Act 1/Scene 22

BEDWYR WILLIAMS
PERFORMANCE ABOUT MAKING PERFORMANCE POSTER

The Verrie David Rooms, Lupus University, Gainsborough
1st July 7pm.
£5 – £3 concessions

In this the fourth of five performances Bedwyr Williams explores the stormy world of the performance poster. The necessity to draft a poster or flyer to advertise a performance demands something of performance artists that they don’t really want to surrender – their ideas in in stationary, silent, 2d.

Using the largest USB keyboard and mouse in Europe Williams will put together a poster to advertise a fictional Performance. Vaulting from spacebar to shift, stretching his body to trigger keyboard shortcuts then squat thrusting back to double click on the mouse this is desk top publishing on a human scale. Hidden amongst the audience during the performance coached actors will scream and bark demands.

The finished poster will be printed on a printer specially made at Lupus University’s research centre the huge sheet of paper eventually dropping onto the audience.



Williams work includes performance, sculpture and painting, posters and photography. He draws on his own experiences, utilising humour to reveal both his and our own complex neurosis and idiosyncrasies. His installation, text based works and live performances explore subject matter ranging from growing up in Colwyn Bay with size 13 feet, to a mini bus crash with four other artists in residence (in which he is the only survivor).

His latest body of work furthers his investigation into individual and cultural mythology and identity. Drawing on his own personal narratives and family histories, his new prints, sculpture and performance works reflect on hope, desire, memory, loss, transformation and mortality. Incorporating fading media, such as lithography and slide projectors, Williams questions both our ambitions to achieve, to be creative, make a mark on society and what it means to contribute to the cultures we embed ourselves within. In utilising the local to explore the global, and humour to seduce the viewer, Williams exposes the folly of man and the pursuit of desire and legacy, whilst beautifully referencing the impact of capitalism and excessive consumption.

Bedwyr Williams was born in St Asaph, Wales in 1974 and lives and works in Caernarfon, Wales. Solo exhibitions include ‘My Bad’, Ikon Gallery’, Birmingham, 2012; Nimrod’, Oriel Davis Gallery, Wales, 2011; ‘The Jinx’, 1857, Oslo, 2010; ‘Nimrod’, Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool, 2009, and ‘Methodist to my Madness’, The Bakery, Annet Gelink, Amsterdam, 2009. Recent group exhibitions include ‘The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp’, G39, Cardiff, 2012; ‘SHIT SHOW’, Malgras|Naudet, Manchester’, 2012; ‘Outdoor P28,’ Arte Institute, Lisbon, Portugal, 2012; ‘Disegno, Drawing by sculptors, MOMA Machynlleth, Wales; ‘The Last of the Red Wine (The Prequel/Sequel)’, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 2011; ‘Performa Ha!’, Performa 11, Club Nutz, New York, 2011; ‘Government Art Collection – Selected by Cornelia Parker: Richard Of York Gave Battle in Vain’, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2011; ‘Ha Ha Road’, Quad Gallery, Derby, 2011; ‘Ernste Tiere: Petrit Halilaj, Judith Hopf, Bedwyr Williams’, Kunstverein Bonn, Germany, 2011; ‘SHOW’, Jerwood Space, London, 2011 and ‘The Eccentric, The Idiosyncratic and The Unpredictable’, Schirman & de Beaucé, Paris, 2010. Bedwyr has a solo exhibition at Ceri Hand Gallery, London, 2012 and will be representing Wales at the Venice Biennale 2013.

*Image courtesy Bedwyr Williams

 

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