Syson Gallery's new doorway, Weekday Cross
You moved from Beck Street to High Pavement in May 2015, less than a year ago, what’s prompted another move so soon after?
It was always part of the plan to be as close as possible to Nottingham Contemporary and we certainly have found that being in the Lace Market has been remarkably good for us over the last nine months or so. We adored our original space on Beck Street and its domestic scale, it was cosy yet eccentric and we had pretty much a free rein. We were so lucky to be there thanks to our landlords, Antenna – but we outgrew the building and they desperately needed more storage – so it made sense for us to find a bigger place, which was more central.
After a concentrated period of fundraising we managed to find a place in the perfect spot and did what we could to make the building on High Pavement fit for purpose, but sadly that wasn’t always possible. Much of this process was out of our control, and this made it hard to really feel settled there. I’m incredibly proud of the five great exhibitions and accompanying projects we achieved in that space – and did what we could with the part of the building we had, but something much more suited to being a gallery, only a few doors up the road came to my attention at Christmas and it seemed like the right thing to do to move on. Although we’d only just upped sticks, I felt justified in taking a chance on making the gallery even better.
The new gallery is a stone’s throw away, so obviously the location is still important to you. Was it quite a swift process acquiring the new space?
We’ve worked through an agent this time. Through learning lots through our last move, it has seemed more of a straightforward decision linked into the longevity of the gallery as a business. Obviously, moving is incredibly stressful still but thankfully it has been achievable.
John Newling
Having looked around the Weekday Cross, it feels like a more interesting space – have you had to do much to get it whipped in to shape? The light is beautiful. What does the new space offer that’s unique?
Our new place is part of a collection of buildings called Union Chambers. Our part – at the end of a somewhat secluded passageway – has ground floor access and some beautiful architectural features and is flooded with natural light through a central atrium skylight. The building is in pretty good shape, but in order to show contemporary art we built special stud walls and changed some things that were a bit more officey previously. Our new place offers more autonomy for the people the gallery work alongside too. I think that may have seemed confusing to visitors before as our shop area was a bit of everything mixed together. Dohm Shop now has a much more clearly defined space of its own, and upstairs houses Landfill Editions and weaver Hannah Waldron. I’m really excited about the handmade pigmented parquet floor artist Blue Firth has installed and we also have spruced up the outdoor area.
We also have more space, which we can offer to hire too – The Upper Room offers a large project space, which we have some great plans for. It will be part of the exhibition when we open, although the possibilities are very versatile moving forward. We hope to be able to present and support a wide range of events from meditation and yoga, massage treatments and alternative therapies, small group workshops and discussion groups in the future. We’re in discussion with a few people already about this but we’d like to hear more from people in need of a small venue for regular get togethers or happenings. I think it might work well for small dance classes or meetings too – but it’s important to clarify that this space is not for exhibition hire or art related activities – we’ve already got that pegged!
Your first exhibition is one that was postponed from the start of the year due to the change of venue, John Newling’s Last Islands. It’s slightly different to his usual work, can you tell us a bit about it.
Working on Last Islands with John has been a real privilege – we were lucky he was so understanding about our move as he is a busy artist these days. You’re right about this exhibition being something different – John is predominantly known for his work in installation/sculpture and often his practice as an artist is concerned with an event or an activity of some kind. For example his project Chatham Vines, which won the Rowse Kent public art award, saw him growing Pinot Noir vines hydroponically in a disused church. And, more recently, in Nottingham I worked with him on Singing Uncertainty where he formed an unlikely choir of individuals who simultaneously sang all the questions which appear in the Methodist Hymn book. In 2013 he had a major retrospective at Nottingham Contemporary and we saw a diverse range of John’s work going right back to the seventies. Much of it accumulated large sculptural works and combined this with his more recent experimentation with soil production and the growth of significant plant life.
Continuing his interest in the anthrepocene, (that is, the definable period in time where human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems) Last Islands is primarily about soil construction – but unusually for John, this is presented though a series of large scale two-dimensional works. Writer Richard Davey describes this a bit better than me: “Newling's recent series of Last Island paintings offers us a map of its unseen territories. These lustrous, beautiful works shimmering with gold leaf and layers of worked and reworked paint surfaces allows us to glimpse the world beneath our feet, the soil which not only sustains life but feeds our particular identity.”
John Newling
Will there be any events run alongside the exhibition?
Yes, a fair few! We’re launching on Thursday 24 March in the evening but open on Good Friday too as normal between 12-5pm. Dohm Shop will be having their official launch on Saturday 26, where we encourage you to come and get a spot to eat and peruse through the fantastic range of products on offer, all sourced and designed by individuals with a contemporary art background. If you are a ceramics fan and enjoy a mixture of innovatively designed apparel and functional homeware this is definitely for you. Landfill Editions present a new iteration of the Soft Circuit noticeboard with new work by Helsinki based artist and author of Pure Shores, Jaakko Pallasvuo, in collaboration with Good Press in Glasgow.
We’ll also be open all weekend for the Nottingham Art Map Art Weekender on 14 and 15 May. On the Saturday at 1pm we’ll be launching our first publication designed by Pavilionary – a new book on artist Alexander Massouras featuring writing by John Newling and John Paul Stonard. Then on the Sunday I’ll be doing an informal talk about collecting, owning and living with contemporary art. Throughout the weekend Dohm Shop will launch some special offers and perfect pampering with new products from its apothecary and homeware range. Finally John Newling will be in conversation with me about the exhibition specifically the new works he has made for the space, the Human Nature Table, on Thursday 19 May at 7pm.
You’re also going to be having a show later in the year that’s part of the Grand Tour Season 2 with events – how did you get involved and what will the exhibition be focused on?
We answered a call-out to be part of the fringe and I’d always wanted to do something about the topics in the exhibition. Nature’s Ape is a seasonal programme which takes its cue from Giambattisa della Porta’s Natural Magick; a sixteenth century account on the relationship between art, the artist and nature. This series of events invoke the role of magician as both artist and nature’s assistant. It concentrates upon artists’ interpretations of the natural world and the sublime, against a background and awareness of contemporary scientific knowledge and technological development and innovation. Many of the works featured will focus will upon an artist’s interpretation of darkness or light – either aping nature in some way; taking on board philosophical connotations; responding to architectural space or studying phenomena through scientific means.
In addition to a comprehensive group exhibition and film programme, events will also take place in the most commonly occurring, yet mysterious vernacular structures in Nottingham: the man made sandstone caves which lie beneath many buildings or at street level in the city centre. Participating artists include Berndnaut Smilde, Mimei Thompson, Blue Firth, John Newling, Paul Harraway, S Mark Gubb and Jeremy Millar/
Last Islands: John Newling, Thursday 25 March - Saturday 21 May, Syson Gallery, Weekday Cross.
Nature's Ape, Saturday 18 June - Wednesday 14 September, part of The Grand Tour Season 2.
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