The Official (deviant) Art Festival Program. (klick it)

(deviant)Artists: Daniel Lehan

During the first few days of the festival, Lehan promoted the event 
around the streets of Trollhatten, parading a Deviant Festival 
sandwich board.

I WANT - a collaborative work with artists participating in the 
Festival. Lehan invited each artist to make a cardboard sign 
announcing one thing that they wanted.
Lehan mounted each statement on the walls of the small house at the 
Pumphouse.

Lehan's work seeks audiences in non-gallery situations. Encounters, interactions and conversations ensue . . . . . Small hand printed cards, each one an invitation to participate in a prescribed creative act (ART RECIPE HAIKUS), are handed out during FRED, 2006. The captain of a local boat in Coniston responds by writing: 'It feels, The wheels, Might stick, So the trick, Is to lick, An oily, Pique Nique' An anonymous artist? Surely that grey polyester suit worn on a hot summer's day, singles him out amongst the milling throng of holidaymakers? And yes, posters in the locality declare him to be an artist, acknowledge him as he pursues his lonesome seaside trail, and he proffers his edible artwork, a gift from the artist, children mock and clamour. Writing his childhood memories (CHALKWALK), on pavements in Margate where he grew up, attracts the attention of passersby. While a gang of 'hoodies' prove to be charming and swap recollections, a woman berates him for squandering taxpayer's money. And for a forthcoming arts festival, a sandwich board, featuring a selection of tenderly hand painted dog stories gleaned from the local and national press (DOG TAILS) will be worn during a dog themed event, the point ... the point? ... to encourage benign canine behaviours. Lehan - A 'bob a job, odd job kind of artist.' Influences Anything, all are valid to maintain my creative juices. I used to acknowledge only the 'art ones' but now: a chat in the pub newspaper headlines and stories the light falling across a row of trees outside my flat reading and cooking a recipe from a weekend magazine article for friends knowing that John Cage would stop the Merce Cunningham Dance Company tour bus to forage for rare wild mushrooms and that the Dadaists drew letters of the alphabet one at a time out of a hat and read these as poems the mantle piece ornaments once belonging to my father Career path Paper-boy, choirboy, greengrocer's assistant, Margate chip shop and cafe worker, bakery worker, theatre usher, envelope stuffer, front of house manager, children's book author and illustrator, teacher.

(deviant)Artists: Charlotte Young

‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’(pictured above), is a direct reference to Leo Tolstoy’s book of the same name. The publication was highly influential on a young Ghandi, eventually famous for the advocation of non-violent protests against physical conflict, and of inner spiritual peace. The installation references this with a pun on ‘the spiritual’, that spirituality can take many forms and that religious experiences, as well as alcohol- or drug-induced are often reported as producing moments described as higher states of consciousness, suggesting that they are, experientially, closely related.

As in the commodification of spiritual belief through the fetishisation of religious symbols, it is also a reference to the commodification of creativity through the fetishisation of original creative output, the posthumous transmogrification of artist into consumable/commodity. One of the most recognisable icons in the world is the Christian crucifix, yet, despite its attributed meanings and associations, it is also a highly desirable fashion icon. Images of a mentally unstable Van Gogh with bandaged ear as a result of self-mutilation are readily available to buy on t-shirts, stationary, calendars. The bottle of alcoholic spirits branded ‘Tolstoy’ is also a demonstration of this, the origin and association of the name lost to branding, saleability, consumption.


Charlotte Young’s work focuses on the comic and inherently absurd, both in day-to-day life and in the machinations of the art world. Her current work takes several different forms; installation, performance, text, video - from Art ‘protests’ to apathetic manifestos, counter-Art World TV programme Shit TV (with Charlotte & Fred) to bad stand-up comedy.

Charlotte Young lives and works in London. She is currently studying at London Metropolitan University.

Giles Hinchcliff goes into the shed...

At 22.00 yesterday, Monday 16th, Giles went into his makeshift shed for a planned 72 hours. After a surprisingly good nights sleep he seemed confident that his time in the shed would be productive. However, it has since rained with some force.

below are the instructions accompanying the piece in Swedish and English:

Skjulprojektet

Processen:

- Bygga ett skjul med material funna på platsen. - Leva i skjulet under minst 72 timmar utan avbrott. - Det enda som får medföras är penna och skrivblock. - Mat, vatten och sovsäck är tillåtet. - När du väl är i skjulet får människor ge dig saker, prata med dig etc., men du är helt beroende av dem. - När projektet avslutas, kommer skjulet och dess innehåll att brännas och askan bevaras.

Shed Project

Process:

- Build shed using only materials to hand at that time. - Live in shed for an amount of time, no less than 72 hours without leaving. - You are only allowed a pen and pad as stimulus. - Food, water and bedding are allowed. - Once in the shed, passers by may talk to you, give you things etc. However you are completely reliant on them for stimulus. - Once project is finished, the shed will be burnt, and the ashes will be kept.

Robert Luzar: Weathered

Robert Luzar began his drawing perfomance at 1.30 today (Sunday 15th). here are some images of his progress.

(deviant)Artists: Charlie Tweed

Charlie Tweed works with a variety of alter egos to explore the mechanisms of power and control and the potential of the irrational. In the Man From Below project his alter ego - heads to the Thames Gateway in order to build a new safer world below the surface. The Man From Below is currently tunneling his way towards the town of Trollhattan in order to search for the entrance to the hollow earth where he hopes to find safety. He will also present his plans for the future of Trollhattan - for further information visit the Man From Below’s blog which he is attempting to write in Swedish. www.manfrombelow.co.uk Charlie Tweed also has a musical alter ego known as the Man From the Woods. The MFW lives in some woods somewhere and writes songs about living in the woods somewhere. The MFW will be playing a live set at the Deviant Art Festival on July 20th at the Pump House Gallery in Trollhattan. www.myspace.com/manfromthewoods Charlie Tweed lives and works in London and is currently currently studying his MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. Recently he was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2007 which will tour the UK beginning at the New Art Gallery Walsall on July 12th, then traveling to London and Manchester. He has exhibited his video works internationally at galleries and film festival including Artsway, New Forest, Alma Enterprises, London, Santa Fe Film Festival, New Mexico Hi/Lo Film Festival, San Francisco and Stadtgalerie, Schwaz, Austria.

(deviant)Artists: Gregory Sodergren

Gregory Sodergren is a painter, printmaker and performance artist. His paintings are autobiographical and usually shed a dark light on seemingly cosy domestic scenes. His work often includes written elements, derived from his poetry, or short stories. His artists fanzines explore text and imagery containing ‘throw-away’ poetry with ‘throw-away’ pictures. This sense of light-heartedness continues into his performance based projects, a musical pairing called ‘Fred &Greg’. These normally impromptu performances occur in public toilets and the songs, performed in a hap-hazzard, un-trained way, explore themes of sexuality, peace, and the seemingly aloof and meaningless ‘Art World.’

(deviant)Artists: Miranda Peake

Miranda Peake’s work focuses on the everyday, and our immediate environments. She is interested in the humour and poetry inherent in our day-to-day lives, and her work seeks to extract this. Her current work on paper and also in video combines text and image snatched from the worlds we are all familiar with, domestic objects, secrets whispered into mobile phones, arguments overheard on buses, the background to our daily lives. These elements combine to create images which act as emblems or flags for our daily existence.

Miranda Peake is a London based artist. She received her Fine Art degree from Oxford Brookes University and a Fine Art MA from Chelsea College of Art in 2000. Her practice is predominantly drawing and painting based, however she works with video and installation, as well as on paper. She has shown her work in London as well as abroad.

(deviant)Artists: David Stamp

Barrel Push - David Stamp
Sunday 22nd July - racing starts 12'noon sharp
Location - TBC

Barrel Push is a Sisyphean contestant to see who can push an empty keg up a hill the fastest. In the week running up to the race a makeshift pub will be made and erected on the summit of the hill. On race day each participant will take it in turns to try and set the time for the fastest Barrel Push. After the allotted 3 hours of racing time, in which period participants can do as many runs as they want, the quickest contestant will be crowned "Lord of the Pub" and will don the ceremonial top hat. This 'coronation' will be marked by a celebratory drink.

A BBQ will also be held at the pub so come along and spend the day as spectator, participant or eater of charred meat but above all come and revel in the absurd.

Barrel Push is a new work by David Stamp who's work is concerned with the ways in which we associate with our environment and the significances we place on particular activities and events. Stamp is fascinated both with traditional festivals, rites and the nostalgic longing to live in harmony with our environment. Working within a research-based practice he takes an idiosyncratic view of cultural phenomenon, often drawing on game play, competition and re-enactment.

Along with such past works as Bartertown, in which 2 men inhabited a tiny Hebridean islet for 7 seven days and decided who owned it each day by playing a darts match each day at 12'noon, Stamp's work also includes an ongoing series called Wiseman. Wiseman is an alter ego of the artist - an uber-armchair-survivalist who ineptly uses sources of information such as the SAS Survival Handbook as a guide to show him how to ‘get back to his roots’. In this way Wiseman is used to confront ideas of self-sufficiency and the sense of loss that afflicts modern man. Past works in this series has seen Wiseman attempt to make animal traps out of Ikea furniture (Fördömda Kanin, 2004) and survive off the land (6 Day Wiseman, 2006). However the most recent work in the series is Reach - a synchronised dual video projection that sees Wiseman face, once again, the wilderness embodied as a giant rabbit.

The Poster:

This years poster is designed by Deduction, who've done the graphic design for the whole festival (including the fabulous new website: www.deviantartfestival.com) and features an image by (deviant)artist Karin Gunnarsson

(deviant)Artists: Robert Luzar

Robert Luzar will be performing ‘Weathered’ a highly physical street drawing that will stretch along the Kungsgatan, Trollhättans pedestrianised main drag. This drawing will be made using 50 kilos of raw quarried chalk, and will take him a whole day to complete. The drawing process requires immense stamina; only ending when the artist can no longer physically make marks.
Using performance and concrete abstraction – marks made from lines composing plastic forms – in conjunction with various materials and objects, Robert’s works explore the tension between non-representation and pure presentation and he says “themes such as time and language appear directly in my forms of drawing, more to be exhausted than for their celebration”.
Robert will be performing ‘Weathered’ all day on Sunday the 15th. The drawing will last until it is washed from the streets.

(deviant)Artists: Frog Morris

Frog Morris is an artist, poet and performer from the small rural village of Blo’ Norton in the east of England. He is an artist in the broadest most contemporary sense of the word where art can be anything from video to poetry to rock festivals. His work takes many forms, not all of them readily recognised in the hierarchy of art. He has recently been making a name for himself performing songs, poems and stories in the fashionable art galleries of East London in his own unique style. Frog Morris’s work wanders between moments of acclaimed comedy and painful pathetic pathos as he agitates audiences into a profound sense of bemusement. The artist will be running a poetry workshop on Wednesday 25th from 12-16.00 after which he’ll be performing his art poetry with Swedish poet Johan Lindblom on the Deviant Art Festivals Poetry Night.

(deviant)Artists: Giles Hinchcliff

For 72 hours during the first week of the festival, Giles Hinchcliff will be locked in a specially made shed, isolated from the world, his ability to communicate and take part in festival activities will be completely restricted.
This experiment of self-confinement is perhaps a metaphor for life itself; setting up home but never being happy, or just the journey; the movement from one place to another. Perhaps it’s simply about isolation, taking time-out to create a space for yourself. But when does that time-out stop being enjoyable and become a sentence? With this performance the artist hopes to find an answer to the question: is it possible to generate new ideas in a hermetically sealed environment?

The performance begins at 22.00 on Monday 16th and finishes at 22.00 on Thursday 19th.
Giles will also be performing ‘three birds in a box’ with Sayshun Jay and Matt Blackler, on the evening of Friday 13th July.

Deviant Shipping

(deviant)artist Hugo Sterk, resting after completing work on the Crates that were used to ship the art over to Sweden from London.