Sideshow Wunderkammer

Friday, 22 October 2010 - Sunday, 14 November 2010

Documentation:

Sideshow will host a Wunderkammer, an exhibition containing artwork, documentation and other ephemera from a wide range of artists in the city to form a comprehensive survey of the contemporary Nottingham art scene.

SIDESHOW WUNDERKAMMEr

Private View: 28 October 7pm - 9pm

Price: free

A Cabinet of Curiosities, or Cabinet of Wonder, and in German Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer (wonder-room), were encyclopaedic collections of objects where categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. In Renaissance Europe, the ‘cabinet’ was a reference to an entire room rather than just a cupboard – and they were often famous collections of rulers and aristocrats wishing to create a microcosm of their own world or a theatre of memory. Nowadays, we would pigeonhole the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities.

No Sideshow would be complete without a cabinet of curiosities, or a "Museum Show". In the traditional Coney-island sense of the term, such a spectacle might be set aside in its own trailer and described as "World's Greatest Freaks Past and Present," a ‘sideshow’ in which the exhibits are usually not alive.

The Wunderkammer will be a core part of Sideshow in 2010. More survey than freakshow, more ‘elusive collection of rarities’ than taxidermied corpses, this unique open exhibition taking place at The Hopkinson Gallery at the Art Organisation and will reveal a display which harks back to a pre-museum state. The ‘utter incompatibility’ of works will attempt to show things without thematic categorisation and reveal individual treasures carefully put together by individual artists. The gallery space itself started life as a vast hardware store in which drawers and cabinets were filled with every screw or nail known to man, and the window was crammed tightly with new contraptions and tools.For Sideshow the walls and floors again will be filled with curios and artefacts, reverting to a previous state where every surface presented something to wonder over.

Sideshow is inviting artists living and working in Nottingham, to bring an object of curiosity for display, whether that is an artwork made by them or some artefact, which gives them inspiration. It will be registered and catalogued in to this temporary cabinet of curiosity and returned to them when the exhibition is over.

We will reveal more soon about how to enter your work to the Wunderkammer.

The Wunderkammer will be on display from Friday 22nd October to Sunday 14th November and part of Sideshow’s core programme which is expected to attract around 70,000 people over the course of 8 weeks.

Location:

Hopkinsons Gallery: The Art Organisation

The Art Organisation opened in 2007 in Nottingham after converting the former Hopkinson's Hardware Store near the train station. With an ethos that supports local communities and environmental issues, the Art Organisation is responsible for regenerating several disused properties all over the UK.

The Nottingham venue provides opportunities for exhibitions, hire of workshop and rehearsal spaces as well as giving access to facilities and equipment. It's a place which is open to the public almost every time one passes by, with a welcoming area for tea and cake in the day time and a great place to see gigs or attend classes in the evening. It is also home to artists studios, a monochrome darkroom, Silkscreen facilities, wood workshop, kiln-firing and meeting space for hire. Perhaps most note worthy is the venue's recycle scheme where the general public are urged to bring in unwanted items and take away whatever may be useful. Now collecting paint, wood, books, clothes, computers, building material.

CONSTITUTION