Jessica Williams

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May 15, 2013

On preparing to work

Filed under: Quotes — jessica @ 14:12

Our set-up was perfect: two rooms, or rather, two whitewashed, vaulted passages giving on to a courtyard where a pomegranate tree and a clump of French marigolds were struggling against the first frosts. There were hollowed-out niches for icons, the samovar and gas lamps. In the tiny woodshed separating our rooms lived moon-coloured rats. We each had a table, a chair and a little iron stove corrugated like a waffle. The rent was paid for six months; we were all set. Thierry spread out his canvases; I had bought a ream of white paper from the bazaar and unpacked my typewriter. Work is never so seductive as when one is just about to begin it; so it was left at that stage while we explored the town.

Nicholas Bouvier in The Way of the World

old poems

Filed under: Exhibitions, Images — jessica @ 14:06

seduction

thinair

Some photos from my working title installation at KHiO last year.. found while organizing files on my computer. Currently looking through all the old grant applications I wrote that I thought were so brilliant but were all rejected. Too old to be a prodigy, too young to be wise.

April 29, 2013

This week in Cardiff, Copenhagen, Vestfossen

Filed under: Exhibitions — jessica @ 12:00

Thursday in Cardiff (Wales): Sraunus will hold its UK première at Diffusion Festival.

sraunus_cardiff

Sraunus is an evolving slideshow exhibition, with each installment showing a different selection of over forty young photographic artists. The curated images reflect an emergent trend in post-digital photography: they do not rely on an indexical relationship to reality, nor deal with universal truths. Instead, the photographers follow an experimental path, and come close to a questioning of our visual values. Through a projection and event-led format, Sraunus also invites critical discussion of the changing materiality of the medium and the place of the digital image in the gallery.

Sraunus in Cardiff is a collaborative project between curator, Paul Paper and writer, Rowan Lear. For the first time, the photographic work will be shown alongside a projection of writing, which will respond, reflect and unravel the images and ideas contained in Sraunus.

Opening: Thursday 2 May, 6 – 8pm (with live soundtrack)
Exhibition: Friday 3 – Monday 6 May, 12 – 5pm
Talk: Saturday 4 May, 1pm

Thanks Paul!

 

 

Friday in Copenhagen: Espen and I will be representing NSEW at Kunstpublikationer at Overgaden.

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2013 will be the tenth anniversary of the art book fair, which will be accompanied by the exhibition Danish Artists’ Books. The exhibition, which is both a tribute to the medium and an expression of the diversity of the artist book, is curated by the book’s editors, Thomas Hvid Kromann, Maria Kjær Themsen and Louise Sidenius.

The following publishers will also take part in this year’s fair, which runs through the weekend: After Hand (DK), Aki Books (NO), AKV Berlin (DE), Broken Dimanche Publications (DE), Diamond Docs Press (DK), Emancipa(t/ss)ionsfrugten (DK), Forlaget/tidsskriftet *[asterisk] (DK), Hurricane Publishing (DK), Internationalistisk Ideale (DK), Kulkælderen (DK), Motto Berlin (DE), N S E W (NO), OEI (SE), Pork Salad Press (DK), Space Poetry (DK), TTC Books (DK) and Yokoland (NO).

Opening: Friday 3 May, 5 – 8pm
Fair : Saturday 4 – Sunday 5 May, 12 – 5pm
Exhibition: Friday 3 May – Sunday 26 May

 

 

Saturday in Vestfossen: 1986 – 2013 / En kunstner som samler kunst (An artist who collects art) opens at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium.

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In this exhibition featuring over 500 works by circa 200 international artists, the artist Morten Viskum presents his personal art collection to the public. Pieces in the show range from very young to established artists and are in every conceivable medium. A rough translation from the Facebook page explains that the show is not an attempt to present an art collection per se, but rather a maximalist total installation using the work of others as material.

Read more and see the whole list of artists here (på norsk).

 

April 22, 2013

COMMON PEOPLE

Filed under: Exhibitions — jessica @ 12:45

commonpeople

Thursday in London: a launch for COMMON PEOPLE, a new publication from Bronze Age Editions and Museums Press at Ti Pin Tin.

Featuring 100 one-sheet zines from 100 artists from around the world, COMMON PEOPLE was produced using black and white laser printing, red, blue and green Risograph and a variety of different paper stocks – all packed into a hand stamped box in a very limited run.

Ti Pi Tin
47 Stoke Newington High Street
N16 8EL London

Thursday, April 25, 2013
6:30 – 10:00

More info here.

April 19, 2013

Publishing as (part-time) Practice

Filed under: Exhibitions — jessica @ 15:38

paptp

Tomorrow in Oslo: Publishing as (part-time) Practice comes to Grafill R21 taking the form of a mini-exhibition and round table discussion.

On view will be a selection of artist books and other ephemera from small publishers in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Also from 1:30 there will be a discussion on artist publishing that I will be a part of (as NSEW). Admission to the talk is free and all the books will be on view through April 30, parallel to the Year’s Most Beautiful Books exhibition.

More info here.

April 11, 2013

Pictures from Places

Filed under: Images — jessica @ 11:54

jessicawilliams_norway_03

Last night I had a dream that I was traveling and taking pictures. In this dream I was a bit stressed because I had forgotten my battery charger back at home. Also when it came time to choose where to sleep, none of the rooms filled with people had space for me. I didn’t fit in anywhere.

Typical.

Anyway, for the last year I’ve been working on a collection of my travel photos. Here.

 

 

endless winter

Filed under: Images — jessica @ 09:40

vinter

April 2, 2013

Websites

Filed under: Notes — jessica @ 15:17

I’ve been thinking about websites a lot  lately. All sorts of websites—my own, my friends’, other artists, total strangers, etc.

A lot of websites I’ve looked up lately are totally empty. Just a name, an email. Maybe one image and a name, an email, a CV. Maybe just a CV. Some websites are totally full, overflowing with information. Made with IndexExhibit, maybe. Some websites are full of found images that do not have a clear connection to the work or even perhaps the person behind the webpage. It’s confusing. My website used to be one of the middle ones, overflowing. There’s still a lot here, but less than there used to be. All this information makes me feel very vulnerable sometimes.

Maybe I feel vulnerable because it seems a lot of these people who no longer have websites have somehow moved beyond the medium; they no longer need websites to help them obtain gallery shows or have their images printed onto pieces of clothing. Their online fame has translated into a real world commodity. Or perhaps their names are just so uncommon that it is easy just to Google them and see a selection of their work? I don’t know.

Either way, I’m still here. Online.

March 17, 2013

On Information

Filed under: Quotes — jessica @ 19:20

Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine – too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away.

Stewart Brand

Feeling sad about the past and unable to articulate the future

Filed under: Images — jessica @ 19:06

jessicawilliams_searching_2013

New: an Archive tumblr I’ve made by reblogging old and new work of mine that ends up there

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