CIRCA.ART

CIRCA is a digital art and culture platform with a purpose. They stop the clock on global media spaces every evening at 20:22 and mobilise the world’s greatest creative minds to broadcast unique works that consider our world today, circa 2022. The funds generated from artist print sales drive the #CIRCAECONOMY – a circular model that supports the CIRCA free public art programme and creates life-changing opportunities for the art & culture community.

Since launching in October 2020 on London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights, CIRCA has commissioned new work from rising and established artists, including Ai Weiwei, Cauleen Smith, Yoko Ono, Eddie Peake, Anne Imhof, Patti Smith, Tony Cokes, Emma Talbot, Vivienne Westwood, Arca, James Barnor, David Hockney, and more.

November 2022 – Michèle Lamy

The Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) is proud to present LIMBO, a contemporary still-life film by Michèle Lamy, broadcasting every evening throughout November at 20:22 local time on London’s iconic Piccadilly Lights and across screens in Berlin, Melbourne, and Tokyo.

Directed by Amanda Demme and Mollie Mills, LIMBO poses an un-retouched and tender meditation of female autonomy, love and vulnerability.

About Michèle Lamy

Michèle Lamy defies any categorization: she studied law, worked as a defence lawyer, later studied with French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and was involved in the May ’68 Paris protests before working as a cabaret dancer, designer, performer, film producer, and restaurateur as well as being Co-founder of Owenscorp and Managing Director of Furniture/Art.

Past Art:

April 2022 – Simon Fujiwara

Hello Who? is the latest chapter in Fujiwara’s ongoing Who the Bær project which originally debuted with an exhibition at the prestigious Fondazione Prada. Born out of the pandemic when the world became flattened into content, Who is a character with no identity – no race, gender or sexuality – moving through a world of images in search of a self.

May 2022 – Agnes Denes

Forty years since pioneering environmental artist Agnes Denes (b.1931) first sowed the seeds of her prophetic public artwork Wheatfield – A Confrontation (May 1982), transforming the land that became New York’s Battery Park City into a two-acre wheatfield, CIRCA presents ‘Another Confrontation’. With this new commission, Denes transforms major screens around the world into platforms for change. Featuring three new video works alongside a specially created interactive AR wheat field on Instagram, Denes alerts audiences once again to the planet’s continuing humanitarian and environmental challenges.

Another Confrontation traverses over 1000 years of humanity (1982-3022) to debut a series of videos created by the artist for CIRCA alongside a questionnaire highlighting Denes’s focus on ecology, her fear of our present environment’s decay and hope for future survival in the following three acts:

PAST: Wheatfield–A Confrontation, 1982 (1-10 May)

An act of protest, Denes planted an expansive wheat field in a landfill in lower Manhattan in 1982, twoblocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center and facing the Statue of Liberty, as a comment onthe mismanagement of world hunger, food, waste, energy, commerce, trade, land use, andeconomics.

PRESENT: Tree Mountain–A Living Time Capsule (11-20 May)

The man-made mountain was conceived by Denes in 1982. Measuring 420 meters long, 270 meterswide, 38 meters high, it was planted with 11,000 trees by 11,000 people from all across the globe atthe Pinzio gravel pits near Ylojarvi, Finland in 1996. A living time capsule, the land upon which TreeMountain is planted cannot be touched for 400 years.

FUTURE: 2022 Questionnaire and Time Capsule (21-31 May)

A new global survey inviting the public to answer 11 questions set by Denes concerning humanity inthe year 2022. Submitted responses will be buried in a time capsule to be opened in the year 3022, athousand years from now. Click here to view the Questionnaire.

London Zeitgeist – Group Exhibition Curated by Norman Rosenthal

Bold new video works by five artists of the moment living or working in London will take over the Big Screen. Curated by Norman Rosenthal, London Zeitgeist will comprise four independent films by Larry Achiampong, Alvaro Barrington, Matt Copson, and artist duo Rosie Hastings and Hannah Quinlan, together forming a bold and comprehensive showcase of the most promising artists within a generation to emerge from London.

This group exhibition adopts its title from Rosenthal’s 1982 exhibition Zeitgeist that was held in Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau almost forty years ago, and which was arguably one of the most historically significant global painting surveys of the 20th century, bringing together 45 of the world’s most driven and symbolically heroic artists of the moment. Rosenthal’s unwavering commitment and capacity to embolden the great talent of the time has become a defining characteristic of his career. In 1981, Rosenthal introduced artists such as Baselitz, Kiefer, Polke and Richter to an audience beyond Germany in A New Spirit In Painting and helped launch the careers of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and many others with ‘Sensation’ in 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London:

“That complex German word “Zeitgeist” (Time/Spirit) that more and more has entered the English language – just like “Kindergarten” once did (!) – naturally relates to place as well as time. Each of the four young artists chosen I believe address these issues subjectively, inevitably, sometimes obliquely, yet each in a “Spectacular” and “Beautiful” way onto the iconic Piccadilly Lights screen. They then are transmitted to the other side of the globe. They are pictures both of issues and fantasies that obsess four individual artists living and working in London, forever a huge urban national centre, and that hopefully too will touch audiences around the world.” – Norman Rosenthal

11-17 July – Alvaro Barrington
18-31 July – Larry Achiampong
1-14 Aug – Matt Copson
22-31 Aug – Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings

September 2022 –  A Future World – various artists

The CIRCA x Dazed Class of 2022 global public call-out invited aspiring filmmakers and new media creators to respond to the theme ‘A Future World’ inspired by the CIRCA 2022 manifesto ‘And Now We Build Worlds’ with a two and a half minute film of new or pre-existing moving image work.

After receiving over 1,000 submitted artworks and watching over 40 hours of best-in-class film, the CIRCA and Dazed teams shortlisted the 30 finalists who will have their artworks screened at Fed Square and other public screens around the world.

Here is a list of the artists throughout September:

1 September – Riffy Ahmed
2 September – Omar Al-Nakib
3 September – Zeina Aref
4 September – Bhebhe&Davies
5 September – Daria Blum
6 September – Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
7 September – Toby Cato
8 September – Max Colson
9 September – Nadia Coppola
10 September – Harriet Davey
11 September – Nina Davies
12 September – Theo Ellison
13 September – Oliver Elphrick
14 September – Sandi Hudson-Francis
15 September – Katayoun Jalilipour
16 September – Andrea Khôra
17 September – Guilherme Santos
18 September – Laila Majid + Louis Blue Newby
19 September – Leah Clements
20 September – April Lin 林森
21 September – Mary Martins
22 September – Marissa Mariles Hinds
23 September – Andy Picci
24 September – Alen + Robi Predanič
25 September – Daria Pugachova
26 September – Agnes Questionmark
27 September – Spencer Ratanavanh
28 September – Yukako Tanaka
29 September – Guillaume Vandame + Brody Mace-Hopkins
30 September – Sophie Vickers

To find out more information about the CIRCA in September visit: https://circa.art/artist/class-of-2022/

October 2022 – Laure Prouvost

No More Front Tears is broadcasting globally throughout October 2022, coinciding with Frieze London and CIRCA’s second anniversary, Laure Prouvost will take centre stage on the CIRCA platform with a new 2.5min video work that explores the migration of other-than-humans, poetically navigating and providing deeper context surrounding questions of borders and immigration.

Laure Prouvost (b.1978) is a French artist currently based in Brussels. She received her BFA from Central St Martins, London in 2002 and studied towards her MFA at Goldsmiths College, London. The 2013 Turner Prize winner is known for her immersive films and mixed-media installations. Her films are composed of a rich assortment of pictures, sounds, and spoken and written phrases, which appear and disappear in quick cuts. These are often shown nestled into installations filled with found objects, sculptures, paintings, drawings, furniture, signs, and architectural assemblages, based on the themes and imagery in her films. Prouvost won the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2011 and represented France at the 58th International Art Biennial, Venice 2019.