Abstract

Biennale: Artists Film and Video was curated by Anthony Gross of London based artist-run space temporarycontemporary, and was conceived as a presentation of current video art from around the world, examining the way subjective and social connections form between art scenes and the artists emerging from them. Eleven guest selectors chose work for the exhibition, including the artist Janane Al-Ani, Stuart Comer, curator of events and film at Tate Modern, and Ben Cook, founder of the LUX Centre, who all took part in a panel discussion to mark the opening of the show. Anthony Gross selected Lamb’s work; 19 other artists participated, including David Blandy, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Damon Packard, Jimmy Robert and Mark Aerial-Waller. The exhibition originally held at temporarycontemporary in Deptford, toured venues in China with funding from the British Council. Contemporary Magazine was media partner for the tour, providing free advertising, and reviewing the London exhibition in issue 73. An exhibition catalogue was published with the support of the Arts Council England. Lamb’s video ‘The Fantasist’, a montage of appropriated clips from genre films of the 1970s, reflects on the contemporary condition of moving image, from notions of the archive to how the medium has been redefined by evolving viewing formats and means of distribution. ‘The Fantasist’ was also included in the group show Mourning at Sies + Hoke Galerie, Dusseldorf (03-04/05), alongside work by Matt Bryans, Varda Caivano, Alex Pollard and John Stezaker, and Old Habits Die Hard, organised by Sparwasser HQ, Berlin. This exhibition toured to 12 venues, including Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Art in General, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.