Plymouth City Centre on Thursday 1 December 2011 at 5.30pm

 For a special one-off screening of a series of video trailers produced by The Core and the Young Explainers from Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and Plymouth University plus brand new video work, ‘The Handcuff King’ by Beth Emily Richards

 The trailers and Beth’s commission have been developed in connection with British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet coming to Plymouth for the first time in its 35-year history!

 No need to book

 Please join us in the Central Piazza just before 5.30pm

 The screening will last for approximately 20 minutes

 For more information about ‘The Handcuff King’ visit www.plymouthbas7.org/constellation/commissions

Saturday 3 December, 6 – late

FREE

Slaughterhouse, Royal William Yard

Registration required: www.cowscomehome.co.uk

Cows Come Home is an interactive game and closing party for British Art Show 7 in Plymouth that blurs the line between past and present, art and reality.

Please go to the Cows Come Home website and complete the online registration form to receive your invite and gain entry to the party. On your invite, you will also find a QR code and a set of instructions on how to take part in Cows Come Home the game.

WHY COWS?
Originally built in 1831, the slaughterhouse was used as an abattoir. Up to 70 cows at a time were herded, slaughtered, salted and loaded into barrels ready for sale.

The last cow was slaughtered there in 1885, after which the building remained largely out of use until its restoration for the British Art Show in September.

The temporarily refurbished slaughterhouse is one of British Art Show 7’s greatest legacies in Plymouth. It has been home to some of the most ambitious and influential contemporary British art.

On the closing weekend of the British Art Show we invite you to come and celebrate the unique, distinctive character of the Slaughterhouse, as it was and is, by taking part in Cows Come Home.

Cows Come Home is an interactive game and event that merges the old and current functions of the slaughterhouse to create a new sense of place and an extraordinary experience.

THE EVENT 

On Saturday 3rd December, the Slaughterhouse will be restored, in part, to its former function as an abattoir for the British Art Show closing party in Plymouth. A constellation of sights, sounds, and smells, will turn the space into a mutable environment that blurs the line between past and present, art and reality.

On the night guests are invited to experience Zone 1, an interactive sculpture by British Art Show artist Keith Wilson, in the newly opened tunnel to Royal William Yard from Devils point.

From here guests will be herded towards the slaughterhouse for the closing event party hosted by arthouse.

As the courtyard fills up with people, so will the number of cattle awaiting slaughter, with a constellation of sights, sounds, and smells employed to evoke an altered sense of place, somewhere between a gallery and an abattoir; past and present, art and reality.

THE GAME 

The game takes place across all the 5 British Art Show venues in Plymouth:

• Peninsula Arts Gallery, Plymouth University
• Plymouth Arts Centre
• Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
• Plymouth College of Arts Gallery
• The Slaughterhouse, Royal William Yard

From the 25th November, your aim is to gather as many cows as you can and bring them home to the Slaughterhouse for the closing party.

Just to be clear, we are not talking about real cows.

You can collect cows by scanning the unique personal QR code on your invite at British Art Show venues around the city. Once you’ve scanned your QR code, you will be taken to a page on the Cows Come Home website where you can see how many cows you have collected.

You also get an extra cow for every person that visits your page on the Cows Come Home website, so spread the word through Twitter and Facebook. The competitive among you are also advised to look out for special editions of The Herald and The Western Morning News in the lead up to the closing party. The papers will feature special QR codes to get even more cows in your herd. 

Brought to you by: PVAC (Plymouth Visual Arts Consortium), Plymouth Arts Centre, i-DAT Plymouth University, Mutant Labs, Nom de Strip, Urban Splash, Plymouth Waterfront Partnership, Western Morning News, The Herald, Excess Energy and arthouse. 

For more information on Cows Come Home, please contact: Birgitte Aga birgitte.aga@plymouth.ac.uk 01752586201 or Pamela Peter-Agbia pamela@plymouthartscentre.org 01752 202612

Tyrannosaur  18

Friday 18 November 6pm
Saturday 19 November 8pm
Sunday 20 November 5.30pm
Tuesday 22 November 8.30pm
Wednesday 23 November 6pm
Thursday 24 November 8.30pm

Dir. Paddy Considine, UK, 2011, 92 mins.
Cast. Peter Mullen, Olivia Coleman, Eddie Marsan.

Paddy Considine’s feature directorial debut is an affecting tour de force, recounting the story of two lonely and damaged people brought together by chance and circumstances. Hannah works in a charity shop and holds her Christian values dear. Joseph is an irascible drunk, lashing out at those close to him. Joseph’s rage threatens to drive him to self-destruction so Hannah attempts to help him, but her own problems soon bubble to the surface and Joseph becomes the only person she can turn to. Tyrannosaur won two World Cinema Special Jury Prizes and the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance this year.

EXTRA EVENT ADDED!

Performance by Barry Sykes: ‘A HERMIT’S MOVIE IV: IN TREES’

Friday 25th Nov, 2011 6-7pm

The Immersive Vision Theatre  [http://goo.gl/VVDUM]
Plymouth University, Plymouth, Devon, PL48AA

Admission Free, booking essential. To Book please go to:
http://barryskesatidat.eventbrite.com/

Barry Sykes stages an updated version of his ambitious performance lecture written for and about The Immersive Vision Theatre, Plymouth University’s 1967 concrete planetarium, now repurposed by i-DAT to present state-of-the-art immersive visualisations.

Constantly surprising and entertaining, this sprawling multimedia monologue invokes astronomy, astrology, error, understanding, karaoke, Van Gogh, Versailles, An elm tree, and the mechanics of comedy and cinema. Originally written and performed whilst Sykes was artist in residence at Plymouth Arts Centre in 2010/11 he has been invited to present it again as a Constellation event alongside the British Art Show 7.  

This event also offers a rare opportunity to gain access to the Immersive Vision Theatre’s 40 seat auditorium.

Supported and developed by i-DAT, Commissioned by Plymouth Arts Centre.

“Barry Sykes’s life as an artist has taken him down some offbeat, and perhaps not strictly legal, avenues. His artworks-cum-social experiments include impersonating a part-time police community support officer and replicating/ripping off work by such strange bedfellows as romantic minimalist Cerith Wyn Evans and painter Karel Appel. He’s even got his dad to realise work for him, as with a series of photos carried out according to his instructions. Trust, originality and morality rank among this trickster’s quarry, in projects that unpick what goes on behind the scenes in art.”
- Skye Sherwin, The Guardian, January 2011

Biography
Barry Sykes (1976 Lives and works in London) has a diverse practice involving sculpture, drawing, photography, video and performance. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘I Am Not him And I Do Not Have Your Pen’ Late at Tate, Tate St Ives, 2011; ‘Recreate A Nervy Pistol (An Early Retrospective), Plymouth Arts Centre, 2011; ‘The Desperate Designer’, Gallop, London, 2009; ‘I Was Born On The Day Heidegger Died (But I Don’t Know Much About His Work)’, i-cabin, London, 2008. He has been in recent group shows at Tate Modern, London; ArtSway, New Forest; Project Space 11, Plymouth; UCL, London and Goldsmith’s College, London. He has recently delivered talks and performances at Tate St Ives, Tate Modern and Spike Island, Bristol and The University of the Arts. London.

Bridgette Ashton’s work looks at places and narratives, sometimes real and at other times invented.  Her mostly small-scale objects, drawings and photographs are often flagrantly wistful, celebrating pastiche and melancholy while simultaneously identifying ambiguous networks and relationships.  At times her work retains indications of materiality and process, sometimes alluding to the obsessiveness of the hobbyist.

Over the past year as a PVAC Associate artist she has been developing ideas surrounding redundant or overlooked sites, objects and archives.  Recent works look specifically at two speleologically important (but geographically and historically different) underground caves – one in Margate, Kent and the other in Plymouth, Devon. Neither of the cave locations allow public access and both are in danger of dereliction.

The pieces presented at PAC celebrate the paradox of the replica as visitor attraction and the nostalgia that surrounds it. The scale models and accompanying commemorative guidebooks serve as proposals for unachievable spectaculars.

17 September – 4 December 2011

British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, the UK’s biggest and best exhibition of current British contemporary art, arrives in Plymouth on 17 September 2011 and remains in the city until 4 December 2011. Plymouth is one of only three locations outside London selected by the capital’s Hayward Gallery to host this prestigious touring exhibition, which is supported by Arts Council England and Plymouth City Council and delivered by the Plymouth Visual Arts Consortium (PVAC).

British Art Show 7 features works by 39 different artists. The works will be displayed throughout the city at five venues: Peninsula Arts Gallery, Plymouth University; Plymouth Arts Centre; Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery; Plymouth College of Art Gallery and the Slaughterhouse, Royal William Yard.

The artists, chosen by curators Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, have been invited to produce their finest work for the exhibition. Works on display will include painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, film and performance.

In the Days of the Comet
‘British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet’ employs the motif of the comet to explore and draw together a set of concerns that thread their way through the practices of the selected artists. The comet alludes to the measuring of time, historical recurrence and parallel worlds. Comets are also commonly understood as harbingers of change, and fittingly the exhibition will evolve as it moves from city to city, revealing new works at different venues, creating a unique exhibition in each host location.

Haroon Mirza, another BAS7 artist, was awarded the Silver Lion for most promising new artist. ‘Regaining a Degree of Control’, a new work created especially for BAS7, is based on the song ‘She’s Lost Control’, by Ian Curtis of post-punk rock band, Joy Division. Mirza’s work aims to ‘explore visual and acoustic space as one sensorial mode of perception.’

The prestigious Golden Lion.

Read more about Christian Marclay and Haroon Mirza, as well as the other BAS7 artists on the British Art Show 7 website…