Your Leaning Neck – Song as Portrait // Steven Anderson
Peacock Visual Arts
21 Castle Street, Aberdeen
www.peacockvisualarts.com
01224 639539
From today until March 10
(Public performance Feb 24 in St Andrews Cathedral)
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| Your Leaning Neck - Song as Portrait // Steven Anderson. Performance image: Ruth Barker. Photography: Clyde Jones |
Last November, the first public event to take place in the newly refurbished Scottish National Portrait Gallery was a performance of Your Leaning Neck - Song as Portrait devised by artist Glasgow-based Steven Anderson.
In response to portraits from the Scottish contribution to the Enlightenment, Anderson invited seven artists from both oral tradition and contemporary art backgrounds to perform. With no painted portraits of oral tradition singers in the Scottish national collection, the event sought to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values.
A silent video installation of last November’s event, consisting of a real time full-length documentation (90 min) from two perspectives, is currently on show at Peacock Visual Arts. In being videoed, it’s as though the performers and audience become as fixed to the image document as the portraits on the walls of the Portrait Gallery.
This coming Friday, there will be a free public re-run of this live performance in Aberdeen’s St Andrew's Cathedral, on King Street, from 7pm-9pm.
The event features performances by Ruth Barker, Elizabeth Stewart, Sheila Stewart, Hanna Tuulikki (with Nerea Bello and Lucy Duncombe) and Arthur Watson in the visually and acoustically stunning location of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Andrew.
Steven Anderson studied painting at GSA before gaining an MFA at DJCAD in 2008. Working mainly in performance, he uses the unaccompanied voice of himself and co-performers, alongside invited audience participation. (www.stevenanderson.info)
In response to portraits from the Scottish contribution to the Enlightenment, Anderson invited seven artists from both oral tradition and contemporary art backgrounds to perform. With no painted portraits of oral tradition singers in the Scottish national collection, the event sought to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values.
A silent video installation of last November’s event, consisting of a real time full-length documentation (90 min) from two perspectives, is currently on show at Peacock Visual Arts. In being videoed, it’s as though the performers and audience become as fixed to the image document as the portraits on the walls of the Portrait Gallery.
This coming Friday, there will be a free public re-run of this live performance in Aberdeen’s St Andrew's Cathedral, on King Street, from 7pm-9pm.
The event features performances by Ruth Barker, Elizabeth Stewart, Sheila Stewart, Hanna Tuulikki (with Nerea Bello and Lucy Duncombe) and Arthur Watson in the visually and acoustically stunning location of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Andrew.
Steven Anderson studied painting at GSA before gaining an MFA at DJCAD in 2008. Working mainly in performance, he uses the unaccompanied voice of himself and co-performers, alongside invited audience participation. (www.stevenanderson.info)