The Gallery
Buoys Boys Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press
22 September - 10 November 2018
Private View 6pm Friday 21 September 2018
Mission Gallery is proud to be presenting the work of Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press as part of the Now the Hero 14-18 | Now There’s More weekend in September 2018. Banner was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2002 and in 2010 presented Harrier and Jaguar at Tate Britain for the Duveen Galleries Commission.
British artist Fiona Banner often works under the moniker of The Vanity Press. She established the imprint in 1997, with her seminal book The Nam. Since then she has published many works, some in the form of books, some sculptural, some performance based. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name. Humour, conflict and language are at the core of her work.
The film Buoys Boys depicts a series of massive full stop sculptures floating above the sea. The mammoth helium-filled inflatables take the form of full stops in five typefaces - Capitalist, Courier, Bookman, Didot, Onyx.
“The full stops have the English Channel as backdrop. They are big black empty texts in one way, just floating buoys in another. There’s something beautiful but also dark about the Channel. Britain was invaded across this stretch of water in 1066, the same stretch that today is both a route of attempted refuge and the increasingly contentious divider between Britain and mainland Europe. The black abstract forms are markers within language but also markers within space and time, sometimes absurd, comical, or even surreal.”
Buoys Boys is set to a soundtrack based on the 1966 pop song Snoopy Vs The Red Baron. Banner has produced an on-going body of work related to these two characters and has returned to the song in a number of different live performances. The tracks here were recorded during the rehearsals for these performances: one with Viv Albertine (formerly of The Slits) who Banner collaborated with on a new musical arrangement of the song, at The Exquisite Corpse will Drink The Young Wine event curated by Banner at the Welsh Congregational Chapel in London (2012); the other with the Sir John Cass School Choir at the St Andrew by the Wardrobe Church in the City of London.
The Red Baron was the nickname given to ace of aces, Manfred Von Richthofen, a German World War One fighter pilot, infamous for the number of young men he killed in combat and for the delight he supposedly took in doing so. Largely thanks to wartime propaganda, Richthofen was legendary in his own lifetime and mythologised posthumously. Amidst a booming, paranoid post-war culture,
Snoopy regularly fantasised about meeting the Red Baron in combat; he not only wanted to kill him – he wanted to become him. At a time when public consciousness was still grappling with the effects of that century’s second global war, Charles M. Schultz presented a series of characters in the Peanuts cartoon who anthropomorphised this internal struggle and the communal failure to understand it. In 1966, shortly after The Red Baron first appeared in Schultz’s cartoon, The Royal Guardsmen rereleased the song Snoopy Vs The Red Baron. Snoopy’s owners sued the band over the use of his name. As a result sheet music was never published. As well as being a cartoon beagle and a fantastical fighter pilot Snoopy aspires to be a great novelist.
Dangosiad Preifat 6yh nos Wener 21 Medi 2018
Mae Oriel Mission yn falch o gael cyflwyno gwaith Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press fel rhan o benwythnos Nawr yr Arwr 14-18 | Nawr Mae Rhagorym mis Medi 2018. Roedd Banner ar restr fer Gwobr Turner yn 2002 ac yn 2010, cyflwynodd Harrier and Jaguaryn Tate Prydain ar gyfer Comisiwn Orielau Duveen.
Mae’r artist Prydeinig, Fiona Banner, yn aml yn gweithio o dan yr enw The Vanity Press. Sefydlodd yr argraffnod ym 1997 gyda’i llyfr arloesol The Nam. Ers hynny, mae wedi cyhoeddi llawer o weithiau, rhai ohonynt ar ffurf llyfrau, rhai’n gerfluniol, rhai’n seiliedig ar berfformio. Yn 2009, rhoddodd rif ISBN iddi ei hun gan ei chofrestru’i hun fel cyhoeddiad o dan ei henw ei hun. Hiwmor, gwrthdaro ac iaith sydd wrth graidd ei gwaith.
Mae’r ffilmBuoys Boysyn dangos cyfres o gerfluniau atalnodau llawn enfawr sy’n arnofio uwchben y môr. Mae’r atalnodau llawn chwyddadwy enfawr wedi’u llenwi â heliwm yn ymddangos mewn pum teip gwahanol - Capitalist, Courier, Bookman, Didot, Onyx.
“Môr Udd - y Sianel - yw’r gefnlen i’r atalnodau llawn. Ar un wedd, testunau gwag du mawr ydyn nhw, bwiau arnofiol ar wedd arall. Mae rhywbeth hardd ond tywyll hefyd am y Sianel. Daeth y Normaniaid dros y darn yma o ddŵr ym 1066 i oresgyn Prydain, yr un darn o fôr sydd heddiw yn llwybr i’r rheini sy’n ceisio lloches ac yn rhaniad cynyddol gynhennus rhwng Prydain a chyfandir Ewrop. Marcwyr yw’r ffurfiau haniaethol duon yn nhermau ieithyddol ond hefyd marcwyr o ran gofod ac amser, sydd weithiau’n absẃrd, yn ddoniol, neu hyd yn oed yn swrrealaidd.”
Gosodir Buoys Boysi drac sain sy’n seiliedig ar y gân bop o 1966 Snoopy Vs The Red Baron. Mae Banner wedi cynhyrchu corff gwaith parhaus sy’n gysylltiedig â’r ddau gymeriad yma gan ddychwelyd at y gân mewn nifer o wahanol berfformiadau byw. Cafodd y traciau sain sydd yma eu recordio yn ystod yr ymarferion ar gyfer y perfformiadau hyn: y naill gyda Viv Albertine (yn gynt o’r Slits) y bu Banner yn cydweithio â hi ar drefniant cerddorol newydd o’r gân yn The Exquisite Corpse will Drink the Young Wine, digwyddiad a guradwyd gan Banner yng Nghapel yr Annibynwyr Cymreig yn Llundain (2012): y llall gyda Chôr Ysgol Syr John Cass yn Eglwys Sant Andreas ger y Wardrob yn ninas Llundain.
Y Barwn Coch oedd y glasenw a roddwyd i’r pencampwr o bencampwyr, Manfred Von Richthofen, peilot ymladd Almaenig yn y Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf oedd yn ddrwg-enwog am nifer y dynion ifainc a laddodd mewn brwydrau awyr ac am y pleser honedig a gâi wrth wneud hynny. Diolch yn bennaf i bropaganda adeg y rhyfel, roedd Richthofen yn chwedlonol yn ei oes ei hun a chafodd ei fytholegu ar ôl ei farwolaeth yng nghanol y diwylliant paranoid a ffynnai ar ôl y rhyfel.
Byddai Snoopy yn aml yn ffantasïo am gwrdd â’r Barwn Coch mewn brwydr: nid yn unig roedd am ei ladd, roedd o hefyd eisiau troi’n Richthofen. Ar adeg pan oedd ymwybyddiaeth y cyhoedd yn dal i geisio mynd i’r afael ag effeithiau ail ryfel byd y ganrif honno, cyflwynodd Charles M. Schultz gyfres o gymeriadau yn y cartŵn Peanuts oedd yn dynweddu’r frwydr fewnol yma a’r methiant torfol i’w deall. Ym 1966, toc ar ôl i’r Barwn Coch ymddangos yng nghartŵn Schultz am y tro cyntaf, ail-ryddhaodd y Royal Guardsmen y gân Snoopy Vs The Red Baron. Aeth perchenogion Snoopy â’r band i’r llys am ddefnyddio ei enw. O ganlyniad, ni chyhoeddwyd y gerddoriaeth ddalen erioed. Yn ogystal â bod yn gorhelgi cartŵn ac yn beilot ymladd hynod, mae gan Snoopy awydd bod yn nofelydd mawr hefyd.
Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press
Buoys Boys, 2016
High definition digital film
16 minutes
Edition of 5 plus 1 AP
Soundtrack: Snoopy Vs The Red Baron
Part 1 Fiona Banner and Viv Albertine with Steve Beresford and James McArthur
Part 2 Sir John Cass Schoool Choir
Ffilm ddigidol manylder uwch
16 munud
Cynhyrchiad o 5 ynghyd ag 1 AP
Trac sain: Snoopy Vs The Red Baron
Rhan 1 Fiona Banner a Viv Albertine gyda Steve Beresford a James McArthur
Rhan 2 Côr Ysgol Syr John Cass
Image credits:
Buoys Boys, 2016
Full Stop inflatables installation shot. From left to right Onyx, Bookman, Capitalist, Didot and Courier
Llun o osodwaith yr atalnodau llawn chwyddadwy. O’r chwith i’r dde Onyx, Bookman, Capitalist, Didot a Courier
Ffotograff hapgael drwy garedigrwydd Archif Gwrthdaro Modern, Llundain
