Citizens

---

Art exhibition at Pitzhanger Manor, 21st Jan - 2nd April

EXHIBITION:         Citizens

 

PM Gallery & House   Mattock Lane   London W5 5EQ    Tel: 020 8567 1227

image: Jana Sterbak: Generic Man, 1996

 

Email : hwalker@ealing.gov.uk

Dates : 21 January � 2 April 2005

Tues-Fri 1pm-5pm  

Sat 11am-5pm

Private View : Thurs 20 January 6pm � 8.30pm

 

Jean-Luc Meyer-Abbatucci * Roy Arden   * Claudia Andujar * Carlos Carvalho * Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg *   Anna Bella Geiger *   Ori Gerscht *   Peter Kennard *    Anthony Key *   Matthieu Laurette * Armin Linke * Rubens Mano *   Ludovic Michaux *   Boris Mikailov * Raqs Media Collective   * Ingrid Pollard *   Joao Ripper *  

Jana Sterbak *   Mans Wrange

 

PM Gallery & House are proud to present the first showing of the international exhibition Citizens , prior to a UK tour, which   brings together the work of 20 visual artists from around the world and looks at their work in relation to the crisis in citizenship today.

 

What rights does a national space give us? Where do we fit in society if we are excluded from this space? What are the possibilities for a new citizenship of the 21 st century? The exhibition considers whether there may be new ways of thinking about and engaging with space, beyond that of territoriality, of boundaries and frontiers.

 

Citizens is the result of a collaboration between the curators Cynthia Morrison-Bell and Laymert Garcia dos Santos, and the invited artists from France, England, Italy, Israel, Ireland, Canada, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Russia, China and India amongst others, who were selected for their artistic strength as well as their engagement with the subject.   The works, some at the leading edge, others employing more traditional media, includes photography, painting, installations, video and digital works.

 

New commissions include Lost New Shoes by the New Delhi based artists Raqs Media Collective , a multimedia installation that confronts the notion of the citizen by looking at the absence where a person may be. Using shoes as a metaphor as �hollowed objects from which someone has withdrawn himself'', the artists reflect on the many journeys tried out by the citizen before finding (if ever) the space where he belongs, the one that fits . In a new installation Slave Work made specifically for Citizens, Brazilian photographer Joao Ripper will be presenting a body of work about Brazilian coal miners still working in slave like conditions, whilst Claudia Andujar's life-size light boxes � Marked for life, Marked for death' look at the poisoned relationship between westerners and the Yanomami Indians.

 

Citizens will present a critical perspective for the viewer to sense this crisis, and explore whether this 18th century concept can still function in the 21st century.   It considers whether we are holding on to an outmoded, anachronistic notion, now obsolete, as the world becomes ever more populated, globalised, multicultural and technological, forcing countries and individuals to reassess their identities and reconsider �nationhood'.

 

Citizens will tour to City Gallery Leicester, Oriel Davis Wales, Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast, in 2005 and the   Pinacotheque Sao Paulo, Brazil   in 2006.

January 31, 2005