Source: CHRONICLE
Author: DAVID WHETSTONE
Date: JUNE 30, 2017
Format: DIGITAL

Four great artists but who gets your vote in BALTIC’s new Turner Prize-style exhibition?

The very first BALTIC Artists' Award presents four up-and-coming artists chosen by four others who are at the top of their profession

Apple Yang wearing work by Eric N. Mack at BALTIC (Image: Newcastle Journal)

Four outstanding artists, four contrasting exhibitions and all presented with a bit of pizzazz under one roof. If you remember the buzz when the Turner Prize came to Gateshead in 2011, this home-grown version at Baltic has what it takes to generate more of the same.The very first Baltic Artists’ Award, which opens today, invites the public to choose their favourite among the four exhibition presentations – two each in the big Level 3 and Level 4 galleries. That artist will then be commissioned to produce an extra work, resulting in “deeper engagement” with local communities in Gateshead. As it stands, though, all four exhibiting artists – Jose Dávila, Eric N. Mack, Toni Schmale and Shen Xin – are winners. Each was chosen by an established artist with strong Baltic connections and each received £25,000 to create the work for this 13-week exhibition plus a £5,000 fee. At Baltic this week all four were united in saying how pleased they were to have been chosen for this great opportunity. Unlike the Turner Prize, which is awarded to a British artist, the Baltic Artists’ Award was open to whoever the four selecting artists chose. The result is an international field and a series of exhibitions which draws inspiration from many sources, including the architecture of Brazil and the women’s mosques of China. It brings together a former footballer in the women’s Bundesliga (the German football league) and a Chinese artist currently struggling to make ends meet in London. Laurence Sillars, chief curator at Baltic, said: “Amidst the many awards available to artists, which can undoubtedly transform careers at critical moments, we wanted to create a platform that prioritised the support to make new work and, crucially, to do this in an environment where there were no losers. “Each of the artists nominated for the Baltic Artists’ Award has won.“ In its first iteration it has been so rewarding to see the dialogues between the artists – our nominators and our winners – evolve and it is this informal yet vital network of mentoring between artists that we are also glad to celebrate. “The exhibition at Baltic will give significant exposure to these four artists’ work and we look forward to seeing further dialogues grow between this work and our visitors.”

And the four artists are…

Artist Eric N. Mack at the Baltic in Gateshead (Image: Newcastle Journal)

ERIC N. MACK was chosen by American artist Lorna Simpson who exhibited at Baltic in 2014.

Eric was born in Columbia, Maryland, in 1987 and is now based in New York. His exhibition on Baltic’s Level 4 features colourful and fragile-looking textile-based constructions which either stand on the floor or hang on the walls. The latter resemble costumes on hangers and the impression is enforced by the sight of Apple Yang, a Gateshead-based dancer and choreographer, wearing one of the artist’s creations. Apple, who will be a living presence in Eric’s exhibition at various times, says she was recruited not to perform but simply to display and give substance to the work. “He shared with me the stories behind the artworks,” she said. Eric uses pieces of discarded garments and other textile fragments, collaging them together with other everyday bits and bobs such as magazine clippings and, as he pointed out, a slice of lemon. It’s tempting to see his work as akin to fashion design but he talks more like a painter, referring to his creations as landscapes. “I’ve been making these hybrid objects, blending different materials to speak in a unified way but pushing them almost to the point of abstraction,” he said. A work called A Lesson in Perspective comprises wool net curtain, tent cover, acrylic paint, linen, silk, polyester and velour. To be chosen for the Baltic show, said Eric, was “super-exciting”. “I’d had ideas I wanted to explore and this also gave me the chance to think about an audience,” he said. “There is so much to be gained from this experience and this is a really beautiful place to be.”

JOSE DÁVILA was chosen by Portuguese artist Pedro Cabrita Reis who was an early exhibitor at Baltic in 2002.

Jose was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1974 and still lives there. He is interested in architecture and the way objects occupy space. His Baltic exhibition, also on Level 4, consists of one piece called The Weaker has Conquered the Stronger. Comprising two metal girders, steel cables, sandstone boulders and a big red balloon, it looks like a giant’s executive toy. Everything is perfectly poised. The balloon floats just below a suspended boulder which looks as light as air. You wonder: is it real? The balloon made me think of Winnie the Pooh. Smiling, Jose suggested the 1950s French film, Le Ballon Rouge, in which a boy finds a red balloon.“I think ultimately art is an act of freedom and it can be playful,” he said.“The rock over the balloon weighs a tonne-and-a-half but you can’t be sure. I wanted to subvert the natural order of things.” Jose sourced the materials locally, the metal beams having been fabricated in the North East and the rocks, which he chose himself, coming from a quarry about 45 minutes away. He said he had been keen to reflect the area’s industrial past and its primitive geology. He agreed his creation could be described as a 3D visual puzzle.As for being selected for this show: “Fantastic. It’s an honour to be nominated by Pedro Cabrita Reis whose work I’ve always admired.”

TONI SCHMALE was chosen by Berlin-based Italian artist Monica Bonvicini who exhibited at Baltic recently.

Toni, who was born in Hamburg in 1980 and lives in Vienna, took an interesting route into art.“ I was a footballer in the German national team,” she said.“ I was playing in the German Bundesliga. This was before I started being an artist. I was always interested in art but I was playing all the time soccer. When I was 21 I went to art school.”Asked if she could score penalties, the one-time professional midfielder laughed.Her exhibition on Level 3 resembles a gym with wall-mounted pieces and others in black metal on the floor. They are works for the mind, though, rather than the muscles. Toni showed how the sculptures were assembled from small components. “I make everything in my metal workshop and also what is important for me is that I can carry everything myself.” According to Baltic, the machine-like quality of Toni’s workreflects “key ideas related to gender roles and hierarchies within society”. She said an influence was Playing and Reality, a book by British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott which, published posthumously in 1971, highlighted the importance of play. As for the Baltic Artists’ Award, she said: “It’s great to be nominated by Monica Banvacini. She was my professor at art school in Vienna. This is a great chance to show at Baltic and I’m really happy.”

SHEN XIN was chosen by British artist Mike Nelson, twice nominated for the Turner Prize.

Shen was born in 1990 in Chengdu, China, but studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and is now based in London. “It has been very hard,” she said. “It’s a very high cost city.” You venture into the dark on Level 3 to see Shen’s four-screen video installation, Provocation of the Nightingale, which, according to Baltic, is underpined by her “investigation into systems of belief and power”. It takes 54 minutes to negotiate the space and view the four films, all of them displayed as if they were being screened in the big theatre where some of them were made using actors. As a general theme, the films look at how religions have been assimilated into various cultures such as Buddhism in Europe and South Korea and, most surprisingly, Islam in China where, said Shen, there are female imams and women-only mosques. Proof of the latter can be seen in the final film which comprises extraordinary footage found online.Shen also touches on the relatively new phenomenon of DNA testing, reflecting people’s responses to their discoveres as uploaded on YouTube. Positing this new fad as akin to a secular religion, she explained how people could be sucked in.“ You can try to find out where you come from and potentially what diseases you might carry.“ But once you submit to this system you don’t know what the company might do with that information.” Like the others, Shen was delighted to be showing at Baltic.“ For me it’s a great opportunity,” she said. “I’ve never been able to present a video installation on this scale.”

Baltic Artists’ Award is intended to take place every two years. This inaugural presentation runs until October 1. You can cast you vote on Baltic’s ground floor and join in a discussion on Level 2. Baltic opens Monday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm (Tuesday from 10.30am).

Four great artists but who gets your vote in BALTIC’s new Turner Prize-style exhibition?

The very first BALTIC Artists' Award presents four up-and-coming artists chosen by four others who are at the top of their profession

Subscribe to Our Newsletter Close