Guest Projects presents Reformation
Kashif Nadim Chaudry Michael Forbes Barbara Walker
03 May – 21 May 2018, Open: 12noon - 6.30pm
Private View 03 May 2018, 6 pm – 9 pm
Reformation presents the work of Kashif Nadim Chaudry, Michael Forbes and Barbara Walker who unearth hidden histories. Their work proposes alternative narratives that expose and undermine cultural assumptions. In an exhibition that includes sculpture, installation and large scale drawing, Reformation explores racial, sexual and personal identities within historic economic and cultural currents that still shape our world today.
The work of Michael Forbes and Barbara Walker was shown at last year’s Venice Biennale as part of the Diaspora Pavilion, an initiative of the International Curators Forum. Khasif Nadim Chaudry has recently completed a major new commission, The Three Graces, for Turner Contemporary, where he spent a year in residence.
All three artists share an interest in remodeling and remaking, using techniques that range from pencil drawing directly onto gallery walls, to the use of textiles and found objects that range from skulls to fake designer handbags.
Kashif Nadim Chaudry was trained at Goldsmiths. He uses elaborate, textiles based techniques to create monumental installations from fabric and found objects. His work is concerned with power, the sacred and the ceremonial; he situates his sexuality as a gay man within different religious and political contexts. For Reformation he brings together medieval heraldry and Islamic decoration, creating a louche cast of characters in fetishistic finery to question ritual, custom, and belief.
Michael Forbes presents a series of sculptural tableau informed by the entwined political and social histories of Africa, the Caribbean, America and Europe. Bleeding at the edges and erupting from their formal plinths, tribal masks jostle with historical porcelain figurines and disembowelled electronics. Forbes is concerned with migration - of objects, and of the people who have become refugees. His work alludes to the conspicuous consumption of the new economic empires, as well as the arbitrary cultural acquisitiveness that created historic museum collections. Forbes’ work invites a dialogue on both the post-colonial black presence in Europe and new developing Diasporas.
The visceral drawings of Barbara Walker bring to life the forgotten histories of black service men and women in the British Armed Forces. Monumental drawings, often large scale and rendered directly onto gallery walls, powerfully document the erasure and cultural negation of black combatants. In other works these figures are embossed on paper, their ghostly pale shadows a vivid contrast with their meticulously illustrated cohorts, resulting in an optical tussle between absence and presence. Graphite and blind embossing techniques draw attention to the fluidity of history, the way it is made, erased and redrawn, and how its figures are repositioned over time. Unearthing these invisible but true stories, of lives given and indelibly altered in the name of Empire, is a particularly poignant endeavour during the last centenary year of the Great War. Walker’s work is an affecting reminder of the social, political, cultural and individual histories that have been expunged from our collective remembrance.
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Kashif Nadim Chaudry - www.kashifnadimchaudry.com
Exhibitions (selected)
2018 - Beloved, Ort Gallery Birmingham, UK
2017 - SEHRA, The Light Box Gallery, Leicester, UK
2016 - The Three Graces, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
2014 - Swags and Tails, Asian Triennial, Manchester Craft and Design Centre, UK
2014 - Hareem, Federation House, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK
2012 - Confessions of a Magpie, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
2012 - MEMES, Djanogoly Gallery, Nottingham, UK
Awards
2005 - Recipient of the Elke Lacey Award for Excellence in Textiles, UK
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Michael Forbes – www.michaelforbes.org.uk
Exhibitions (selected)
2018 - Diaspora Pavilion (title tbc) - Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, UK
2017 - Venice - Diaspora Platform - International Curators Forum, at Palazzo Santa Marina, Italy
2016 - Nottingham Castle Open - Winner of the Nottingham Castle purchase prize, Nottingham, UK
2016 - Untitled, Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire, UK
Residency / Mentoring / Awards / Collections
2017 - Winner of Black Achievers Award for Arts, Media and Culture, UK
2016 - 2018 The International Curators Forum (ICF), in partnership with University of the Arts London, (UAL) Mentor: Director of International Curators Forum, David A Bailey
2016 - Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK – Purchase prize
2011 - International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, USA - One-year residency.
Private Collections
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Barbara Walker - www.barbarawalker.co.uk
Exhibitions (selected)
2018 - A Slice Through The World: Contemporary Artist's Drawings. Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK
2018 - Vanishing Point, Jerwood Gallery, Hasting, UK
2017 - Venice - Diaspora Pavilion - International Curators Forum, at Palazzo Santa Marina, Italy
2017 - Jerwood Drawing Prize, UK
2016 - Shock and Awe, MAC Birmingham, UK
2015 - Sub Urban: New Drawings, University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, UK
Collections / Awards
2017 – Recipient of the Drawing Room Bursary Award, UK
2017 – Recipient of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award, Jerwood Drawing, UK
Wolverhampton Art Gallery Collection, Wolverhampton, UK
Arts Council England Collection, UK
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Collection, Birmingham, UK
Usher Gallery Collection, Lincoln, UK
Herbert Museum and Art Gallery Collection, Coventry, UK
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Guest Projects is an initiative conceived by artist Yinka Shonibare MBE which offers the opportunity to artistic practitioners of any artistic discipline to have access to a free project space for one month. Guest Projects provides an alternative universe and playground for artists. It is a laboratory of ideas and a testing ground for new thoughts and actions. www.guestprojects.com
Michael Forbes, The Masquerade, 2018
Barbara Walker, Buchenwald, 2016
Nadim Chaurdy, The Three Graces, 2016 (Installation at Turner Contemporary 2016)