Nottingham Contemporary | Spring 2020
Virtual Exhibitions

NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY
Weekday Cross, Nottingham, NG1 2GB

Diane Simpson: Sculpture, Drawing, Prints 1976–2014

There is a carefully considered balance in the work of the Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson, where fluidity meets rigidity, and minimal flat forms create a complex sense of depth.

In Simpson’s first institutional solo presentation in Europe, Nottingham Contemporary will present four decades of work by the American sculptor, most of which have never previously been shown in the UK.

Meticulously handcrafted, Simpson’s sculptures are constructed from components of fibreboard, plywood and other everyday materials that seamlessly interlock. Forms are borrowed from architectural details, clothing and the bodies that inhabit them, reflecting an interest in the coexistence of the domestic and industrial worlds.

Sculptures begin as drawings that visualise details from the history of clothing and design, rotated at 45-degree angles using techniques borrowed from architecture and engineering as well as Chinese and Japanese art. Adding layers of abstraction, Simpson translates these blueprints into three-dimensional space replicating the 45-degree angle perspective. Simpson’s process will be represented in the exhibition through preparatory drawings on graph paper exhibited alongside sculpture.

The exhibition includes wall-based, freestanding and suspended work from her seminal Samurai series (1981–82) alongside examples from later bodies of work such as Historical (1984–90), Headgear (1990–96) and Apron (2000–05).

Sung Tieu: In Cold Print

Nottingham Contemporary presents a new commission by the Vietnam-born, Berlin/London-based artist, Sung Tieu, in her first major institutional solo exhibition in the UK.

In Cold Print comprises of a newly conceived installation, including sound, texts, sculptures and architectural interventions. Tieu's new body of work continues her ongoing investigation into the psychological dimension of warfare, acoustic weaponry and its relationship to Cold War ideologies.

At the heart of the exhibition, Tieu’s new soundscape manipulates material related to the so-called “Havana Syndrome”. First reported in late 2016 by US embassy staff posted in Cuba, it manifested in unexplained disorders and brain injuries resembling concussions, and was believed to be caused by a sound weapon. Spurring a multitude of theories, the US considered this to be a politically targeted attack. The Cuban government denies such accusations.

For In Cold Print, the artist exposed herself to a reconstruction of the acoustic attack to record her cerebral activity and translate it both visually and acoustically. Enquired from the perspective of Tieu's subjectivity and political agency, this new work questions the legibility of scientific narratives and the reliability of proof-making.

The exhibition space is dominated and divided by a maze of steel fences and concrete pillars. Within it, large vertical display screens showcase newspaper spreads, a continuation of the artist’s Newspaper 1969 – ongoing series. Acting as information agents, they reveal the complexity of the research material and the manipulated set up of the project, blurring the line between evidence, counter-evidence, science and conspiracy, while exploring how the dissemination of ideas can affect perception.

The multi-channel sound work is conceived in collaboration with composer Ville Haimala (one half of music duo Amnesia Scanner), and neuroscientist and psychologist Christian Sumner, with the support of Frederike Vanheusden and Rob Morris, all of whom are based at Nottingham Trent University.

Nottingham Contemporary is producing the artist's first publication in collaboration with Haus der Kunst (Munich), where Tieu will present another solo project, Zugzwang, 30 January — 21 June 2020. The publication will be launched on 25 April 2020.

Denzil Forrester: Itchin & Scratchin

Spanning more than 40 years, Itchin & Scratchin is Denzil Forrester’s most significant institutional show to date, bringing together a wide range of paintings and drawings by the Grenada-born British artist. The exhibition roams from London to Rome and New York, from Jamaica to Cornwall. Pulsing with music and movement, these nocturnal scenes are by turns intimate and ecstatic, singular records of the Afro-Caribbean experience in Britain.

As an art student in the late 1970s, Forrester was a regular at East London’s dub-reggae clubs. There he began to make drawings of MCs, DJs and dancers, strobes and sound-systems. His sketches were made on rolls of A1 paper, in the time it took to play a single track; done quickly on dark dancefloors, they captured energy and rhythm as much as form and colour. These sketches became transformed into vibrant paintings: “I go drawing at night and during the day I paint.”

Dub music was developed in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1960s, around the time Forrester moved from Grenada to London. It involved creating remixed instrumental versions of vocal tracks, and manipulating them with a range of effects – echo, reverb, delay. These effects are central to Forrester’s paintings, many of which are titled for dub records.

Forrester visited Kingston for the first time last year, and here are presented a new body of work shaped by Jamaica’s sound-systems and open-air parties. Across four decades, Forrester’s work constitutes a remarkable kind of public address, a way of seeing sound.

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Find out more: nottinghamcontemporary.org
From 8 February 2020 to 3 May 2020.

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