Noticeboard
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Forthcoming Exhibitions:
Standing Room Only, Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Rd London, 3rd Aug 10 - 4th Sept 10
Photographs and Paintings from the Gulf War, IWM North, Salford, 18th Sept 10 - 27th Feb 11
Professional photographer 27.7.10
Work can curently be seen in:
Herbert Art Gallery,Coventry, Imperial War Museum, Salford, National Portrait Gallery London, National Army Museum, London. Flowers Gallery,London
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Kofi Annan and portrait commissioned for the UN Feb 2010
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John and Jon
John Snow, commissioned by Channel 4 (currently on loan to the National Portrait Gallery,London)
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There is an urban legend that Tom Lehrer gave up political satire when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger in 1973. Tracy Emin was elected a Royal Academician in 2008. Where are you, Tom?
Children in Conflict, Aberystwyth Art centre, May16th -June27th 2009, Herbert Art Gallery,Coventry July-Sept 2009
Children
in Conflict is a touring exhibition by Wolverhampton Art
Gallery in association with Christian Aid visiting the Herbert Art
Gallery & Museum, Coventry from 11 July - 13 September 2009.
Two
works by John Keane from this exhibition, Brothers 1 and Brothers 2, will
be displayed
for 12 months in the Peace & Reconciliation gallery.
Terry Grimley, Bimingham Post, July 21 2009
The Art of Survival: An exhibition and auction of works donated by British & international artists to raise funds for the Helen Bamber Foundation.
5 - 7 May 2009 at
Maddox Arts, 52 Brook's Mews,
London W1K 4ED
press
release
JOHN KEANE:
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
more paintings about war and religion
20
March – 18 April 2009
Opening times: Tue-Sat 10-6
82 Kingsland Rd
London
E2 8DP
When
evolution sceptics wish to attack Charles Darwin's theories, they often point
to the human eye. How could something so complex, they argue, have developed
through random mutations and natural selection, even over millions of years?
Even though Darwin and his followers have provided credible explanations which
have answered these questions, 150 years after the publication of On the
Origin of Species the battle still rages. The starting point of John Keane’s
new series of paintings, Intelligent Design plays with the contrasting
belief systems of scientific empiricism and religious faith, and uses image
and metaphor of visual perception to reflect upon this conflict of ideas - and
the very real conflicts that they continue to fuel.
A series of ‘ink blot’ paintings use Darwin’s face in a Rorschach
test to reveal hidden species - butterflies in his eyes, bears in his beard...
His face appears miraculously on the body of a Peppered Moth, (a hotly contested
species cited by advocates as tangible evidence of evolution), like the Virgin
Mary in a piece of toast, or the face of Christ in the Turin Shroud. Keane is
playfully suggesting to us that perhaps we see what we want, or are conditioned,
to see.
However, the bulk of this new work addresses the atrocities of the war in Iraq
and its link to the home grown terrorism that implicates us all. Keane was the
official war artist for the Imperial War Museum during the first Gulf war, but
this is the first time he has made reference to the current conflict in Iraq.
In a series of powerful and disturbing paintings, subjects include mutilations
of the human body and the torture of prisoners - hooded and deprived of sight.
Other subjects allude to the London tube bombings, the attack on Glasgow airport,
and the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. All of these atrocities grasp
at a perceived justification seen through a prism of ideology and religion.
In this exhibition, Keane is boldly and uncompromisingly confronting the belief
systems and perceived threats that increasingly divide the population of a planet
which should really be addressing the far more serious issue of it’s own
survival.
A full colour catalogue with an introduction by playwright David Edgar will
be published to coincide with the exhibition.
For further information or images please contact Ellie
Harrison-Read at Flowers East on 020 7920 7777 or email.
82 Kingsland Road
London E2 8DP
Star Dust
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Blog spot for anyone who might be remotely interested in commenting about my work:
So far the response has been quite limited..
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Tate trustee...?
Some years ago a fat envelope arrived on my door mat marked DCMS.
The contents turned out to be an application form to join a list of worthies
who might be considered for positions as trustees of public bodies. With
exhilarating thoughts about how the art establishment had finally come
to its senses and was now humbly begging me to serve on one of its ruling
cabals, I waded through paragraphs on topics such as ‘probity in public
office’, ‘conflicts of interest’ and how all appointees were personally
approved by the Prime Minister. It turned out that the then director of
the National Portrait Gallery had proposed me as possible candidate for
a vacancy on their board, and, needless to say, I was flattered by his
consideration. I duly completed the application and returned it to the
DCMS, and I don’t remember whether it was with disappointment or relief
that I was subsequently informed that the position had been awarded to
someone else no doubt more suited to the post. End of story, or so I thought.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, upon arriving at my studio one day toward
the end of 2004 to find a message from someone at ‘Tate’ soliciting an
application to fill a vacancy of artist trustee. With exhilarating thoughts
about how the art establishment had finally come to its senses and was
now humbly begging me to serve on one of its ruling cabals, I immediately
returned the call and requested an application form. It was really only
as I sat at my computer and set about filling in the details that the
penny dropped. Particularly when it came to the ‘work in public collections’
part of my cv, which, whilst it does mention a number of public museums
and galleries, nowhere does it contain the word ‘Tate’, which just about
sums up my relationship with the contemporary art establishment. I alluded
to this anomaly in the blank space allowed for pitching my case about
why I’d be a jolly good trustee etc. whilst expressing my surprise at
being approached in the first place. However,It was now plain to me that
since the trusteeship of the existing artist from an approved stable (Gillian
Wearing) was drawing to a close they better find another one quick, but
presumably due process had to be followed and several submissions would
need to be invited. Some underling had obviously dusted off my name on
the DCMS list from an old filing cabinet and it got chucked in the hat
to make up the numbers. Never for a moment, though, if I thought about
it, did I feel that my application would be taken seriously, but I filed
the application nonetheless, perhaps just to prove a point. In due course
a letter from Nicholas Serota arrived which informed me that I ‘did not
match the criteria for the appointment as well as some of the other applicants’,
which I took to mean ‘There’s been a bureaucratic error. You’re not actually
on the list of approved artists’. I could have told him this at the outset
and saved us all the bother.
Fiona Rae got the trusteeship, and I was left with a nasty taste in my
mouth. Shortly afterwards I removed my name from the DCMS list.
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More
links:
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves/exhibitions/003213.html
www.christianaid.org.uk/conflict
John
Keane in Angola: Youtube
Angola in the frame -Community Channel 5th March 9pm
Commissioned
by Christian Aid, I recently showed the work I produced
last year since my 2006 visit with the charity to examine the
post war conditions in Angola. The work waspart of a larger exhibition which
toured to several other destinations, including Aberdeen and London.
In the course of creating this work, I designed a number of African
style fabrics, using motifs such as land mines and oil rigs, and these
were incorporated into shirts, t-shirts and bags designed by
Nicole Farhi, and sold to raise funds and promote awareness of the issues
that face this country since the war ended.
This is myself with Luis Samacumbi, humanitarian worker from Luanda, Angola, who came over for the opening at Wolverhampton. Luis and his brother Amaral, depicted in the 2 paintings, 'Brother 1&2' were abducted as teenagers to fight for UNITA and the MPLA respectively, and Amaral was believed to have died in the fighting. In fact he lost a leg in a land mine explosion and when they were reunited after 27 years it turned out they had been in the same battle on opposing sides.
Land Mines
These are some shirts (modelled by Ariyon Bakare) that Nicole Farhi has created using the fabrics I designed for the 'Brother' paintings. They are now available in her shops.
Oil Rigs
Football
Village T-shirt
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Fifty
Seven Hours in the House of Culture - an Opera
This
is an idea that came to me during the early stages of producing the
paintings about the Moscow theatre siege of 2002. Having absolutely no
track record in this field (aside from designing the set for a Salsa musical
at the Watford Palace in 1993) I was slightly at a loss as to how to
develop it. The National Theatre Studio was the first to take the idea
seriously, but it was a long and slow process finding, first, the right
composer, and then the right librettist. Eventually I stumbled upon the
excellent Pete Wyer (www.pmwmusic.com) and soon after persuaded the
equally excellent Bryony Lavery to write the libretto. The project is now
in workshop development at the National Theatre Studio with Phyllida Lloyd as
director.
Watch this space.