THE ANTI-CLIMAX CLIMAX

JANUARY 31 – APRIL 12, 2015

OPENING: FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 7pm

Cally Spooner writes fragmentary novellas, (musical) theatre and monologues, using assemblages of contemporary theory, philosophy, pop culture, events and current affairs. Her texts become a basis for live productions, films, radio plays and sound installations, where she investigates the movement and behaviour of speech, and its physical translation on stage, in film studios, and as labour, in the workplace. Since 2013 the artist has been developing a touring live production »And You Were Wonderful, On Stage«: a peripatetic musical, delivered by a chorus line of 26 women, gossiping about fallen popular heroes, unfulfilled promises, and instances of automation parading as liveness in politics, pop music and sport. The musical explores conditions of technical dependency; the making technical of language and behaviour, through the regurgitation of personal expression with market agendas.

The point of departure for the solo exhibition, »The Anti-Climax Climax« by Cally Spooner is her current film, »Off Camera Dialogue«, co-produced with the Kunstverein Langenhagen and first presented there in autumn 2014. The film re-stages a transcript from an advertising strategy, in which an employee’s personally disclosed stories and aspirations are extracted, repackaged to better reflect the voice of their corporation, then returned to the employee to be redelivered to camera, as TV commercials. The artist is developing a spatial script for performance with expanded content at the Bielefelder Kunstverein by means of a lighting rig, and new works using text, video and sound. All of the works on display are part of an expanded cycle as an especially extravagant HD musical film, which will be brought together in autumn 2015.

Cally Spooner, born in Ascot (UK) in 1983, lives and works in London. Most recently, the Kunstverein Langenhagen, the Tate Modern in London (UK) (both 2014), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (NL), the Kunsthal Charlottenburg in Kopenhagen (DK) (both 2013) and the International Project Space in Birmingham (UK) (2012) have shown her work in solo exhibitions. Furthermore he was represented by works in group exhibitions, among others, in the Pinchuk Art Center for the Future Generation Art Prize in Kiev (UA), in the Kestnergesellschaft, in the Kunstverein München (all 2014), in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, in the Jeu De Paume in Paris (FR), during the Performa 13 New York (all 2013) and in the Serpentine Gallery in London (GB) (2012).

Exhibition support: