Richard Bevan

preview 11 December 2009

Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
Richard Bevan, Untitled (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009

Acclaimed artist Richard Bevan has produced two site-specific film works, continuing g39's programme exploring relationships between art and film as a gallery-based medium. Richard’s filmworks often make reference to the spaces he exhibits in. The work documents his interventions and small historical events in these particular spaces, re-played as a quiet reference to that space at a different time. Whether that time is yesterday or a decade before, it is never clear.

The first of Richard’s pieces is displayed in the ground floor space of g39. The film is a static exterior shot of the gallery, inverted and looking into the very space the work is being shown in. Even though the image is upside-down it is immediately recognisable as g39; but what may not be so immediately apparent is that the building’s exterior colour in the film is different from that during the exhibition. A decade ago g39’s frontage was painted baby-blue, and Richard has chosen to revisit this (his first impression of the gallery) by temporarily reverting the building’s exterior to the same colour paint – and then confining this ephemeral transformation onto coarse 16mm film.

Bevan’s employment of analogue technology and temporal references continues upstairs for the second part of his film installation. Once again, a small projected 16mm film takes the audience from the space in which they are standing into a hidden room through a now-concealed door, and through the bowels and more backrooms of the artist run space, ascending a cast-iron spiral staircase – a hidden architectural spine of the building. Each step of the staircase has been painted one of five primary colours to a rainbow-like effect, a signature device of Bevan’s.

Richard has also made a limited edition artist’s book in collaboration with Pernille Leggat Ramfelt as part of the show. For the book Richard invited a number of collaborators to contribute a response to his initial approach to and ensuing dialogue with each artist. The resulting book was made available to visitors to the exhibition as a means of navigating Richard’s exhibition in preference to the usual access material that is normally available. This is now available from g39’s online shop.

  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (film still), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), publication, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009
  • Richard Bevan, <i>Untitled</i> (installation shot), 16mm film, 2009

Programme