Blue View
Tags: Aftermath: Objects from Projects, Alan Charlton, Almost Bliss: Notes on Derek Jarman's Blue, Bruce McLean, Daryl Biggs, Ed Webb-Ingall, Eddie Farrell, Elena Crippa, Every Now and Then, Gary Woodley, Hana Noorali, James Mackay, jarman2014, Laure Genillard, Lisson Gallery, Lynton Talbot, Mady Neighbour, Mark Turner, Mark Wallinger, Nicholas Logsdail, Nicky Carvell, Pandemonium, Peter Fillingham, Process Progress Project Archive, Rear Window, Rehearsing: Samuel Beckett, Richard Salmon, Roger Cook, Should I Stay Or Should I Go, Stephen Farthing
The show revolves around Derek Jarman’s notes for his seminal late work Blue and is part of Jarman2014 a year long cycle of events, exhibitions, and screenings to celebrate the life and work of Derek Jarman and to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his premature death from AIDS related illnesses. The whole season opened on January 22nd with the excellent exhibition Pandemonium curated by Mark Turner at Kings College. With our installation opening one week later it was hard to know whether we would draw a crowd but CHELSEA space very quickly filled up with old and new friends.
The other co-editor on the Sketchbooks book, Ed Webb-Ingall, was also at the private view and is seen here with film producer James Mackay and with artist, art historian, and sometime fashion model Roger Cook who played Christ in Derek Jarman’s film, The Garden. Blue (or Bliss as it was originally titled) was conceived as the 3rd part of a trilogy along with The Last of England and The Garden, Jarman’s powerful personal reflections on the state of the country in the late 1980s.
We were surprised and pleased to see one of our longtime collaborators, the artist Eddie Farrell who has recently returned from living in Berlin. Eddie worked with us on our our very first show Gary Woodley:Impingement No.47 as part of the performance Food Eating. He then played a major role as audio/visual artist-archivist for our Bruce McLean show Process Progress Project Archive in 2006 and in the same year created a day of performances and events entitled Acting Eating Reading Drinking Meeting as part of our exhibition Rehearsing: Samuel Beckett. We were also delighted to see designer Mady Neighbour who worked with Derek Jarman on the theatre designs for Beckett’s Waiting For Godot starring Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson at the Queens Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue in 1991.
In 1967 Derek Jarman was invited by Nicholas Logsdail to be in the inaugural exhibition at the Lisson Gallery and it was a great pleasure to see Nicholas at our private view. He arrived with Laure Genillard, who curated Aftermath: Objects From Projects at CHELSEA space in 2011, and Lynton Talbot and Hana Noorali who, with Elena Crippa, curated our 5th anniversary exhibitions and events Should I Stay or Should I Go in 2010.
As always it was great to see the polychrome vision of Daryl Biggs and Nicky Carvell, Nicky showed with us in Red White and Blue; Pop Punk Politics Place which also included Derek Jarman’s Super-8 film Jordan’s Dance, famous for its inclusion in his dystopian feature film Jubilee. As Derek Jarman’s Blue is, in part, a tribute to Yves Klein it was also a great pleasure to see Britain’s own master of the monochrome, artist Alan Charlton, whose new show opens at Annely Juda Fine Art on 13th February
Thanks to everyone who attended the private view and made the event a success.