The World According to Greenwood

Curatorial Practice:

RED APE: The RED APE project is dedicated to the preservation and legacy of Performance Art in provincial areas of the U.K. Duration, Ritual, Becoming Animal, Being and Immediacy are central to its guerilla ideology. For RED APE activity prior to 2010 please visit: http://redape23.blogspot.com/

RED APE 2010

In conjunction and parallel to the 'Pigs of today are the Hams of Tomorrow', the Red Ape, curated by Mark Greenwood, presented guerilla performances from Alastair MacLennan, Roddy Hunter, Bean, Leo Devlin, Sinead O’Donnell, Ula Dajerling, gyrl grip (Lisa Newman and Llewyn Maire) and himself. The project has investigated ideas of duration in relation to the body, emphasising corpo-reality and the material effects and disaffects of temporality, significations of time passing, somatic feedback loops, the rhythms and repetitions of ritual and everyday activities that communicate responses to dystopian environments and inconsistent realities.
In keeping with neo-modern concerns, the artists offered the body as a site of resistance to be countered and encountered. Restriction, instruction, covert activity and passive intervention figured in performances that aimed to re-present performance art as an immediate and experiential art form. The artists responded to the following paths:

Short actions and useless recognitions

Durational dialogues and ergodic encounters

External interventions and elastic temporalities

Red Ape photos:

Colour: Llewyn Maire apart from gyrl grip: Paul White

Black and white: Paul White

Alastair MacLennan is one of Britain's major practitioners in live art. Since 1975 he has been based in Belfast and was a founder member of Belfast's Art and Research Exchange. He is also a member of the European Performance Group 'Black Market International’. During the 1970's and 1980's he made long durational performances in Britain and America, of up to 144 hours each, non-stop, usually neither eating nor sleeping throughout. Subject matter dealt with political, social and cultural malfunction.

©Alastair MacLennan 2011

Bean (U.K) explores the relationships between object, material, body, time, quantity and fact. Mapping connections, traces and bad science her practice reveals the crude, ugly and beautiful. For Bean, desire lies in organic territory and her dis/placement within it. Her work challenges boundaries through physical action; testing and tying the body and mind through duration.

©Bean 2011

Leo Devlin (Northern Ireland) Devlin’s performance practice explores a series of trans(ag)gressive rituals. Devlin’s demotic actions are idiosyncratic descriptions of masculine crisis. Anger, fear, and futility are entrenched in his visual poetics of impending violence and reconciliation. Devlin has performed internationally as well as being a co-director of Catalyst Arts in Belfast. His work has been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

©Leo Devlin 2011

Sinéad O’Donnell is an Irish artist based in Belfast. Her nomadic practice draws on a number of disparate art forms including performance, drawing, collage and assemblage that articulate isolation, abuse, and displacement. Sinead has performed internationally for the past ten years as well as curating international artist exchanges In Belfast.

Roddy Hunter (Scotland) is a recognised artist, organizer, writer and teacher in the field of contemporary performance art practice. He has become best known for contextual and conceptual performance art works mainly concerned with urban knowledge and ideology. He has exhibited in the streets, art centres, galleries and museums of Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East for over ten years. He is currently the Director of Fine Art at St John’s University in York, England.

Ula Dajerling (Poland) In 2009 Ula completed postgraduate studies in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Dajerling works within the fields of performance art, video and installation. Her practice focuses on the symbiotic and dialogic interactions between body, object and space. Through a juxtaposition of the familiar and the symbolic, image and form are utilised in order to disrupt the aesthetic/synaesthetic expectations of the viewer.

gyrl grip: Lisa Newman and Llewyn Máire (USA) Using video, movement, sound sculpture, endurance, conceptual and text-based performance, the gyrl grip explores new possibilities of communicating the incommunicable. The gyrl grip is driven by the desire to reveal, and de-veil challenging issues that exist within postmodern life and society. Their goal is not to provide answers, but to expose the difficult questions hidden behind cultural taboos and media spectacle, and to provide a forum for dialogue through the performative act. Additionally, Llewyn Máire and Lisa Newman co-direct/curate events as, 2 Gyrlz.