Artist Performances: Pick-Me-Ups & Pick-Ups

I’D LIKE TO DRINK YOU UP, I saw you through my glass/ and then it was empty/ and then you were gone
- David Robilliard, 1987  

This event invites a series of artists to contribute performative works in an evening over wine at the ICA Bar.  

Live performances by Sophie Jung, Jenny Moore, Paul Sammut and contributions from Sam Ashby, Karl Holmqvist and Steve Reinke  

Somewhere between anecdote and affect, the page of the diary (writing-as-wish fulfilment) and that of the Post-it note (writing as reminder), lies a bottle of wine, or someone wining, wanting to wind down. Corrosive and sexy, the work of David Robilliard demonstrates a flirtatious yet self-evasive tongue. As biting as he is remorseful, his language queers the space of the heteronormative one-liner, all the pithy failures from stand-up stages, Chrismas crackers, and bar counter pick-up lines, in a manner that cannot be reduced to Wilde-esque witticism.  

This event has been curated by ICA Student Forum member Abri de Swardt.

Sophie Jung (b. 1982, Luxemburg) studied at the Folkwang in Essen, the ZHdK in Zürich, the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and is currently doing an MFA at Goldsmiths, London.  Recent shows include Learning about Heraldry at Ceri Hand Gallery and Three Chords and the Truth at Centre d’Art Dominique Lang. Her work is currently on show at MUDAM, Luxemburg and in an installation for Haus für Elektronische Künste, Basel. She is working on forthcoming shows at Medienwerkstatt, Wien; Belle Air, Essen; and S.A.L.T.S. Basel as well as State of Concept, Athens. In 2013 she received the Edward Steichen Award, Luxemburg. Sophie Jung lives and works in London and Basel.  

Jenny Moore is a Candian-born, London-based artist and musician who frequently leads the band Coova, plays drums for Charismatic Megafauna (making a guest appearance at the ICA), and makes events with artist collective Gandt. She is part of the upcoming Wysing Music Festival this summer and has done various things at Almanac Projects, 38b & Art Licks Weekend, Tate Modern, Whitstable Biennale, South London Gallery, and Banner Repeater in London. She is currently planning a radio programme called You Can't Win Them All, Ladies and Gentlemen to be launched in Autumn 2014.  

Paul Sammut is an artist based in London. In 2011 he took over as curator at White Cubicle Toilet Gallery and has since produced exhibitions with Prem Sahib, Richard Healy and Davide Savorani, among others. He is also one half of P.A.S.T. Projects, a collaborative curatorial project with Alexandra Terry whose recent collaborators include Jorge De la Garza, Mariana Silva and artist collective Gandt. A new series of Sammut’s drawings will be published in the June 2014 edition of The Coelacanth Journal.