CGP London: Exhibition Thumbnails - ALL IS NOT LOST

ALL IS NOT LOST

21 Sep - 23 Oct 2011

Zoe Brown, Rebecca Glover, Rachael House, Manu Luksch, Olivia-jane Ransley, Martina Schmücker, Rosalie Schweiker, Jessica Voorsanger, K. Yoland. Curated by Emily Druiff.

Cafe Gallery is pleased to announce ALL IS NOT LOST, an exhibition of artworks by emerging and established female artists presenting a philosophy of optimism and resilience.

Leaning towards an anarchic aesthetic of protest and DIY culture, ALL IS NOT LOST represents the potential of art to inspire change, with each artist revealing an individual approach to this in the form of confrontation or observation.

Rachael House’s protest banner To Be Normal Is Not A Healthy Aspiration, is a direct call to action. This imposing presence features deceased icons Ari Up and Poly Styrene, the banner is an object but also an invitation: to consider, and to participate in, an alternative.

Martina Schmücker’s Visual Mechanics three dimensional installation examines the perception we have of older women and their influence in contemporary society. The installation of reconstructed screens presents an irregular performance of a restricted view of a woman reclining on a narrow plinth, manipulated by the screens that surround her.

Zoe Brown’s use of celluloid employed for “its sentimental potential” depicts women gorging on houses made of sugar and cake in a moment of indulgence. Her film House Of Cake references a bygone Victorian era where the privacy of the house was the women’s domain.

Forty letters are sent to random celebrities in Christmas Card Project, part of the Mail Art Series by Jessica Voorsanger and are displayed in an installation alongside the responses from David Blaine and others in a witty exploration of the concept of celebrity.

We Have Secrets showcases K. Yoland’s installation of suspended fantastical superhero-come-warrior masks, which form a hollow three-dimensional pyramid. The pyramid structure of ‘heads’ explore and question the nature of power and interaction in our society.

Manu Luksch’s short film explores the role that public space plays in children’s development. Blue-Sky Blueprint depicts a radical re-visioning of public space resulting from an unusual collaboration between architectural modellers and Southwark children who acted as the primary researchers and designers for the project.

Olivia-jane Ransley’s drawings find strength in the celebration of small, everyday moments. The Quotidian Entries is an ongoing project of humorous observations and the artist’s continual social anxieties. The illustrations will be emailed to the gallery throughout the show and will be displayed pinned onto the wall as well as in a ‘zine’ from the front desk.

The Penis Show curated by Rosalie Schweiker, is an exhibition within the exhibition. It includes work by Joanna Waterhouse, Matthew Sleeth, Colourful Colophone, Gillian Wylde, Hannah Clayden, Arthur Hazlewood and other good artists.

Intruding into the gallery from unexpected places is Rebecca Glover’s The Inhabitant a site-specific installation, of alien-like, semi-organic forms that questions notions of security in relation to our environment, interacting directly with the architecture of the gallery and transforming the potential of the space.

Exhibition open: Wednesday – Sunday 12 to 6pm.

On Friday, 30 September both Dilston Grove and Cafe Gallery will be open until 9pm as part of SLAM Last Fridays.

SLAM Last Fridays is a South London Art Map initiative where over 200 galleries in South London open late on the last Friday of each month.**

ALL IS NOT LOST was reviewed by RemoteGoat

"Feminist art well worth seeing!" by David Gleeson on 10/10/11

Discovering CGP London whilst strolling around Southwark Park is another vote in favour of this beautiful bit of recreational garden. I can never resist perusing a newly-discovered gallery, though I must admit I always wander in defying the show to interest me. That way I suppose I'm less often let down. And quite often pleasantly surprised by what I find.

Thus it was recently with 'All Is Not Lost', a show of feminist art at the Cafe Gallery. At first sight, the exhibition looks like a typical collection of unrelated conceptual objects/displays laid out for the viewer to work out (or feel inadequate about). You know the drill.
What drew me in was Jessica Voorsanger's washing line with 'Christmas Card Project' pegged along it. Like anyone, I couldn't resist the responses of celebs to the artist's gushing Christmas cards, and spent the first few enjoyable minutes chortling over trivia from the likes of David Blaine, Kelly Osborne, someone from Harry Potter, etc etc. Who could resist?

Then it was Rosalie Schweiker's 'The Penis Show', which I of course expected to be feminist revenge with no penises to see. Wrong! Lots of dicks, and very funny too. Olivia Jane Ransley's hilariously dry observations and drawings (one sent in every day and attached to the gallery wall) were a personal favourite, and possibly worth the trip to the show alone. An apparently impenetrable collection of screens by Martina Schmucker (looking like a low-budget version of the enclosures seen in the Tate Modern Louise Bourgeois show a few years ago) became a meditation on the states of invisibility of older women in society. But if that sounds like, heavy, man, then try being there when they contain a performance (dates available on website, and I have it on good authority that Sunday 16th will feature a well-known art world personality at 2pm). 
There's plenty more to see in this show that will perhaps undermine your cynicism too. If you have any.

Go and see it!

Event Venues & Times finished Cafe Gallery Projects London | By the Lake, Southwark Park, London, SE16 2UA.

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