AFTERIMAGE
Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry
9 April - 26 June 2011
Preview: Saturday 9 April, 2pm
aspex is
delighted to welcome back Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry, the winners of
EMERGENCY4, our biennial open submission competition, with
an exhibition of newly commissioned work.
AFTERIMAGE is an
investigation into the history of viewership, and what the implications might be
of viewing the after image of history in our present surroundings. As a
framework for this exploration, Kihlberg & Henry have tracked down the many
cinemas in operation on Portsea Island between the turn of the 20th century
andtheir post-war decline, searching not for the images projected into the
frames of the cinema’s screens, but for the physical locations that housed
the golden age of cinema-going.
What is found at the sites of Portsea Island’s
thirty plus cinemas is a plethora of contemporary life; shopping, eating,
accommodation, derelict inner city areas, widened roads; many of the things with
which history’s progression has replaced the cinema, both as a physical
space and a space of culture. But within these images is a ghost of a history,
which precedes the memory of the majority and is gradually reformulating itself
into pure historical narrative.
Through video and installation Kihlberg & Henry
re-frame history as a two-dimensional image in the gallery, offering a new
condition of viewership where parallel embodiments of both time and place
collide. The exhibition marks a cultural shift away from the social experience
of cinema towards a private home-viewing culture. It takes as its starting
po
int the two-dimensional image of the screen while acknowledging further
dimensions, which exist beyond the illusions projected upon it.
Kihlberg & Henry will be exhibiting new work
in their solo show Apeirophobia,
16 April – 12 June
2011, Artsway, Hampshire. www.artsway.org.uk
EVENT
INFORMATION
In
Conversation: Friday 24 June, 6pm
Join Kihlberg & Henry as
they discuss the exhibition and explore ideas surrounding their work with artist
Rod Dickinson.
aspex is open 11am – 5pm daily,
admission is FREE.
Editors’ Notes
AFTERIMAGE continues aspex’s intriguing and
lively exhibitions and forms part of its 30th Anniversary programme. Founded in
1981, aspex, Portsmouth’s leading contemporary art gallery moved into new
premises in the Vulcan Building on the waterfront at Gunwharf Quays in December
2006. The transformation of this disused naval storehouse into a bright and
inviting arts space, combines the best of the old and the new, and won a Royal
Institute of British Architects award in 2007.
To arrange interviews,
press trips, more press information and visuals, please contact Clive Caswell,
Exhibitions & Gallery Manager on 023 9277 8080 or clive@aspex.org.uk
aspex, The Vulcan Building, Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth, PO1
3BF
t: 023 9277 8080, e: info@aspex.org.uk, www.aspex.org.uk
