Andrea Büttner, No fear, no shame, no confusion, 2006. Woodcut print. Courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London
A cumulative lists of all artists and projects involved in Nought to Sixty.
Nought to Sixty presents sixty projects by emerging artists based in Britain and Ireland over six months from 5 May to 2 November 2008.
Most of the artists in Nought to Sixty are under thirty-five, few of them have had significant commercial exposure, and in most cases this is their first opportunity to mount a solo project in a major public space.
The season is not intended to announce any new generation or style, but to build up a multifaceted portrait of the emerging art scene in the two countries, and to provide a space for exchange.
The Nought to Sixty programme consists of:
Events happen at the ICA every Monday night:
Sign up for regular updates about the Nought to Sixty and the rest of the ICA's programme, special events and offers. It's free.
Nought to Sixty is supported by:
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Büttner works in a variety of media, sometimes using old-fashioned items such as woodcuts and pressed flowers, and is especially interested in the area where art and religion overlap.
Andrea Büttner's work is in the Upper Gallery from Monday 30 June to Monday 7 July.
Using outmoded techniques such as woodcut and glass painting, Andrea Büttner (born Stuttgart, 1972, lives in London and Berlin) explores the enduring myths that cloak the fi gure of the artist. Büttner's prints bear self-deprecating statements – "I want to let the work fall down" or "I don't know what to do". These slogans hold a mirror up to a contemporary culture of 'shamelessness' – epitomised by the painful aspirations of reality television or in 'tell all' tabloid confessionals – and interrogate the potential dilemmas and pitfalls facing the artist in the expectant space of the gallery.
Büttner's interest in woodcut lies in its contradictory status as a medium that is fetishised for its involvement of the artist's hand (particularly in historical works by master craftsmen), but which is also by its nature expedient and democratic (and one of the earliest means developed for creating mass produced images). Büttner exploits the way the medium betrays every inaccuracy, and combines her aphorisms of failure with a technique where craft meets reproduction. The resulting images reflect what one critic described as "the emptiness of the codes by which our lives are defined". Religion is a recurring subject in Büttner's work, and she is influenced by historical figures such as Sister Corita Kent, whose artwork of the 1960s and 70s brought together both her religious and political beliefs. Büttner uses religious values as a lens through which to examine modern life, and for several years she has been observing the lives of a closed order of Carmelite nuns in Notting Hill, London. Initially making impromptu pencil sketches of the nuns at prayer, Büttner recently delved further into the art practice of these women in her short documentary film, Little Works (2007), which features in her Nought to Sixty exhibition. Unable to film within the walls of the convent, Büttner handed the camera to one of the sisters to record the making of 'little works' – small hand-crafted offerings made in the nuns' recreational time, ranging from crochet baskets to religious icons. While the nuns' concerns over the manufacture and display of their work are similar to the self-doubts of a professional artist, Little Works presents a wistful image of a creative microcosm untouched by the compromises of a secular age.
Büttner's project for Nought to Sixty brings together several prints, as well as a new series of photographs that revisit the Carmelite nuns. The documents of the nuns' recent works are displayed in and among Büttner's spatial interventions, while the walls of the gallery are daubed in brown paint as high as the artist can reach unassisted. Fresh clay sculptures nestle in corners of the gallery space, gradually drying out and disintegrating over the course of the exhibition. These bold elemental gestures evoke the physical presence of the artist, framing the project as an endless labour where completion and satisfaction are infinitely deferred.
Andrew Bonacina
Nought to Sixty in pictures: Andrea Büttner
Conveying some persistent thoughts following a recent symposium at the ICA on the 'educational turn' in art.
Artist-led organisations that support networks of emerging art in Wales.
Photos of the projects, artists and audiences taking part in Nought to Sixty.
Nought to Sixty includes a series of monthly discussions that address the networks that form and contribute to an emerging scene.