EXHIBITIONS - PERFORMANCES - PROJECTS - WRITING


2006 SINGAPORE BIENNALE [Vernissage 1-3 Sept]
BELIEF is the theme for Singapore's first visual arts biennale. If today's world has painfully called into question many certainties governing society, history and humankind..[more] More than 50% of the exhibition will showcase artists from across the Asia Pacific, with artists from Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, Europe and North America completing the full list. These will be a mix of both emerging as well as established artists working across all art forms including architecture, biotechnology, drawing, installation, new media, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, sound projects and video[view participating artists] [more info]

2006 VOLTA 02 ART FAIR - BASEL
With David Risley Gallery June 14-18th, Ultra Brag, Sudquaistrasse 55, CH-Basel

2006 SCARECROW
International group exhibition at Evangelos Averoff Museum in Metsovo, Northern Greece. "The cental motif of the exhibition, the scarecrow, acts as a celebratory emblem, a warning sign for transgressors, a reminder of reprisals...". Includes Jonathan Allen, Stefan Bruggemann, Marcus Coates, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Thomas Eller, Tom Hunter, Henry Krokatsis, Hew Locke, Rosemarie McGoldrick, Olivia Plender, Bob & Roberta Smith and others.


2006 PULSE ART FAIR NEW YORK
Biannual invitational contemporary art fair, that coincides with The Armory Show March 10-13, 2006. Pulse takes place at the 69th Regiment Armory, home to the legendary 1913 Armory Show and the inaugural Armory Show.


2006 SMOKE AND MIRRORS
Smoke and Mirrors investigates the crossover between artists' film and video and traditional cinema.The four day programme references the artifice of early cinema and theatre whereby the practice of magician and filmmaker were often indistinguishable. Includes work by Georges Méliès, Pathé Frères and Edison alongside recent video works by Elizabeth McAlpine, Jonathan Allen[image], Jason Dee, Sara Fletcher & Edward Adam and Tobias Sternberg.  

2006 DAVID RISLEY GALLERY
Solo exhibition January 12th-19th February 2006.[info]
19th January 6.30-8.30pm[review] [review]

2006 THE CIRCUS SHOW
11th March- 2nd April.Three Colts Gallery, London.‘The Circus Show’ is a group show inspired by Alexander Calder’s Circus and celebrating the spectacle and the crowd, play and transformation, a site of chaos and excess, of mutation and exchange in the spirit of Bakhtinian liberation, of the ‘carnivalesque’.[info]

2006 TATE BRITAIN
Taking the Tate Collection displays as inspiration, award-winning live art collective Duckie cruise the spaces and displays of Tate Britain, delving into the worlds of art and belief. From the salutary to the provocative, Duckie present performances from Chris Green, Joshua Sofaer and Tommy Angel Part of Late at Tate Britain: February 2006. KEEP THE FAITH - Friday 3rd February 2006, 18.00–22.00 [image] [image]


2006 MAGIC MAGAZINE
Feature article on Tommy Angel in Las Vegas published Magic Magazine[image] the world's widest distribution magic monthy publication.[text]

2005 VARIETY
The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea re-opens in late summer 2005 after major refurbishment with VARIETY [url], a three month programme of events that 'explores how contemporary artists have not only been influenced by the variety genre, but have a genuine desire to be part of it, to reconfigure, reinterpret and transform it.' Artists include Jonathan Allen [images], Ian Breakwell, Tommy Cooper, Marcel Duchamp, Rose English, Daria Martin, Aura Satz, Cindy Sherman, Mark Wallinger, Boyd Webb, Will Wegman, and others.[publication]


2004-6 TOMMY ANGEL
Tommy Angel is an ongoing heterogeneous visual art project that centers on the critical parody of a fictitious ‘gospel magician’, that is, a fundamentalist Christian who evanglises using the medium of conjuring and magic. Described as 'Billy Graham meeting David Copperfield via Donald Rumsfeld', Tommy Angel has been deploying a heady mix of Christian evangelism and glitzy magic showmanship to art and cabaret audiences alike since 2001. With the West fixated on Islamic fundamentalism, Tommy Angel satirises fundamentalism's Christian face. He preens before his congregations, a sinister and narcissistic miracle worker, reminding us of magic’s indivisibility with religion and the relationships of power upon which both rely. A white tipped magician’s wand in the shape of a crucifix offers questionable salvation, the word FAITH appears on the flag of a child’s bang-gun, a bible bursts into flames when opened. .. [more text]. He has recently performed for the opening of the Hayward Gallery's Eyes, Lies and Illusions, ZOO Art Fair [URL] and for Duckie, with whom he will be performing at Tate Britain in 2006. Tommy Tommy Angel is currently supported by Arts Council England, and Artsadmin.[image] [www.tommyangel.net]


2004 NON HUMAN
Group exhibition at David Risley Gallery, London.‘Portraits are the evidence of existence. They immortalise a life lived, providing an indication of the stature of the sitter, a symbol of power, position and possession, real or desired. What, then, can a portrait of a non-human, an outsider, an alien, an aberration mean?' Artist include Jonathan Allen [image],George Condo, Helen Frik, Peter Jones, John Stezaker.


2004 CENTREFOLD SCRAPBOOK
Centrefold Scrapbook is a limited-production collection of works by London artists, organised by artists Reza Aramesh and Tina Spear.'Centrefold Scrapbook is a meeting place of drawing, paint, text, collage and copy-shop reproduction, with each artist providing an alternative interpretation of the artist’s ‘work on paper’.
Scrapbook 2 contributors are: Shahin Afrassiabi, Jonathan Allen, Reza Aramesh, Sarah Baker,James Barrett & Robin Forster, Diann Bauer, JJ Charlesworth, Henry Coleman, Ilya Gridneff, Mustafa Hulusi,Lynne Marsh,Jo Mitchell, Paul Noble, Pil & Galia Collectiv, David Risley, Jamie Robinson, Giles Round, Anna Schori, Tina Spear, Holly Walsh.

So You're Afraid of What? was a Centrefold gallery event at REDUX Gallery, London, in October 2004. Artists included Jonathan Allen [image], Reza Aramesh,Sarah Baker, Diann Bauer, Lali Chetwynd,Doug Fishbone, HK119, Andy Ming-Yen Hsu,Seb Patane, Giles Round, John Russell,Tina Spear and Francis Upritchard.


2004 MESMER
'Scrutiny, Seduction and Sleight of Hand' Group exhibition at temporarycontemporary (London) curated by Antony Gross. How does the gaze of the artist in what they see and what they make become the gaze of the viewer as the artwork enters their world? Mesmer looks at the obsessive and hypnotic gaze and how it is central to both the production and reception of an artwork. Works in video (Peter Fillingham, Paul O’Neill), animation (Anthony Gross, Laurie Hill), neon (Jonathan Allen [image], Howard Dyke), installation (Luke Oxley, Seb Patane, Giles Round, Lindsay Seers, Mark Titchner, Jen Wu) drawing (Diann Bauer) and painting (Ian Dawson, David Lock, Cedar Lewisohn)

2004 CONTEMPORARY MAGAZINE
'GOSPEL MAGIC - Jonathan Allen Opens Up God's Box Of Tricks'.
Article commissioned for CONTEMPORARY magazine TRIVIA section, edited by Sally O'Reilly.


2002 CON ART
'Con Art: Magic/Object/Action surveys contemporary Western art as it relates to one of the basic principles found in magic; sleight of hand or conjuring. The works demonstrate the ways in which art and magic share a similar goal of 'cunning and conning' while casting a critical glance at everyday reality. The exhibition tests out the ways in which the rhetoric and imagery of conjuring offer a critique of representation and a model for art production and consumption.'
Artists include: Jonathan Allen [image], Anna & Bernhard Blume, Sarah Charlesworth, Christian Jankowski, Ingeborg Luscher, Simon Patterson, Keith Tyson, Mark Wallinger, Aura Satz
Con Art was inititated by Jonathan Allen with American curator Helen Varola and SITE Gallery director Carol Maund. [more]

1998 SECOND TRUTHS
Second Truths was a Photo98 commission, and solo exhibition at Site Gallery, Sheffield. Through a series of eight lenticular photographs, which 'switch' when viewed from side to side, Second Truths explores the museum space as an unfixed and volitile container of cultural meaning. Museums included The Freud Museum [image], The Darwin Museum, Harrow School Fourth Form Room, The Stephen's Ink Museum, Barcelona Perfume Museum, The Victoria & Albert Mseum, Bovingdon Tank Museum [image], and The Old Operating Theatre Museum.(publication)

1998 STONE TROUPERS
Stone Troupers was a Hypertribes commission with film maker Steve Hawley for Lovebytes digital arts festival in Sheffield. 'For six weeks, four tiny neo-classical heads high on a building in the city centre were video-animated using the faces of Sheffield's shifting populations...'
[image]

CURRICULUM VITAE/IMAGES/TEXTS
Past Exhibitions, Reviews and Images

LINKS
www.davidrisleygallery.com
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
www.re-title.com
www.axisweb.org.uk


CONTACT
mail@jonathanallen.info