Author Archives: Jessica

Factual Nonsense: The Art and Death of Joshua Compston

Posted by Jessica

The publication launch is accompanied by an exhibition at the Paul Stolper Gallery, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.  20 June 2013 6-8pm, with the exhibition running from 21 June – 21 August 2013

 

Factual Nonsense – The Art and Death of Joshua Compston is both a biography and an alternative portrait of the 1990’s art scene in London’s East End. It is also a guide to living fast and dying young in the contemporary art world; Joshua Compston made Hoxton hip and Shoreditch sexy. The list of the fifty or so interviewees in the book reads like a who’s who of the contemporary art world, with contributions from the likes of Jessica Voorsanger, Jay Jopling, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Sam Taylor-Wood, Gary Hume, Gavin Turk, Maureen Paley, and Sir Peter Blake.

Seen by some as the romantic martyr of his generation, by others as a prankster sending up the art establishment, Compston was a driving force that helped turn the East End of London into the cultural hub that it is today. He was determined to change the world through art. His gallery, Factual Nonsense (FN), was quite unlike any other. Called a ‘crazy powerhouse of ideas’, Factual Nonsense was a cultural think-tank located in a then run-down area of the East End.

Text Pieces ~ Hull Heroes

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Hull Heroes was a project created for Illuminations, Hull Time Based Art. The project was a celebration of Hull. Residents were interviewed as to who were their Hull Heroes, which resulted in a series of posters and postcards that were displayed all over Hull.

 

 

 

Bead Works ~ Music

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The beads works began with portraits of musicians. Conceptually, the portraits which measure at 1 ½” inches high (before being mounted onto a canvas/fabric ground) is how large you would see an actual performer live in concert, perspectively. There is very little detail within the portraits but enough to recognise who they are.

Bead Works ~ Film

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As part of the Bead Works Series , these small paintings created with beads on velvet surfaces explored the relationship of the celebrity as religious icon. Using film as the vehicle, the works include: Charleton Heston as Moses at the parting of the Red Sea, in The Ten Commandments; Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc, in The Messenger and Charleton Heston as Michaelangelo and Rex Harrison as the Pope in The Agony & The Ecstacy.

 

Memorabilia Works

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The Memorabilia Works include several projects that all celebrate the connection to a well-known person/celebrity as an icon, where anything connected to that person becomes quite precious. This ranges from articles, objects, souveniers, etc.

The projects include Art Stars – where artists, critics, curators and other people connected to the London Art scene in 1998 were invited to make an impression in concrete of there hand prints, like Graumann’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. Also in this series is Stars Homes, where Jessica Voorsanger had her photograph taken outside of celebrities homes in New York using a tourist celebrities homes map.

Another project in the series was Jessica’s obtaining Bob Geldof’s rubbish and presenting it in a gallery, resulting in her being interviewed on The Big Breakfast and being presented with the rubbish of the current presenters: Keith Chegwin, Zoe Ball and Vanessa Feltz.

Family Art Projects ~ Shanghai

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The Shanghai Family Art Project consisted of a residency in Shanghai and Beijing in 2006. It was awarded by Artist Links, which was a subsidiary of the British and Arts Councils. Working with a migrant workers school in Shanghai, the exhibition and workshops at Island6 Gallery consisted of the outcomes of these collaborations and a series of short films.

David Cassidy Projects ~ Wyatt’s Photographs

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As part of the David Cassidy Series , Jessica Voorsanger showed a series of publicity photographs taken by her friend Wyatt Counts. The disused photographs were shown with a text explaining their provenance at the Anthony Wilkinson Gallery in 1998.

David Cassidy Projects ~ Partridge Wear Collection

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The Partridge Wear Collection is a project from the David Cassidy Series . Jessica Voorsanger sat through 63 consecutive episodes of the Partridge Family (television show) cataloguing the storylines, costumes and featured songs for each episode. She then created a line of clothing (with a line for each character) from the TV show. Each of the clothes, a one of a kind, were labelled ‘Partridge Wear Collection’ with a hanging tag that had the title of the show where the item was worn, a synopsis of the episode and the featured song. All of the items were either altered, located or created specifically for this project. It was originally shown at Gallery W-139 in Amsterdam in 1995.

David Cassidy Projects ~ David Cassidy

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There are several David Cassidy Projects, as Jessica Voorsanger’s initial fascination with the concept of celebrity came from her falling in love with Davis Cassidy at the age of six. The projects have ranged from getting David Cassidy’s autograph in the pieceBlood Brothers to having lunch with David, in the piece Lunch With David (which consisted of an audio of the interview conducted forWhat’s On in London Magazine , debris from the lunch and the magazine).

Football Projects ~ Liverpool v Everton

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Jessica Voorsanger was commissioned in 1998 to created a piece of work for the Liverpool Biennial. She decided to try to unite the city that was divided by its two premier league football teams by celebrating them both. She had eleven players from both Liverpool and Everton Football Clubs make impressions of their football boots into plasticine. These impressions were then made into ceramic tiles and glazed in the colours of their teams. Eleven fans from each team were also invited to make impressions of their footprints as well. The final 44 tiles were shown at Tate Liverpool. They were created as an edition of two. One of the editions was given to the teams, to share. There were also off shoot projects from this, in particular, the Liverpool Football Club school drawing competition where the winner was able to meet their favourite player.

 

Bead Works ~ Football Chants

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This series of paintings were beaded texts mounted on velvet canvases, as part of the Bead Works Series . The exhibition coincided with The World Cup in Germany (2006), with the exhibition taking place in Berlin at Gallerie-33, FON. The texts themselves all came from the chants/songs that were song by one nation’s football supporters to either the other teams supporters or team. The mix of often crude and insulting texts were in contrast to the beautiful appearance of the paintings themselves.

 

Performances ~ Reg Perfect & The Squeegees

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Reg Perfect & The Squeegees was an exhibition curated by Leigh Clarke. The participating artists were asked to ‘interpret’ what kind of band that they were. It was a predominantly printmaking exhibition, hence the band name being a play on printmaking terms ‘registration perfect’ and squeegees. Jessica Voorsanger’s version of the band was as a ‘glam rock’ band. Her contribution was both a poster, where she posed as all of the members of the band and an installation of the band’s dressing room. The dressing room included their costumes, make-up, rider and pre-show food requests, beer & cigarettes. On the preview night there was a performance, which included Leigh Clarke as Reg, of the band.

Portraits ~ Henry Moore

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This performance took place at The Art Car Boot Fair. Following on from the previous year’s performance of Portraits by Amy Winehouse , playing on the theme of tourists having their portraits drawn. In this case, the portraits of the visitors were drawn in charcoal but in the style of Henry Moore. The added element to the performance was that Jessica Voorsanger was dressed as Henry Moore while she created the portraits.

 

Portraits ~ Amy Winehouse

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This performance took place at The Art Car Boot Fair. Playing on the theme of tourists having their portraits drawn. In this case, the portraits of the visitors were painted in oils, highly out of place in a street fair as they take up to a week to dry to the touch. They were also timed to take one hour. The added element to the performance was that Jessica Voorsanger was dressed as Amy Winehouse while she created the portraits.

 

Performances ~ Fan-a-Grams

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Performances: Jessica Voorsanger often uses performance as a medium within her work, either by performing herself or by inviting visitors to participate in interactive exhibitions. The Impostor Series relies quite heavily on the use of costumes and interactivity, often through the inclusion of karaoke.

Fan-a-Grams This performative artwork was based on the idea of a telegram. The only difference was that instead of receiving a telegram/message the recipient received a screaming fan club of approx 5-10 girls demanding their autograph, telling them that they loved them, etc. The instructions that the girls had were to be persistent until they had received their autographs. The recipients of the Fan-a-Grams were nominated by a friend. Once the autograph was obtained, they were given a certificate authenticating the experience (and letting them know who selected them to receive the experience) and a badge that stated: “I have been Fan-a-Grammed by Jessica Voorsanger’s Official posse of Fans”. The Fan-a-Grams were always held at a public event, ie. Livestock Market, The Hayward Gallery, etc.

Mystery Train ICA ~ Art on the Underground

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Mystery Train was a large project that culminated in both an artist book (edition of 200) from the ICA and a series of posters for Art on the Underground. She was commissioned by the ICA, in partnership with Westminster’s charity Pursuing Independent Paths, to work with young adults with special needs to make transport accessible. The publication is downloadable from the ICA websitehttp://www.ica.org.uk/19010/ Mystery-Train/Mystery-Train- publication.html

Commissioned Works ~ TV Swansong

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TV Swansong was an Internet based exhibition curated by Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie, the theme centred on television moving over to the Internet. Jessica Voorsanger’s contribution was collaboration with CBBC’s (Children’s BBC Television) SMart. SMart was a children’s art making TV programme. They filmed a segment at The LCCA (Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art, the gallery that Jessica runs with her husband, Bob & Roberta Smith). The segment that was filmed centred on a project that Jessica devised and was later broadcast on the BBC. The result of the airing was to create a competition for other children to send in their artworks culminating on the Swansong TV live broadcast, The Turner Prize for Kids, which was presented by TV Arts presenter Matthew Collings.

Beacon Bardney Folk Festival

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Bardney 1972, 2004 was a commissioned projec for the first exhibition curated by Beacon in Lincolnshire. Creating site-specific works at historical locations in Lincolnshire, Jessica Voorsanger re-created the Bardney folk festival of 1972 where over 60,000 visitors decended upon the National Trust site of Tupholme Abbey in Bardney, Lincolnshire. She created a stage, with speakers and had the music played at the festival playing to the, now empty, field. The performers at the original festival included James Taylor, The Slade, Roxy Music & Genesis.

Bead Works ~ Hearing Voices Seeing Things

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Hearing Voices, Seeing Things was a commission project from the Serpentine Gallery in association with NELMET (North East London Mental Health Trust). Jessica Voorsanger was lead artist in the project with Bob & Roberta Smith. They invited a small group of artists to work with service users throughout North East London to either make collaborative or inspired artworks that were later shown in the Leytonstone Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) at The Serpentine. A facsimile LCCA was built on the grounds of The Serpentine Gallery, which housed the exhibition in 2006. The artists were: Karen Densham, Andy Lawson, Victor Mount, Mandy Lee Jandrell, Sally O’Reilly with Mel Brimfield, Jessica Voorsanger & Bob & Roberta Smith. Jessica Voorsanger worked around the theme of humour. For the exhibition she created two text pieces of jokes, as part of the Bead Work Series . One of which came out of one of the workshops by David Berlevy and the other by the poet John Hegley. At the opening event, part of Jessica’s work, there was a stand-up comedy performance that included: Simon Munnery, Noble and Silver, Zoe Lyons, Nick Doody & Matt Dyktynski. The event was called ‘Whats’s So Funny?’