Press Information
Autobituary is Anne Bean’s second exhibition for Matt’s Gallery, and turns to the artist’s early performance work, displaying on 30 video monitors the recent re-staging of original performances made by the artist between 1969­1974.

Autobituary is a dynamic sculptural installation integrating filmed performance works with reclaimed furniture and props. The viewer can stand, sit, or walk through the installation, surrounded by sound and image which have the power of a live art event.

Revealing a practice that spans performance, sculpture, drawing, text and sound, Bean’s re-formed performances ­ Shadow Deeds ­ explore weight and weightlessness, time and duration, surface and form, the body, the object and representation. Re-forming intuited and remembered actions, Bean weaves together works which stand alone as vital physical performances; and as ‘shadow deeds’ explore the processes of making, experiencing and viewing.

Performance Sunday 7 May, 4-8pm Anne Bean will perform Wakey-Wakey with early collaborators Martin von Haselberg and Brian Routh (Kipper Kids).

Publication Autobituary:Shadow Deeds, a visually rich book of images and text, has been produced in conjunction with this exhibition. It is a book within a book, comparing two sets of photographic ‘evidence’ from two series of almost identical performances made years apart. It contains three newly commissioned essays by Guy Brett, Sally O’Reilly and Miria Swain, and a DVD of Anne Bean’s Shadow Deeds performances.

Tour This exhibition will tour to firstsite and Colchester Arts Centre, 1-25 June, and Hull Art Lab 2-24 September, 2006.

Autobituary is commissioned by Matt’s Gallery in association with artsadmin.

Autobituary:Shadow Deeds is published by Matt’s Gallery in association with artsadmin and firstsite, Colchester.

This exhibtion has been generously supported by The Henry Moore Foundation and the Moose Foundation for the Arts. The exhibition, publication and tour have been generously supported by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England.

Biography
Born Livingstone Zambia 1950, lives and works in London Studied 1968 – 1973 University of Cape Town and Reading University, England. Anne Bean’s first public performances were in 1969 in Cape Town, South Africa. Since then, she has created many solo works and has initiated and participated in numerous collaborative projects, traveling through Britain, Europe, America, Mexico, Southern Africa and Japan. Bean has represented British Performance Art in Imports, Kitchen Gallery, New York; British Radical Theatre at a banquet for Chancellor Schmidt and Henry Kissinger in Bonn; has twice participated in the Hayward Annual, and has had shows and residencies in many countries and venues including Palais Des Beaux, Brussels; Rudolf Zwerner Gallery, Cologne; Franklyn Furnace, New York; Procownia Dziekanka, Warsaw; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Vanguard Gallery, Los Angeles; Creative Time Inc., New York; ICA, London; Orchard Gallery, Derry; America Centre, Paris; Gulbenkian Institute, Lisbon; Whitechapel Gallery, London; St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh; Jubilee Gardens London; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and Pompidou Centre, Paris. In 1983 Bean co-founded the Bow Gamelan Ensemble with drummer PD. Burwell and sculptor Richard Wilson. In 1988 they won the Time Out Dance and Performance Award, with the comment ‘they serve up adventure in music, sculpture and performance that dazzle the eyes, astonish the ears and stimulate the imagination of viewers with unorthodox magic’. In 1991 Bean was awarded the Time Out Dance and Performance Award for a second time for her long-standing contribution to live arts. Recent solo work includes 2002 A Short History of Performance, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 2003 Falling in Love with a Chair performance/ installation, National Review of Live Art, Glasgow 2004 DIY, LADA; Sounding Off, UEL; Xylo-renaissance for Peckham’s diaspora, Area 10, London; 7 x 7, the Slice, Greenwich; Rockets and Blue Lights, Margate Festival; Painting with Light, Café Gallery, London; Reap, a one year project with Café Gallery, London; FIX04, Belfast international performance festival 2005 Ash Wednesday, Dilston Grove, London; Vent, Evolving Cities, OVADA, Oxford; Oxford 2015, MOMA Oxford; INTERAKCJE festival, Poland; KISSS,Whitechapel Art Gallery; KISSS, Conical Gallery, Melbourne Australia; Power Plant, Botanic Gardens Oxford; Yearnings, Southwark, London; Her Noise, South London Gallery, London