The Forty Part Motet – Janet Cardiff at Fabrica, Brighton

Fabrica presents Janet Cardiff’s The Forty Part Motet. The piece is a reworking of Spem in Alium a renaissance choral work by Thomas Tallis. A choir of forty voices is represented by forty speakers laid out in an oval in Fabrica’s exhibition space, each speaker relaying one voice. The speakers are grouped in clusters of five, reflecting the nature of the composition, written for eight choirs of five people.

As a visitor to the gallery your relationship to the music is fundamentally different than it would be in a concert hall. Instead of your traditional audience position, static in front of the choir, you are free to walk amongst them, to construct the sound you hear, to follow a particular voice or melody, or stand and let the sound wash over and engulf you.

“I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.” – Janet Cardiff

The exact circumstance of the commissioning of Spem in Alium is unknown, though it is thought to have been written for the birthday of Protestant monarch Elizabeth I. Tallis himself was a committed Catholic and remained so despite working at court through the Reformation.

We are pleased once again to be working in association with Brighton Festival and that this piece so accurately reflects some of the themes and concerns of this year’s festival and its director Aung San Suu Kyi, the power of the voice both individually and collectively.

Janet Cardiff’s work combines sound, movement and the environment. Based in Berlin, Janet’s work has included media such as film, video and photography.  She participated in the Munster Skulptur Projekte in 1997, exhibiting in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, 1999. She also represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2001 in collaboration with George Bures Miller. A major survey of Cardiff Miller works has toured to PS1 in New York, The Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal, The Astrop Fearnley Museum, Oslo and the Castello Rivoli In Turin. A current touring exhibition of Cardiff Miller works will be seen at MACBA, Barcelona, Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt and the Miami Art Centre, Miami. She is currently represented by Luhring Augustine Gallery in NYC and Barbara Weiss Gallery in Berlin.

Fabrica is a contemporary art gallery housed in a former Regency church in the centre of Brighton with a remit to make contemporary art available and accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

http://fabrica.org.uk

Brighton Festival of Shopping

The Festival of Shopping is a city-wide festival celebrating Brighton‘s great shopping including fashion, food, beauty, weddings and interiors. Each weekend will include catwalk and styling events at key locations across the city, with a fashion gala event at G Casino on Thursday 28 April.

Presented by Unique Brighton, Churchill Square, Brighton Marina, Hove Business Association and Brighton Visitor magazine.

http://brightonfestivalofshopping.com

Borde Hill

The renowned garden of delights that is Borde Hill is promising a packed calendar of events and unforgettable memories for its 2011 season. The acclaimed venue offers outdoor splendours for all ages and interests, from gardener enthusiasts to music and car lovers and every member of the family.
Throwing open its doors to visitors on Monday 21 March, Borde Hill is this year sporting an impressive new entrance, complete with expanded gift shop and plant sales area.

Offering a gift for every occasion, the shop is packed with everything from local produce such as Paynes Sussex honey to quality items such as Ideal Home china mugs, Ulster Weavers kitchen co-ordinates, superb Madaraff handbags, Bradleys Tannery leather gardening accessories, Padblocks magnetic writing pads and blocks and Elite fairy gifts and novelty childrens’ toys.

The newly enhanced Italian Garden will create a fresh focus to complement the delightful Rose Garden, created by RHS gold medallist Robin Williams in 1996. Also this year  a new Rose Border has been designed by Dr Tony Lord to extent the summer colour and interest. No fewer than 4,000 narcissus, tulip (hybrid and species) anemones, scillas, hyacinth bulbs have been planted to create still more vivid colour over the season. The magnificent examples of camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas are a certain draw for garden lovers, as is the unique collection of magnolias that Borde Hill has nurtured over the decades.

Linger in the Grade 11* listed landscape that embraces 17 acres of formal garden, created in the 1900s by Colonel Stephenson R Clarke – great grandfather of Andrewjohn, Borde Hill Garden’s present family in residence – then explore 200 acres of rolling mid Sussex park and woodland set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty offering commanding views of the Sussex Weald overlooking the river Ouse valley.

Everyone from plant enthusiast to families is welcome to enjoy the diverse range of flora including rare and exotic trees from Asia and South America, and the seasonal carpet of bluebells and wood anemones.

Borde Hill Garden hosts 82 ‘Champion’ trees in its collection and offers regular tours of these most prized specimens, some the largest of their kind to be seen anywhere in the UK and grown from the original seeds collected by some of the world’s greatest plant collectors while on their exhibitions to China and the Himalayas.

Family friendly Borde Hill holds a wealth of educational and historical interests as well as the innovative Harry’s adventure playground overlooking the lakes, where children can let their imaginations run free or just relax and picnic.

You’re spoilt for choice of food at Borde Hill Garden – the characterful Elvira Café presents a varied menu of locally sourced and home cooked food, while for that special occasion, Jeremy’s Restaurant – listed in the Good Food Guide 2011 – serves inspirational modern European food in this, it’s 25th year.

www.bordehill.co.uk • 01444 450326

Borde Hill Garden is open from 21 March to 11 September

22 to 30 October, daily from 10am to 6pm and is located 1½ miles north of Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal at Hove Museum & Art Gallery

Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal, lives in a metal world and makes metal things – a crab’s bicycle, a flying machine, a new kind of trumpet.  He is the creation of craft maker Jon Mills who presents the disastrous adventures of Mr Watt in a series of short books.

Hove Museum & Art Gallery hosts Mr Watt and many of his creations in this exhibition of metal pieces used to illustrate the books that will appeal to adults and children alike.

Hove Museum & Art Gallery •  www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/
Free Admission

Radical Bloomsbury: The Art of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, 1905-1925 at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

The Bloomsbury artists have long been associated with Sussex through their Charleston home.  The unconventional household established by the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant was often depicted in their paintings, and Charleston itself is a distillation of what has come to be known as the ‘Bloomsbury style’.

The exhibition at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery looks at the contribution of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant to the development of 20th-century British painting, exploring the relationship between the Bloomsbury artists and avant-garde art from 1905 to 1925.   It shows how the Bloomsbury painters looked at new developments in European art, and how important their role was in modernising British art.  The exhibition focuses on painting, but also includes painted room panels and screens and some textiles.

Loans include pictures from national and regional galleries throughout England and from private collectors, including some works that have rarely been seen in public before.

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery  www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk
Admission payable
Members Free

Exhibition ticket prices
Adult £6
Child (5-15 years) Free
Concession £4
B&H Resident (with proof of address) £3

Joint ticket with Charleston £12
Valid 16 April to 16 May and
9 September to 9 October only