Coventry Biennial 2019 Programme Announcement
James Bridle, Flag for No Nations (Still), 2016
The highly anticipated second Coventry Biennial will unfold across the city from the 4th October to the 24th November 2019 and we invite people to learn, look, make, talk, think and walk with us.
The biennial’s title this year is The Twin and it comprises a series of exhibitions, events and activities about relationships.
We are an international city; Coventry and Volgograd, Russia, were the first modern twin cities in the world and this year marks the 75th anniversary of that historic bond of friendship.
Coventry now has 26 twins around the world and is known as a city that welcomes migrants and refugees. When walking the city’s streets Punjabi, Urdu and Polish can frequently be heard alongside accents from across the West Midlands, nearby Warwickshire and Ireland. The artists and groups exhibiting in The Twin all explore themes, ideas and processes which resonate through this international city including translation, collaboration and togetherness while also exploring some of the difficulties presented by globalisation, political inequality and conflict.
The Twin is made up of a core programme alongside a series of sister projects, which are produced in close collaboration with partners. Ryan Hughes, Artistic Director of Coventry Biennial explains:
“Coventry has been an international, welcoming and activist city for decades. We are thrilled to be working with artists, our twin cities and a wide variety of partners on our core programme and sister projects to explore what it means to be together in 2019.”
Embedded in Coventry Biennial 2019 are opportunities to speak to or eat with the artists, to learn a new skill, to warm yourself by a fire, to dance through the night or to ease yourself into the day with a yoga session.
It is this spirit of care and friendship which marks this as the UK’s social biennial.
The core programme of The Twin will unfold across the city in medieval and modernist buildings as well as in artist studios, galleries and museums. We will be exhibiting new and existing artworks by individual artists, duos and groups from Coventry, across the UK and from many of our international twin cities as well as other international locations. We are delighted to be exhibiting the artists listed below and will be announcing a small number of additional practitioners over the coming weeks and months:
Isobel Adderley & Jazz Moreton, Tully Arnot, Art & Language, Jonny Bark, Aram Bartholl, Jordan Baseman, James Birkin, Simon & Tom Bloor, James Bridle, Lorsen Camps, Paul Chan & Badlands Unlimited, David Cheeseman, James Clarkson, Anna Columbine, Maud Cotter, Paul Crook, Matthew Darbyshire, Joseph DeLappe, Lisa Denyer, Jacqueline Donachie, Caitriona Dunnett, EVOL, Anne Forgan, Dylan Fox, Darryl Georgiou & Rebekah Tolley, Zuza Golinska, Noémie Goudal, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Mona Hatoum, Corey Hayman, Nicky Hirst, Clare Holdstock, Fred Hubble, Andrew Jackson, Juneau Projects, Navi Kaur, Smirna Kulenović, Liz Lake, Ollie Ma, Ioana Marinescu, Tony McClure, Lorna Mills, Anna Molska, MTAA, Alexandra Muller, Edie Jo Murray, Uriel Orlow, OUTLINE & Smirna Kulenović, Paper Rad, Bharti Parmar, Parmar & Piper, Partisan Social Club, Mathew Parkin, Matthew Picton, Duncan Poulton, Adele Mary Reed, Lis Rhodes, Rafaël Rozendaal, Ana Rutter, Richard Scott, Shirana Shahbazi, Larissa Shaw, Thomson & Craighead, Leonid Toprover, Chidera Ugada, Mhairi Vari, Nilupa Yasmin
Coventry Biennial’s sister projects include a series of new commissions, residencies, exhibitions and other activities which we are producing in close collaboration with local, national and international partners. Like our core programme, these will take place across the city in unexpected locations ranging from allotments to the city’s iconic post-war cathedral. A selection of these sister projects are briefly detailed below and further information about these projects will follow soon.
NEW ART WEST MIDLANDS 2019
New Art West Midlands, the region’s branch of the Contemporary Visual Arts Network, will exhibit 20 artists who graduated from the West Midlands’ university art schools at BA, MA or PhD level over the past 3 years. These artists will exhibit recent works throughout the biennial in partnership with International Curators Forum and The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Further information can be found here
SCULPTURE PRODUCTION AWARD 2019
Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre is awarding 6 early career artists based in the UK, but outside of London, with support to fabricate new and ambitious sculptural work. The works of Katrina Cowling, indeterminable and delicate sculptural landscapes are littered with relic-like objects; the organic and sensual abutting against the cold hard lines of post-modernism, creating precarious and atmospheric installations which speak of alienation, dislocation, ritual and place. View Katrina’s work at the Herbert Art Gallery. Read more about the awards here.
CULTIVATING FLIGHT IN BLUE SKIES
Working closely with DASH and Talking Birds, and following an open call for local D/deaf or disabled artists, we have offered a residency and commission to Jazz Moreton who will produce and exhibit a new sound artwork which explores the disabled voice, communication and perception. Further information can be found here
THE GOOD AND THE BAD
During Coventry Biennial 2019, the Mead Gallery will present two corten steel dinosaurs, each measuring more than eight metres in length and towering up to seven metres high by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman. The artworks are a part of a group of three dinosaur sculptures called The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and from October 2019 – September 2020 these will be installed on the University of Warwick campus. Further information can be found here
COVENTRY ARTSPACE LISTING COMMISSION
Coventry Artspace run a listing platform for local artists and facilitate a range of opportunities with partners for those artists. We have selected Natasha Brzezicki from their listings to make a new work exploring nature and museological display, building on themes she developed during a graduate residency which she completed at Airspace in Stoke-on-Trent. Further information can be found here
UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK IMPACT COMMISSIONS
We are working with University of Warwick to pair contemporary artists and academics to create new artworks, increasing the impact which original research has outside of the institution.
- Grace A Williams is responding to Dr Cecilia Muratori’s research on Böhme, the first German philosopher
- Stephen Cornford is responding to Dr Michael Pigott’s work on the AHRC funded Projection Project
- Bex Ilsley is responding to Dr John Michael’s research into social skills and interaction in teenagers with Möbius Syndrome
We will announce more details about this soon.
1395 DAYS WITHOUT RED
We are working with Artangel to present Šejla Kamerićs moving image artwork 1395 Days Without Red in the Chapter House at Coventry Cathedral. This artwork explores everyday life in Sarajevo, one of Coventry’s twin cities, during 4 years of siege in the 1990’s. The cathedral’s status as an international centre for peace and reconciliation makes this a poignant venue for the work.
STEPS: CRAFTING CHANGE
STEPS: Crafting Change is a new contemporary art initiative co- developed by homelessness charity Crisis and Coventry Biennial. Supporting STEPS For Change, a multi-agency drop in service addressing rough sleeping across Coventry city centre; Anne Forgan, Kirstie Lewis and service users will make and exhibit new collaboratively produced installations through a series of group workshops. We will announce more details about this soon.
MATTHIAS BAUSCH & WINNIE SEIFERT
Class Room and Coventry/Dresden Exchange will mark the 60th anniversary of Coventry’s bond of friendship with Dresden, Germany, by hosting artist in residence, Lucas Oertel. Oertel, in his new work, observes that the time we live in sees war as something of an abstract notion. The marching figures in the installation exhibit a collective pride, which for the artist is the result of the promotion of a new heroism that aims to glamorise warfare.
CARRION
We are working in partnership with Fierce Festival and Warwick Arts Centre to present Australian artist Justin Shoulder‘s innovative and critically acclaimed performance work Carrion during which the performance space becomes an archaeological site for a cybernetic demigod. Fierce Festival will announce more information soon.
THE POD RESIDENCY
Edinburgh-based artist Alix Villanueva will be undertaking a residency with The Pod during Coventry Biennial 2019. Working across their distinctive sites which include an allotment, vegan cafe and a shed built by Bob and Roberta Smith, she will continue her research into the intersection of ecological interconnectedness and folklore. The Pod is Coventry City Council’s award winning mental health brokerage and cultural activism hub and will become a key social hub during the Biennial. We will announce more details about this soon.
PAY WHAT YOU CAN POLICY
While all of the exhibitions in The Twin will be free to visit, we are working with artist Grace Ndiritu to implement a pay what you can policy across our public events programme which will include guided tours, workshops, talks, screenings, performances and parties. We will announce more details about this soon.
COVENTRY BIENNIAL 2019 IS GENEROUSLY FUNDED BY:
Arts Council England, Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 Trust, Coventry University, Coventry European City of Sport 2019, University of Warwick, Artangel
COVENTRY BIENNIAL IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY:
Arts Council Collection, Coventry Artspace, New Art West Midlands, Coventry City Council, Crisis, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and Culture Coventry, Talking Birds, DASH, The Mead Gallery and Warwick Arts Centre, The Pod, Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum and Warwick District Council, Class Room, Fierce Fesitval, Coventry/Dresden Exchange, Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre, Domobaal
COVENTRY BIENNIAL MEDIA PARTNER:
a-n The Artists Information Company
by Ryan Hughes