Luke Fowler, exhibition opening
Time –
Friday
20:00
Venue – Bergen Kunsthall
Please note, this event takes place the week before the festival starts.
Luke Fowler is one of the most talked-about young British artists of recent years. His films are documentaries which at the same time express an experimental attitude to the film medium, in a continuation of the avant-garde film tradition of the 1960s and 1970s. They often also portray historical cultural figures who operate on the extreme periphery of established society. The subject is usually a type of outsider figure with radical ambitions to challenge existing society. Pilgrimage from Scattered Points (2006), perhaps Fowler’s best known film portrait, deals with the British composer and activist Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981), following the development of the composer’s ground-breaking Scratch Orchestra project through its break down to final collapse. The orchestra, which consisted of both professional musici ans and amateurs, challenged established conventions and distanced itself from the use of traditional notation and performance arenas. It was a social experiment that ended in a rupture, splitting its membership into two factions. Fowler's film sheds light on the group's struggle, during which Cardew himself became a Maoist. For him, music was a tool for studying man’s ability to cooperate, as well as a means of investigating society's capacity to tolerate the unacceptable. Fowler’s portrait films themselves have a political motivation and show, through a close reading of historical figures, how alternative ways of thinking are possible.
Luke Fowler (b. 1978) lives and works in Glasgow. He has had solo exhibitions at, among other venues, the Serpentine Gallery (London), Kunsthalle Zürich, Extra City (Antwerp) and The Modern Institute (Glasgow). He has participated in a long succession of group exhibitions and film festivals all over the world.
On Thursday March 11 at 1800 John Tilbury, pianist and author of the biography Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished (2008) will give a talk on Cornelius Cardew at Bergen Kunsthall.
On Friday March 12 at 1800 he will perform Cardew's music with bassist Michael Duch at the Bergen Pianoforretning.
The exhibition has been produced by Bergen Kunsthall in collaboration with Borealis.
Artists:
Luke Fowler