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"A sense of unease: a tincture of wonder in a pint of distrust"

Matt's Gallery has commissioned sixteen nights of durational performance by Brian Catling that will take place between 1 and 16 October 2005 from 6pm until midnight.

Brian Catling will perform in an interior that will be constructed in the space in the weeks leading up to the exhibition. This installation will be a series of large wooden platforms and walkways, and an isolated stage-like island. The audience will enter via a raised narrow platform that frames the room, giving an elevated view onto the central well where most of the performance will occur.

A series of carefully made instruments and sculptural devices will give detail to the room. They will include a pulpit, a pendulum, a mechanical ivory ribcage, a pearly-king dunce cone, a cooking stove, a wooden great coat; a cloak of hinges and varnished shards. Catling will operate these objects during the six hours each evening. He and some of the machines may appear to be on the same circuit, sharing moments of activity and stasis. He will also interact with the audience as they peer down into the square pit where he is contained.

Antix will be created by the room divining the actions and the actions explaining the room. Many of them are not yet known, and will not be until after it is all over.

Matt’s Gallery has worked with Brian Catling on a number of occasions: Lair (installation and publication) 1987; At the Lighthouse (durational performance and installation at Trinity Buoy Wharf) 1991; Soundings: A Tractate of Absence (publication) 1991; and Were (durational performance) 1998. The Cutting, a narrative video film made with Tony Grisoni, will be premiered later this year. Catling was the founder of The Wolf In The Winter; an international performance group who have toured in Germany, Spain, Scotland and Greenland, and will come to the South London Gallery in 2006. He is working on three new collections of writing, including a book of collected poems, that will be published by the Etruscan Press next year.

As the performances take place after dark, a free minibus will take visitors from Eric Street (first left on exiting Mile End underground) on the hour and return from the gallery to the station at half past the hour.
This exhibition has been generously supported by The Elephant Trust, The Henry Moore Foundation, Moose Foundation for the Arts. Laminate flooring supplied by PERGO.

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Biography
Born London 1948, Lives and works in Oxford Studied MA Linacre College Oxford, MA Royal College of Art, BA North East London Polytechnic Solo Exhibitions (installation, sculpture & large performance works): 2005 Antix, Matt's Gallery, London 2002 Antic, ( norwegian language version), Trans-Art Gallery, Trondheim Buhl Cyclops, AKW, Stadt Buhl, Germany; 2000 Man In the Moon, Galleri e.s.Bergen 1999 Were : The Chamber works, ICA, London, (funded by the British Council) 1998 Were, durational performance, Matt's Gallery, London 1997 Cyclops (video installation in German language), Project Gallery, Leipzig; Country of the Blind, text, drawings & video, The Economist, London; Nordic Cyclops (video installation), Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo 1996 Cyclops (video installation), South London Gallery, London 1995 Cyclops, Galerie Satellite, Paris 1994 The Blindings, Serpentine Gallery, London 1993 Ten Gallery, Fukuoka, Japan; La Bas, Galerie Satellite, Paris 1991 At The Lighthouse, Matt's Gallery, London 1989 Museum of Modern Art, Oxford 1988 Atrium, Neuw Gallery, Sammalung Ludwig, Aachen, Germany 1987 White Breath/Red Heart, Hordaland Kunstnercentrum, Bergen, Norway; Lair, Matt's Gallery, London 1986 On Touching And Haunting A Noble Silent Room, Leifsgade 22, Copenhagen Selected Group Exhibitions: 2005 Variety, Delaware Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea 2000 Small act at the Millennium 1999 Spin, British Library, London 1998 Oak Repels Lightning, Science Musuem, London 1997 A Cloudburst of Material Possessions, Purdy Hicks & Touring Selected Performance Works: 2005 Mellom himmel og ha, Performance festival, Bergen, Norway; Halle Cyclops, Handel-Festspiele, Halle (Saale) Electric Renaissance 2003 A Certain Turbulence, Reykjavik Contemporary Art Museum, Iceland; Acts of Faith & Generosity, La Bisbal, Spain 2002 London Orbital Barbican Theatre, London; Steder: more places for ever, Lillehammer, Norway; The Boulevards, Den Bosch theatre festival, Netherlands 2001 BBC/Modus Operandi, video commission; 60 1 minute performances Karlsruhl, Germany Late Harping Tour, Etruscan; OX1, Brooks University, Oxford; The Wolf and the Winter, Den Bosch, Holland 1999 ASA, Cologne; Were You There? s'Hertogenbosch 1998 Bone, Bern Performance Festival; Virus, Freiwild Festival, Halle, Germany; Stadt Gallerie, Bern, Switzerland 1997 Bergen Performace Festival, Norway; Science Museum, London; Flylkingen, Stockholm; Night of the Living Tongues, Cambridge; Cyclops, Tel Aviv, Israel; Hush, Slaughter House Gallery; Ontmoeting, s'Hertogenbosch, Holland; One Night Stands, Norwich Gallery; Madrid Performance Festival; 1996Freiwild Festival, Halle, Germany; Clepsydra, South London Gallery, London 1995 Konsum Projekt, Baitz, Brandenburg, Germany; Hidden Cities, bus tour, Laboratory Gallery, Oxford; Revenge Of the Reforgotten Royal Albert Hall, London 1994 Samtids Museum, Oslo; Olot Festival & Girona Kulturhall, Catalonia, Spain; Serpentine Gallery, London; The Reading Room & The King's Library at the British Library and the Castle Mount; The Castle Mound Oxford, Bookworks 1993 Artifact Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel; Kityakushu Museum of Art, Japan; Ujazdowski Centre of Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland; Tate Gallery, London 1992 Schloss Pluschow, Mecklenburgisches Kunstlerhaus, Germany; The Melk Fabrike, s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands; Gianozzo, Berlin; 1991 Belluard-Bolwerk Festival, Fribourg, Switzerland; Museum of Living Art, Reykjavik, Iceland; Naturhistoric Museum, Bergen, Norway; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Ireland 1990 Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth; Trondelec Arts Centre, Trondheim, Norway; Victoria & Albert Museum, London

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