 John Wood and Paul Harrison

The Contemporary Art Gallery and Ballet BC present the world premiere performance of *Very Clear Instructions* in partnership with The Polygon Gallery.

Following the exhibition *I DIDN’T KNOW I DIDN’T KNOW IT* at the beginning of 2016, John Wood and Paul Harrison embarked on an intensive sequence of improvisatory workshops with the dancers of Ballet BC. What emerged is an ambitious commission between two of Vancouver’s most important cultural organizations, a new dance work involving movement, direction, costumes and staging.

Wood and Harrison have long been concerned with the body, characteristically employing a vocabulary that connects into the spatial concerns and material world of choreography and contemporary dance. They engage with attributes such as trust, cause and effect, action and reaction, and the physical arena and dimensions in which movement and gesture occurs with characteristic observations surrounding the human condition.

This new performance is structured as ten episodes such as “Falling,” “Right angles” or “Lean,” and combines much of their ongoing preoccupations with a keen delight, humour and reflection on human endeavor. Rooted in a distillation of everyday gestures and routine, a true conversation between the visual art world of John Wood and Paul Harrison and that of the dance corps of Ballet BC emerges. The familiar is made charmingly and compellingly strange, altering our perceptions as we move through the world.

### Biography 

John Wood and Paul Harrison live and work in Bristol, UK. They have many notable solo exhibitions including Galeria Vera Cortes, Lisbon (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2016); Von Bartha, Basel; ICC, Tokyo (2015); Carroll/Fletcher, London (2015); Museo de Antioquia, Medellin, Columbia (2014). They have also participated in group exhibitions worldwide: Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York (2016); Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (2015); OK Centre for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria (2014);  Kochi Museum of Art (2014); Okayama Museum of Art (2014); Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro(2013). Their Work is held in various public collections including Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA, New York; Ludwig Collection, Aachen; Tel Aviv Museum; Kadist Foundation, Paris and Tate, London. John Wood and Paul Harrison are represented by Galeria Vera Cortes, Lisbon; Von Bartha Garage, Basel and Studio Trisorio, Naples.

John Wood and Paul Harrison: Very Clear Instructions

Performance

The Contemporary Art Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Canada by British duo John Wood and Paul Harrison. Their practice unfolds as a way of observing the human condition, an ongoing investigation into the world that surrounds us, the objects we encounter and use daily, and our fundamental engagement with the physical; universe in all its sometime or seemingly futile existence. 

This talk is hosted by Emily Carr’s Visual Art Forums.


Fifteen metal rulers align diagonally on a white table in a gallery. Each is bent upwards at a 90 degree angle at different points. In combination, the aligned bent sections create a raised slope.

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John Wood and Paul Harrison

Talk 

The Contemporary Art Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Canada by British duo John Wood and Paul Harrison. Their practice unfolds as a way of observing the human condition, an ongoing investigation into the world that surrounds us, the objects we encounter and use daily, and our fundamental engagement with the physical universe in all its sometime or seemingly futile existence.

Comprising various everyday objects, drawings, photographs and videos, the exhibition provides a survey detailing recent propositions for the artists where narrative comes seeping in: taste, politics, aspiration, planning, individual and collective dreaming and ambition appear, literally and metaphorically, opening up on to the world outside. Time, as perceived in an action on video, lengthens from seconds into decades within the sculptural forms, and the focus widens from a momentary encounter in a studio to a project in a landscape or a vision of things to come. As viewers we become implicated in their tragicomic world of absurdist humour leading to both simultaneous delight and sombre reflection on the failures of human endeavour.

The installation contains a selection of new sculptures using tools, drawing equipment and other useful items in various media. For example, two propelling pencils share a single lead; another pencil has been sharpened right down to the rubber end and remains housed in its sharpener; a length of string is measured against a ruler; two balls of string, one un-wound then re-wound, the other original, and a single glue stick, stuck head first onto a wall. The humour is dry and the jokes visual; the familiar made strange by altering perceptions.

Connecting these sculptural works is a selection of videos, typical of their practice while sharing a pared-down set of qualities. *10×10* (2011) and *Semi Automatic Painting Machine* (2014) deconstruct the very nature of the moving image and its means of presentation, investigating narrative structure, representation, transformation and the history of cinematic worlds through various devices that reference both digital and analogue production. Their most recent video *Erdkunde* (2015) playfully connects out from the studio into the “real” world. By encompassing a world of things it causes us to reconsider the sculptures on show and the geography these suggest, an essential optimism within the futility of ongoing attempts, a testament to our ability to overcome obstacles, to forge ahead for a better world.

Long has Wood and Harrison’s work being concerned with the body, characteristically employing a vocabulary that connects into the spatial concerns and material world of choreography and contemporary dance, and is a practice that engages with attributes such as trust, cause and effect, action and reaction, and the physical arena and dimensions in which movement and gesture occurs. To this end, alongside the exhibition we will premiere a major new live performance later this year, a first for Wood and Harrison, who are working with Ballet BC to develop an ambitious joint commission, a new dance work, complete with movement, direction, costumes and staging.

Wood and Harrison’s *Some words, some more words* is installed on the CAG Façade from February 12 to August 31, 2016. 

The art-dance commission is produced in collaboration with Ballet BC with support in part from the Kickstarter community in partnership with Art Basel Crowdfunding Initiative.

### Biography

John Wood and Paul Harrison live and work in Bristol, UK. They have many notable solo exhibitions including Von Bartha, Basel; NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo; Carroll/Fletcher, London (2015); Museo de Antioquia, Medellin, Columbia (2014); Frist Centre, Nashville, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2011-12); Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland; University of California, Santa Barbara (2010); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2009); PICA, Perth (2008); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2007); Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK (2005); Tate Britain, London; MoMA, New York; MIT, Boston (2004) and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2002). They have also participated in group exhibitions worldwide: Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (2015); OK Centre for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria; Tokyo Station Gallery; Itami City Museum of Art; Kochi Museum of Art; Okayama Museum of Art (2014); Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2013); MOBY, Israel; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2011); Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2010); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2008); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2007); Hayward Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris (2006); Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh (2005); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2002); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2003); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1998) among others. Work is held in various public collections including Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA, New York; Ludwig Collection, Aachen; Tel Aviv Museum; Kadist Foundation, Paris and Tate, London. John Wood and Paul Harrison are represented by Carroll/Fletcher, London; Von Bartha, Basel; Martine Aboucaya, Paris and Vera Cortes, Lisbon.



ProgramGuideWinter2016.pdf

A blue toy car is placed on the floor in the corner of a gallery. Its front is slightly bent and pushed up against the bottom corner of a concrete wall, as if it had crashed moments before.

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Two balls of white string placed on a white flat surface. The left ball is slightly more neatly rolled than the one on the right. 

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A silver pencil sharpener is placed on a white flat surface. The tip of a black pencil, sharpened down to the pink eraser end, is inserted into the sharpener. 

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Multimedia artworks installed in a gallery: a microphone with a stand sits on the left, three monitors display video works, small sculptural pieces placed on a white table in the middle of the floor. 

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Two black and white drawings are installed on a gallery wall. A sentence, “This is the drawing I was telling you about” is written on one, and “This is that drawing” is written on the other. 

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Exterior image of CAG’s first floor facade installed with text-based work in vinyl by John Wood and Paul Harrison. Text is white on a blue background.

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Exterior image of CAG’s first floor facade installed with text-based work in vinyl by John Wood and Paul Harrison. Text is white on a blue background. 

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Exterior image of CAG’s first floor facade installed with text-based work in vinyl by John Wood and Paul Harrison. In one of the windows, text reads “SIDE AN UNNECESSARY SERIES OF WORDS.”

John Wood and Paul Harrison

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