into the frameless distance – city of (no) memory

JACK HOUSE GALLERY
5th to 22nd September 2024

Gallery open Wednesday to Sunday 11-4pm

Patti Gaal-Holmes uses analogue photography, film and photobooks to raise questions about identity, exile and memory in a project informed by her father’s escape from Hungary and her attempts to excavate elements of the past through travelling to Budapest and Bratislava, and delving into archives as she searches for the ephemeral traces of the past to narrate the residues of history and memory on film. The exhibition is three-fold: ‘into the frameless distance’ (Jack House Gallery) focuses on the border crossings by river (swimming across the Danube) and land (Bratislava/Austria border) where the change from being an ‘inhabitant’ to becoming an ‘exile’ provides a key point of focus and an obsessive attempt to document the moments of transition.

‘city of (no) memory’ (Gallery Art Space Portsmouth) centres on the artist’s return to her father’s city (Budapest) as she searches for the ‘ghosts’ of the past in a city holding residues of his presence, as well as the personal and political memories of traumatic historic events.

Gaal-Holmes’ 16mm films are included in ‘looking backwards, moving forwards’ (Aspex Gallery Studio Residency) which has been taken over by the PAX (Portsmouth Analogue eXperiments) initiative, which also includes works by Evagelia Hagikalfa, Frankie Knight, Jane Shepherd and Vicky Smith.

Gaal-Holmes’ project is informed by (amongst others) the aesthetics and photographic approaches of the Japanese photographers, Daido Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira, particularly their 1960s/70s ‘anti-photography’ works; by personal and political Hungarian histories, by the German writer W. G. Sebald’s search for the ‘nervature of the past’ and by curator, Okwui Enwezor’s conviction that ‘it is our job to think historically about the present, since the present is always embedded in the past’. Here the personal and political, individual and universal intersect, asking what it means to go into exile, fleeing into that ‘frameless distance’ so full of promise, hope and possibility and how we create memories from (no) memory, through a sustained leap of imagination, to recreate the past and tell stories to ourselves in order to make sense of the world.

To read a essays on City of (no) memory ‘The Incomplete Reimagining of Image Matter’ by Jelena Stojković and ‘The suggestion of an echo traced by the touch of a capturing device’ by Ricardo Reverón Blanco click here

Patti Gaal-Holmes was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to German and Hungarian immigrants and lived/travelled in various countries before settling in Portsmouth, England. She has been a studio member of Art Space Portsmouth since 2005 and is a Senior Lecturer in Film Production at Arts University Bournemouth.

Dates for Diary

Thurs 5 Sept PRIVATE VIEW Gallery Art Space Portsmouth (GASP) 16.00-17.30

Thurs 5 Sept PRIVATE VIEW Jack House Gallery 18.00 – 20.00

Sun 8 Sept Meet the Artists Aspex Gallery Studio Residency 14.00 – 16.00 ‘looking backwards, moving forwards’ - analogue film, photography and other audiovisual work under the banner of PAX, a loose collective of artists working with analogue media; Patti Gaal-Holmes, Evagelia Hagikalfa, Frankie Knight, Jane Shepherd and Vicky Smith.

Wed 11 Sept In-conversation Patti Gaal-Holmes in Conversation with Kate Street at Jack House Gallery 17.00 – 19.00

Fri 13 Sept Meet the Artists ASPEX FRIDAY LATE 18.00 – 21.00 SEE entry for Sun 8th Sept for details

Sun 15 Sept Round Table discussion 'critical nostalgia' and analogue media Aspex Gallery 14.00 – 16.00 Join PAX and Aspex for an open discussion on the enduring appeal of analogue in the making of new audiovisual work, including the use of archival materials such as slides, photographs and films. All welcome.

Thurs 19 Sept Japanese Photobooks (2-part event) View books from the Japan Photobook Collection (Arts University Bournemouth & Pompey Darkroom) 16.00 - 18.00

Illustrated Talk 1960s/70s Japanese Photography by Dr Jelena Stojkovic Aspex Gallery 19.00 – 20.30 ‘From Photobook to Installation: Japanese Photography in the 1960s & 70s’ Talk by art critic Dr Jelena Stojkovic autor of The Impossible Avant-Garde: Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan.