Venice 2015 - Fall of the Rebel Angels

I'm delighted to be showing a new work in the group exhibition, The Fall of the Rebel Angels at the Venice Biennale, 2015.

 

The Fall Of The Rebel Angels
Venice 56 ~ 2015
In association with Bath Spa University
Vernissage: 8th May, 6pm – 10pm
Also open 6th & 7th May , 6pm – 10pm
Exhibition Runs 9th May ~ 23rd June 2015 open daily from 12pm ~ 7pm
Finissage Day 24th June 2015 open 6pm ~ 10pm

Location address:
Castello 1610/A
Riva Dei Sette Martiri Venezia 30122
for ltd edition catalogue and info contact: vanyab230@gmail.com
Kindly supported By Bath Spa University & UEL London

Ghost-dance I, Sarah Sparkes, mixed media, 2015

Curator Vanya Balog on The Fall of the Rebel Angels
The Fall Of the Rebel Angels is an artist led satellite exhibition which will open concurrently with the 56th Venice Biennale on 6th,7th & 8th of May and remain open to public daily until Wednesday 24th June 2015. This group exhibition is intended to be seen as complimentary to and continuous with my democratic curatorial practice of recent years and is one artist's view as to what an arrangement and extension of those ideas might look like in Venice, when there is no budget available, space restriction being of prevalent concern and no one else left to persuade. It includes, naturally, work by 111 emerging and established artists from many different backgrounds, at different ages and stages of their practise with different motivations in play. It also includes some unseen new works and equally some old new works. Nearly every one of them has exhibited internationally and their work on this occasion is centered in factor of risk rather than comfort. The Fall Of The Rebel Angels does not explore, follow or define any particular topic or theme, neither does it enforce any standpoint or high minded idea. It is rather one solution, for a particular time and particular place. This petit space, which will be home to a multiverse of disquieting thoughts and impressions is a ground floor of the historic Venetian palazzo, conveniently situated between Arsenale and Giardini. The plural narrative examined by all selected artists will take shape during 6 day install period, commencing on Friday 1st May. Artists will participate in the exhibition build up partly influencing and guiding the installation process towards its final moments. Exhibition will open for the first preview day on Wednesday 6th May at 6pm local time. Apart from its static aspect internally, exhibition will feature a number of performative acts in the open air ongoing over the three consecutive days, with the final preview assessment taking place on Friday 8th May. Exhibition is equally accompanied by 128 page limited edition catalogue featuring some visual exclusives collated for this special occasion. This unique publication is designed, edited and produced by graphic design students at Bath Spa University in close collaboration with Rebel Angels. I would also like to acknowledge the kind support of artists Cedric Christie @ Bath Spa, Mark Woods&Rebecca Scott, Negin Vaziri, Hedley Roberts @ UEL London, Genevieve Closuit and all my fellow exhibiting artists and young designers who have embarked courageously on this journey of unknowing.
Vanya Balogh
London 2015



~ disquiet remains

Chinese Open - Year of the sheep

Sarah Sparkes 'Dream Sheep Catcher', barbed wire and wool, 2015

I'm delighted to have contributed to the Chinese Open again.  This will be my third year of participation and I have made a new work again for this exhibition in which all art works respond to the animal represented in this year;'s new year.  2015 is the year of the sheep and I've made a large dream catcher - big enough for a sheep to jump through - from wool and barbed wire.

Other Rooms

FLUE My first work of 2015

I was excited to be asked by artist curators Patrick Morrissey and Hanz Hancock to take part in the exhibition Other Rooms at Basement Art Projects in Leeds.
After a site visit, I decided to make a new work for the hole in the chimney breast where a fireplace or stove was once located.  All the works in the show had to have their own light source and this was the only illumination in this very atmospheric space. My work FLUE used a mixed material construction to create a portal-like space suggesting a possibility to travel over space via a this infinite tunnel of pulsating lights.  The red lights twinkling could also be seen as the coals in fireplace.
Holes acting as conduits in and out of  the domestic space, such as chimneys, drains and electrics  sockets, have been  associated with magical means of travel in science fiction and children's literature; they are also a common source of anxiety for those in a delusional mental state.

Other Rooms
Basement Arts Project
Address: 28 Burton Terrace, Beeston, West Yorkshire LS11 5JH
Saturation Point is a curatorial project by London based curators Patrick Morrissey & Hanz Hancock that looks at work by reductive, geometric and systems artists working in the UK. For the ‘Other Rooms’ exhibition in January 2015 BasementArtsProject welcomes them to Leeds to stage an exhibition that will look at the re-contextualisation of the art object outside of the white cube. Artists Charley Peters, Giulia Ricci, Sarah Sparkes, Ben Woodeson, John Workman, Andy Wicks, WalkerHill and Morrissey and Hancock themselves respond to the challenges presented when exhibiting artworks beyond the confines of the generally accepted environment.
www.saturationpoint.org.uk
www.basementartsproject.com
To be invited to the Preview Night for ‘Other Rooms’ or gain directions to BasementArtsProject please e-mail Bruce Davies at basementartsproject@gmail.com
Preview
Friday 16th January 2015 7.30 – 9.30pm
Exhibition Open (at other times by appointment)
Saturday 17th January 2015 2 – 4pm
Sunday 18th January 2015 2 – 4pm
Saturday 24th January 2015 2 – 4pm
Sunday 25th January 2015 2 – 4pm

The Power of Death

My coffin is getting about again!

You are here 2006, coffin built to fit the artist, trestle legs, infinity box.





































My work 'You are here' features on the cover of an anthology of essays about death, The Power of Death, edited by former GHost collaborator Ricarda Vidal and Maria-Jose Blanco.

Read more or order a copy from publisher Berghahn Books here

SEeAFAR at Deptford X

 

SEeAFAR opens at Deptford X TONIGHT!

The exhibition is looking stunning in the fabulous, spacious NUM3ER Space,  Creekside, Deptford, London SE8 4SA

PRIVATE VIEW TONIGHT: Friday 26th September 6-8.30pm 

OPEN FROM 12-6pm on: 27th, 28th September and 1-5th October

This exhibition brings together new work from Foa + Hosea, Carali McCall, Anne Robinson, Sarah Sparkes and Thurle Wright. Using a range of media - drawing, animation, performance to video, light installation, painting and collage - the works engage with living with the constant presence of an absence through the metaphor of waiting for someone to return from sea.

[Invite image 'Jane Conquest Rings the Bell' (detail) Sarah Sparkes, (great grandfather Sparkes' magic lantern slides and mixed media, 2014]

https://www.facebook.com/events/1469201250023395/

AiRM2014

I'm delighted to be one of the selected artists for AiRM2014 

You can find my new work, 'Blue Seven' at St.  Peter and St. Paul Newchurch. They have the most fabulous coffee morning on Saturdays with a buffet of cake heaven!

AiRM theme this year  is Blue year in honour of the legacy of Derek Jarman, I have made seven blue cloaks/ robes and defined a robing area with blue hangings. Visitors can wear the cloaks as they explore the church.

Wear a blue cloak and cross a blue threshold...

Tweet your #Blue7 photos to @thesarahsparkes and @artromneymarsh

St Peter St Paul Newchurch

Title:  'Blue Seven'

Medium: Installation with blue fabrics, ribbon and silk thread

Artists’s Statement

Ancient religious texts describe the use of blue fabric hangings to delineated a place for a divine presence. For AIRMC2014, Sarah Sparkes has created a blue robing area, containing seven blue cloaks, representing the seven participating churches. You are invited to wear one of the cloaks, shrouding yourself in blue, during your visit.

          Sarah Sparkes is an artist and curator. She runs the visual arts project 'GHost'  She spent three years as Artist in Residence and Research Fellow at the 'Harry Price Library of Magical Literature' and this has informed much of her recent work.   She recently completed commissions for Camberwell Arts and the 'Over Time' project at Enderby Wharf  in Greenwich. Recent exhibitions include Theatrical Dynamics' at Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles; 'Haunted Landscapes' at Falmouth University, Cornwall and 'SEeAFAR' at Folkestone Triennial Fringe, Folkestone and Deptford X, London.

Over Time

I am part of the wonderful Over Time project, curated by Anne Robinson.
The project includes a series of performances, an exhibition, talks and a publication.  

Over Time - Eleven artists respond to Enderby's Wharf, a place where time is revealed in the rising and falling of the tide.  Soon, this liminal space will be lost forever beneath a concrete jetty.  

Go see Enderby's Wharf and the work we have made in response to it, before it's too late.

artists: Rachel Gomme, Ian Thompson, Claudia Firth, Charlie Fox, Sarah Sparkes, The INternational Western Victoria Gray, Katharine Fry and Gavin Maughfling, Jo David and Birgitta Hosea 

Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th September: Thames foreshore around Enderby’s Wharf 11am to 4pm both days  and 7.45-10pm on Saturday

13th/14th WEEKEND DETAILS: CLICK HERE

19th September to 16th October: Old Royal Naval College: Stephen Lawrence Gallery 

Archive Space

Sunday 26th October: National Maritime Museum and Queen’s House, Greenwich

More information: http://overtimeart.org/

Over Time  is a visual arts project about time passing, curated by Anne Robinson. There are ten artists taking part, working across a range of media including painting, film, performance and animation.   Each one will make a response to spending precisely the same fixed amount of ‘clock time‘ in specific stretch of the Thames foreshore around Enderby’s Wharf, during the weeks and months leading into the exhibition/performance period. The work derived from time spent in this historically resonant and atmospheric riverside space will result in a weekend of activities: 13th and 14th September, 2014 and an exhibition at the University of Greenwich 18th September to 16th October There will also be a day of performance and film works at the National Maritime Museum on Sunday 26th October. All of the invited artists are already engaged in some way in working with aspects of temporality, such as perception, elasticity, affect, politics, recording and value.

The space on the foreshore is particularly important to the project because of the richness of the layers of time visible there – the current rapidly changing landscape, the natural markers, the tides and the bend of the river and the industrial heritage and history, including the site where the first underwater telegraph cables were laid. We are also working with local contacts to set up workshops responding directly to this environment in light of imminent changes. The project is being developed in collaboration with Ian Thompson, sound artist based at the University of Greenwich and The Facility Creative Practice as Research group at London Met University. The other confirmed artists are: Rachel Gomme, Ian Thompson, Claudia Firth, Charlie Fox, Sarah Sparkes, The INternational Western Victoria Gray, Katharine Fry and Gavin Maughfling, Jo David and Birgitta Hosea all of whom have outstanding  reputations in their various fields, including performance digital animation, dance and sound and  have been involved in arts projects of international standing. Please use the Contact link above if you have any queries about the project.