"I was filled with the emotion of my stillness" Now Revisited reviewed

"It was as if I had been given my eyes back again, my innocence. We all became really quite lively, as if somehow liberated by our own behaviour on screen to make comments about ourselves, our neighbours." Art critic Jody Day describes Now Revisited.

Hilary Lawson, the founder of the video painting movement and Artscape Project, has embarked on a radical new project. Now Revisited an interactive art installation in five acts unfolded within the cavernous wake-space of the Shunt vaults last week.

Propelling the audience into the ‘Now’, the artist presented the audience with theatre-style seats into which they were convened to watch themselves in real time on a huge cinema screen. Simultaneously participants in and reviewers of the work, the unique event saw hundreds of people in dialogue with the tenets of Hilary Lawson’s philosophy of ‘openness’.

Each act, entitled ‘Now’, ‘Now Past’, ‘Now Reviewed’, ‘Now Observed’ and ‘‘Now Revisited’ respectively, allowed the audience (and some viewers who returned for a second showing) to react/interact with the art before them, entirely as they desired; from the initial awakening in Act I until the climactic release of the final visit to the present in Act V. Act II took the audience on a journey into a momentary present in the past.

Act III recalled the footage from the first act as the players in the installation related to their own moments of subjectivity just a few moments before. Act IV caught the audience watching themselves from an external observers point of view, with Act V returning to the immediate present in a return to the moment of self-referential intensity with which the piece had begun.

Billed by ‘The Times’ newspaper as one of the top fifteen things to do or see in London, Now Revisited revealed itself as a spectacle of raucous voyeurism that often gave way to moments of hushed contemplation. Viewers revealed their bodies provocatively, rose from their seats in uniform patterns, while some took to the stage to sit in their own filmed likeness.

Hilary Lawson, reflected on the new piece on the opening night of the performance, commenting that TS Eliot described the moment of the present as ‘the still point of the turning world’: “The moment ‘caught in a shaft of sunlight’. This momentary present is depicted as a place of mystery…Now Revisited attempts to encourage the viewer into the present and once there to explore the nature of this momentary present.”

To review previous works by Hilary Lawson click on collections

To read the full review from Jody Day visit www.lucky-cow.com

Now Revisited at Shunt 25th - 28th February

Embark on a journey into the strangeness of the present, as artist, philosopher, and founder of the video painting movement, Hilary Lawson creates ‘Now Revisited’: an interactive video art installation in five acts.

Over four consecutive nights between February 25th and February 28th 2009, Open Gallery will be inhabiting a cavern within Shunt - the arts and club venue beneath London Bridge.

Shunt will be host to a remarkable installation, ‘Now Revisited’, which sees Hilary Lawson leading the viewer away from the stranglehold of narrative closure and into the openness of the present with the first interactive video installation of its kind.

Please RSVP to caroline@opengallery.co.uk.

For more information on the event visit www.shunt.co.uk and to see previous work by Hilary Lawson see the Collections

Surface Design Show 10th-13th February

For the past five years, the Surface Design Show has earned renown for highlighting innovative new works in art and style.

The Open Gallery has long supported architects and designers - believing that art should extend beyond the gallery and into living spaces. From angular courtyard projections to panoramic loft spaces, the installations have the power to radically transform a space but can also function as windows to the outside world and thereby offer a subtle enhancement to the aesthetics of a building.

Open will be at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London on the 10th - 13th February 2009. The Out of Openness collection will be one of several on display at our exhibition stand 176.

This year the design powerhouse, Sebastian Conran, will be launching the Show on Tuesday 10th February. Open will be there with a glass (or two) of champagne in hand so come by and join us!

WE ARE OPEN - Artscape Project now represented by the Open Gallery

'Artscape' no longer embodies our current status nor our wider desire - to work with and support artists in their pursuit of openness in moving imagery. So we present our new incarnation to mark a new era of explorations into the world of the video painting: the Open Gallery.

A New Movement

The New Year begins and a new movement is spreading round the world: an exploration of openness through the medium of the video painting.

From the first experimental pieces shot by the founder of the Artscape collective in the Black Hills of Wales, artists have now filmed video paintings in almost every corner of the earth and their work has been shown everywhere from London to Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Portugal, Napoli, New York, LA, Miami, Sao Paolo and New Zealand.

As momentum has gathered and more artists have gravitated towards the philosophies of the original collective, the exploration has grown to embody something far greater and more diverse: the video painting movement.

The History

2001: A new form of video art was born - the video painting. A collective began to form as more artists chose to experiment with this medium. They called themselves the Artscape Project. The earliest video paintings focused purely on natural landscapes and were intended to encourage the viewer to escape from the traditional precepts ingrained within moving imagery.

2003: Further modes of expression were opened as new technologies were developed to enable video paintings - for the first time - to be combined into collections of non-repetitive, intelligent sequences designed according to criteria determined by the artists. This freedom allowed artists to present their explorations of the natural world in a manner which was totally free from strictures that had previously defined video art.

2005: The Artscape Gallery was founded as the public stage upon which the work of the Artscape Project could be shown. Several high profile public exhibitions and numerous permanent installations for a diverse range of private clients followed.

2006: The work of the Artscape Project began to diversify from playful explorations into the natural world, with video paintings now touching on urban landscapes and developing along both abstract and literal themes.

2009: 'Artscape' no longer embodies our current status nor our wider desire - to work with and support artists in their pursuit of openness in moving imagery. So we present our new incarnation to mark a new era of explorations into the world of the video painting: the Open Gallery.

We hope you like it. After all, it is easier to spell!

Artscape founder speaks at Art Festival at Hay

Founding artist of the Artscape project, Hilary Lawson, has spoken at this years’ Art Festival at Hay alongside a host of artists including the prolific Gavin Turk, Jane Simpson and Eleanor Lindsay Fynn.

Over a beautifully crisp weekend in Hay, the Institute of Art and Ideas presented crunch. art in a new era - a weekend of symposiums, art exhibitions and vigorous discussions tackling how the art world will be affected by the current recession.

Covering the issues that have been plaguing the minds of many in the industry – from declining auction sales to cash-strapped galleries – Lawson engaged with other speakers including Anthony Haden Guest about how the art world hopes to re-evolve in order to survive the economic downturn. Much heated debate and an encouragingly positive symbiosis of ideas was born from the exchanges over the course of the festival.

Hilary Lawson - whose video paintings were part of the Out of Openness collection which debuted at the festival - addressed an audience of artists, critics and journalists at the Globe at Hay gallery space. Lawson tackled how the art industry will recover from the state of flux it currently finds itself in and spoke of a return to a more holistic pursuit of art.

Lawson highlighted that the bursting of the art market bubble would catalyse and reinvigorate the art scene which has, in recent years, been dominated by a focus on financial value. In agreement with the artist Adam Dant, Lawson spoke of a natural return to viewing art for its intrinsic value rather than a sensationalised monetary one.

Video highlights from the debates, including ‘Is this the End of the YBA era?’ and ‘Curating the Crunch’, are available here , where you can also read all the festival news.

Out of Openness collection debuts at the Art Festival at Hay

'Out of Openness', a capsule collection of 65 individual video paintings, has debuted at this years' Art Festival at Hay.

The collection depicts the chornology of the video painting from its inception in 2001, however the exhibition is freed from a strict sequence. If played in an order, 'Out of Openness' would last nine hours thirty four minutes. However, the collection embodies its title and could continue indefinitely, with multiple narratives.

Featuring work from artists associated with the Artscape Project - pioneers of the video painting - the exhibition includes works from Alex Bettler, Isabelle Inghilleri, Sanchita Islam, Hilary Lawson and Alys Williams.

The 'Out of Openness' collection previewed at the Art Festival at Hay this year alongside works from the ICA, Flowers and Whitechapel galleries. It will be shown in London this winter with information coming shortly.

View the 'Out of Openness' collection here To find out more about the Art Festival at Hay visit crunch

The Brighton Coast

It may not be the warmest time of year for a trip to Brighton, but if you do find yourself there, go to the Seattle Hotel at the Marina. The menu's good and the bar has a mixologist who can make cocktails that'll you'll need a spoon to finish. In addition to this, they have just completed a magnificent refurbishment, which includes a triple projected video installation along the entrance corridor, and a further collection of video works behind reception.

The specially commissioned series of video works in the entrance corridor by Mark Nelson hit you like a face full of salt water as you walk in, transforming the journey into an immersive experience of the immensely powerful boundary between land and sea. After emerging from the lift into the second floor reception, guests are welcomed by another series of specially commissioned video works whilst they check in. This collection is a more restrained and calmly paced exploration of a series of interactions between the natural and built world, giving a serene beauty to the destructive weathering processes which have shaped the remarkable coastline of Brighton and Hove. Isabelle Inghilleri contributed extensively to this collection, and those of you who have seen work from her collection 'Gone Tomorrow' which examines the Norwegian landscape melting in the spring will understand why the hotel were so keen for her to be involved in the commission. To see more of Isabelle's work, go to the Artists page.