Beatrice Gibson

17 January (2019)
Beatrice Gibson discussed her new exhibition and work with film scholar and critic Erika Balsom.

Erika Balsom is a senior lecturer in Film Studies and Liberal Arts at King’s College London. Her book After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation, was published by Columbia University Press in 2017. She is the author of Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (2013), the co-editor of Documentary Across Disciplines (2016), and a frequent contributor to magazines such as Artforum, frieze, and Sight and Sound. Her scholarly work has appeared in journals including Cinema Journal, Screen, and Grey Room, and she has contributed to exhibition catalogues for artists including Sarah Sze, Candice Breitz, and Rachel Rose. In 2017, she was the international curator in residence at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, New Zealand, resulting in the 2018 screening programme and publication An Oceanic Feeling: Cinema and the Sea. In 2018, she was awarded a Leverhulme Prize and the Katherine Singer Kovacs essay award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

5 – 9 February (2019)

Over the duration of a week, the composer Laurence Crane led experimental music workshops with students from Guildhall School of Music and Drama, rehearsing scores by composers whose music has influenced Beatrice Gibson’s work and share affinities with the two films.

Composers included John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Mary Jane Leach, Amber Priestley, John Lely, Christian Wolff and Pauline Oliveros. Gallery visitors were welcome to observe rehearsals and on Wednesday 6 February, the cellist Anton Lukoszevieve participated in the workshop. An informal performance took place in the gallery at the end of each day.

This was part of a programme of events hosted by composer, Laurence Crane.

6 February (2019)

Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze gives a short solo performance, which will include Raimondas Rumsas, a work for solo cello by Laurence Crane, composed for Lukoszevieze in 2002. The piece is played with a curved bow, which can sustain all four strings of the instrument simultaneously. Lukoszevieze has been performing Crane’s work for over 20 years – often with his own ensemble, Apartment House – and has also worked with Beatrice Gibson, most notably on her film Crippled Symmetry. Following the performance, Gibson and Crane will discuss collaborative processes in Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs.

John Lely: The Harmonics of Real Strings
Alvin Lucier: On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon
Darya Zvezdina: n
Laurence Crane: Raimondas Rumsas

Part of a programme of events hosted by composer, Laurence Crane.

Laurence Crane is closely associated with the ensemble Apartment House, who have given over 40 performances of his works. Compositions written for Apartment House include John White in Berlin, which is featured on the soundtrack of Beatrice Gibson’s new film I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead. In the past five years there have been four CDs released of his music; by Apartment House, and by the ensembles Cikada and Asamisimasa, both from Norway, and by the Ives Ensemble, from the Netherlands. His piece Octet, composed for Plus-Minus Ensemble, was shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, in the Chamber-Scale Composition category, and in 2017 he was a recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. He is currently a Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

9 February (2019)

Music by Laurence Crane and Pauline Oliveros is featured on the soundtracks of the two new films by Beatrice Gibson. This concert presented pieces by both composers; some sharing a similar aesthetic and structural characteristic with Gibson’s output and also with the work of Gertrude Stein, on whose screenplay Gibson bases Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs.

Exploring aspects of portraiture, repetition and duplication – exact and inexact – the music seems in many ways closely aligned to the notion of ‘the copy’ that fascinates Gibson.

Pauline Oliveros: Trio for flute, piano and page turner
Laurence Crane:  Piano Piece no.23 ‘Ethiopian Distance Runners’ 
Pauline Oliveros:  Portrait of Manuel Zurria
Laurence Crane:  Gli Anni Prog

Manuel Zurria (flutes and electronics)
Mark Knoop (piano)

Manuel Zurria worked with Oliveros on his realisation of ‘Portrait’, which he subsequently released on CD; Mark Knoop and Zurria have both been involved with the performance of Crane’s music for several years now.

Part of a programme of events hosted by composer, Laurence Crane.