GATESHEAD.- SWITCH, selected by internationally renowned artist Phyllida Barlow, is the opening exhibition at BALTIC 39, a new hub for contemporary art located on High Bridge in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne. The exhibition features 13 artists based in London and opened to the public this past Friday 6 April 2012.

SWITCH builds upon What do artists do?, a time-based project organised by Barlow in 2008 that examined the notion of change in artistic practice and the role of the exhibition. The exhibition at BALTIC 39 explores further the processes an artist navigates in the act of making and prioritises such moments over any completed object or final outcome. The disparate practices presented, spanning performance, sculpture, drawing, photography and film-making, will be shown, and often made or modified, in a setting that demands the re-consideration of an artwork’s centre.

The exhibition also provides a stage to investigate the relationship between the work and its audience; when should an audience see an artwork, what is it that the audience should experience and how does an audience modify the processes of making? Rather than simply locating a studio situation within the gallery, the exhibition aims to offer its participants, both artists and audience members, a common arena in which to share, test and understand the performative complexities of artistic production.

The exhibition will culminate in a weekend of performances and events, details of which will be announced soon.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:

Anna Barham
Born in 1974, Barham graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2001. Her work spans a variety of media including sculpture, performance, video and drawing. For SWITCH, Barham presents a new video work that will be revised and updated during the course of the exhibition.

Jason Dungan
Born in 1978, Dungan graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2003. For SWITCH he presents an evolving and silent projection of webcam videos. Originally conceived as an online YouTube stream, the work has been adapted for the purposes of this show.

Elliot Dodd and Steffen Levring
Dodd born 1978 and Levring born 1982, graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2002 and 2008 respectively. They are especially interested in the intensity of sound. For the opening night of SWITCH, and again during the exhibition’s closing weekend, they will flood the gallery in low frequency sound to create an ‘extreme base heavy physical sensation’.

Iain Hales
Born in 1977, Hales graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2005 and from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2009. Using disparate materials, Hales presents The Sacred and Profane Love Machine 2012, a floor-based composition of sculptural elements which will be adapted and regrouped during the course of the exhibition.

Brighid Lowe
Born in 1965, Lowe teaches at the Slade School of Fine Art. For SWITCH she remade Evidence 1999-2012, a floor-based installation that exists as an archive of invitation cards to several thousand private views around the world.

Sophie Michael
Born 1985, Michael works in both film and photography. She is currently studying at the Royal Academy Schools after graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2008. For SWITCH she presents a double photographic image, Pink Wall/Blue Wall 2011. A new 16mm film will be made during the course of the exhibition to be presented later.

Luke McCreadie
Born in 1985, McCreadie graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2008 and 2011. He works with film and sculpture, spanning and combining a range of different media. For SWITCH, McCreadie presents a projected screen-based work entitled Does the Object Stare Back? 2012. He will also realise a collaborative performance during its closing weekend.

Fabian Peake
Born in 1942, Peake is an artist and writer. For SWITCH, Peake has constructed a large wall-based work which incorporates both image and text. The work is in part a document of its own making, composed of images of Peake moving through the space during its creation as he was periodically caught on camera.

Florence Peake
Born in 1973, Peake has an MA in Contemporary Performance Making from Brunel University. Her work and performances are of an interdisciplinary nature, often involving painting, drawing, sculpture as well as found objects. For SWITCH, Peake presents STUPID STUPID 2012, a sound-based work and will stage a collaborative dance performance in the gallery later on in the exhibition period.

Eleanor Wright
Born in 1984, Wright graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2007 and from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2010. For SWITCH she presents PROW 2012, a combination of floor-based sculptures and panels that loosely reference both the arch of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge as well as the jewellery of Zaha Hadid.

Maria Zahle
Born in 1979, Zahle graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2005 and the Royal Academy Schools in 2009. For SWITCH, Zahle creates a series of wall-based ‘stripe’ works that have been painted directly to the walls of the gallery. The paintings will appear in the space in different places and at different times over the course of the exhibition.