Culture Now: Bold Tendencies

Join Martin Westwood, Mary Redmond, Laura Buckley and Barbara Wolff from Peles Empire as they discuss with Sven Mündner the particular challenges of making a commission for this year’s Bold Tendencies sculpture show.

Bold Tendencies is a non-profit sculpture project that has been dedicated to commissioning new monumental outdoor sculpture by international artists every summer since its foundation in 2007. Started by Hannah Barry Gallery is has since been developed into an independent charitable institution and is entirely run by volunteers. Held on the top four floors of an abandoned multi-storey car park in Peckham, south London,  Bold Tendencies is committed to supporting the vision of its artists and actively engaging with its wide audiences. The current project includes work by six international artists and will be open all summer until the end of September.

Martin Westwood is a British artist whose sculptural installations act as an investigation of social and psychological spaces, referencing commercial culture and the affect economics has on our lives. He is known for using commercial materials such as newspapers, carpet tiles and paperclips in his large-scale installation works. Westwood has recently exhibited in solo shows at The Approach in London and Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam and he was invited to participate in the Art Now Project Space at the Tate Britain in 2005. In 2011 he was awarded the Henry Moore Foundation’s New Projects Grant.

Scottish artist Mary Redmond’s sculptural work combines organic and industrial materials, which she manipulates and then places together, making it difficult for the viewer to distinguish between the found object and the raw material. Her recent solo exhibitions include Low Block Seasonal at The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2012) and The Floating World at Dundee Contemporary Arts (2010) and she has also participated in group shows such as Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since WWII at the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Museum (2012), Undone: Making and Unmaking in Contemporary Sculpture at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2010) and I Must Say That At First it Was Difficult Work, Kunsthall Oslo (2010).

Laura Buckley’s work scrutinises the interval between sensation and perception. Having studied as a painter, Buckley’s exploration of light, gesture and form soon moved into the practice of sculpture, installation and digital reproduction. Her scanned works, included in this show as panels bolted to the geometric steel scaffolds clustered towards the roof’s edge, extend her investigation into the capture and expression of articulated movement by mechanical means. Recent solo exhibitions include Fata Morgana at Cell Project Space, London (2012); Shields, a commission for the Zabludowicz Collection, Sarvisalo, Finland (2012); The Mean Reds at Supplement, London (2011). Among the group exhibitions in which she has participated are The Exact Weight of Lightness at Galeria Travesia Cuatro, Madrid (2012); S1 Salon at S1 Artspace, Sheffield (2012); S.A.G.S at The Woodmill, London.  

Since 2005, Peres Empire, a collaboration by German artists Katharina Stoever and Barbara Wolff, has been committed to fabricating reproductions of the rooms of the Romanian castle Peres, from which they take their name. This on-going project has existed in many venues and exhibitions worldwide, including Frankfurt, London and Los Angeles.

Together with Hannah Barry, Sven Mündner co-founded Bold Tendencies in 2007 and since has served as a Co-Director and Member of the Steering Committee. As a founding Director of Hannah Barry Gallery he also worked on various projects including the Peckham Pavilion (Venice Biennale, 2009), Let There be Sculpture! (New Art Centre, 2010) and Mythos Berlin (German Embassy London, October 2012).

Bold Tendencies →

This event is supported by Creative Scotland