstext by dan fox based on a statement srcinally written for the catalogueto the biennale d’art contemporain de lyon in 2007all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted at any time or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holdersset in helvetica neueprinted by fwbisbn: 978-0-9558406-5-4 [artsway]isbn: 978-0-901196-38-5 [text + work, the arts institute at bournemouth]artsway’s new forest pavilion funded bysponsored bywith additional support from and assistance from GIMPELFILS ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion is the third exhibition presented by ArtSway in Venice, the rst being in 2005as an unofcial exhibition, and the second in 2007 as a collateral event for the 52nd International Art Exhibition -la Biennale di Venezia. It is also the second in partnershipwith the Arts Institute at Bournemouth. ArtSway is a contemporary visual art gallery based in theNew Forest close to England’s south coast, and openedits doors to the public in 1997. The following 12 yearshas seen the gallery support and commission numerousartists in making and presenting new work through itsProduction residency and commissioning programme. ArtSway’s rst presentation in Venice in 2005 featured work by eleven former artists in residence drawnfrom the Production programme, including RichardBillingham, boredomresearch, Charlie Murphy and Anna Best; the 2007 exhibition as part of the collateralevent featured work by a further six former artists inresidence including Melanie Manchot, Anne Hardy andSimon Faithfull. The 2009 exhibition presents work by ve internationally acclaimed artists who have previously been commissioned by ArtSway.The term ‘Production’ as the title of ArtSway’s residency and commissioning programme reects a strong desire by the gallery to help artists make new work, and alsoresonates in the context of the 53rd International ArtExhibition - la Biennale di Venezia and the curatorialframework set down by Biennale Director DanielBirnbaum. The very act of artistic creation, and also theprocess the artist goes through to fabricate new ‘worlds’is intrinsic to the support that ArtSway offers artists, andparticularly the artists included in ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion . ArtSway does not stipulate a rigid framework inwhich the artist must operate, but rather offers a highlysupportive, intuitive, and responsive mentoring system.This approach allows for the artist to develop a projectwith critically engaged curatorial, critical and practicalsupport and extending the commission to Venice bringsthis work to an international audience.Jordan Baseman was commissioned in 2008, inpartnership with The Photographers’ Gallery, to research the Soho area of London. The three new lms he produced, including Nasty Piece of Stuff , shown aspart of ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion , are bittersweetand revealing works that embody Soho as a place of conicting extremes. Baseman eschewed the opportunity to be in residence at ArtSway, instead approaching Soho as one large workshop in which to explore, lm and interview his subjects.Nathaniel Mellors spread his time as resident artist inSway – the village where ArtSway is based – over a six month period as he lmed footage for his new work, titled The Time Surgeon (2007) in locations across the NewForest, as well as in London and Amsterdam. Whereasthe neon lights and the grime of the city pervades Baseman’s lms, Mellors cleverly utilized the unique bucolic landscape of the New Forest – with its wide openspaces, sporadic pools of water and harsh scrubland – as the backdrops to various sequences within his new work, creating an intelligently constructed, satirical and highly absurdist lm. Hannah Maybank, during her residency in 2007, utilized ArtSway’s on-site studio for resident artists as a baseto develop studies for a series of new paintings inspiredby the New Forest. Maybank explored the Forest,taking back to the studio a series of detailed sketches– in outline – of various indigenous trees that she thenused as the basis for patterns, shapes and forms in hercanvases. However, rather than fabricating a new world,Maybank instead recorded and pinpointed the transitorycycle of decay and rebirth that is inherent in the naturalworld, capturing a world being made and remade and in constant ux. introduction | peter bonnell and mark segalThe works of Alex Frost – an artist in residence at ArtSway in late 2007 – are pre-occupied with culturalsophistication and tasteful aesthetics. His exhibition at ArtSway in early 2008 featured a series of new sculpturalworks, fabricated in ArtSway’s studio that dealt with therelationship between the outside world, and the innerworld of the gallery space. Frost expertly realized thiswhen he situated a trademark mosaic work, BBQ (VegeBurger Mix) (2007) high-up in the branches of a large treeadjacent to the gallery.Dinu Li, in a similar fashion to Nathaniel Mellors, spent time in ArtSway’s studio preparing for his new lm Family Village (2009), before embarking on an intense period of research and lming in an off-site location: in this case Sichuan Province in China. Family Village is awork of intricate layering in both its actual development and the range of questioning regarding culture and displacement.The support offered by ArtSway to artists whethercommissioned and/or hosted in residence, would beimpossible without the support of our funders, co-commission partners or sponsors. ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion has been made possible by the continuingsupport of Arts Council England. A new initiative, TurningPoint South East – the regional network which aims to increase the prole of the visual arts in South East England through collaboration, innovative marketing andinternational working – is a new investor.The fruitful partnership between ArtSway and the ArtsInstitute at Bournemouth, and their highly regardedtext+work research programme, continues. As well asoffering academic support, the Institute’s student artistswill act as invigilators for ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion (thereby gaining invaluable experience). Their staff willalso work on marketing and press, and Institute researchfunding supports this catalogue.Hampshire County Council, New Forest District Council and The Leverhulme Trust have also made signicant contributions to making ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion areality, as has the continuing invaluable support of HallettIndependent. ArtSway would also like to thank the BritishCouncil for their help, and the generous assistance ofGimpel Fils, Sorcha Dallas and Matt’s Gallery in helping to bring the work of ve exceptional artists to Venice.
