The London Art Exchange

Summer 2012: The Olympics are coming. All eyes are on London. And as London becomes saturated with all things Olympic, so Westwerk Hamburg will immerse itself in all things London. In a show curated by Catherine Borowski (London) and Sabine Flunker (Westwerk), a group of London-based artists will decamp to Hamburg. In Westwerk they will be joined by German artists to create an alternative Olympic Village in oblique response to the 2012 Games and their less sportly by-products. In an unorthodox sample of the flavour, atmosphere and eccentricity of London, an eclectic and resonant mix of artists has been invited to bear the city’s torch. Visual artists, urbanists, a flag maker, transvestites, a set designer, experience creators, a Queen-at-home-in-Balmoral (plus beard) and a yoga teacher will gather in Hamburg to ignite an intriguing alternative to the Olympic vision.

Catherine Borowski’s Olympiad works will feature reclaimed hurdles from athletic tracks that have been given
a pristine powder-coated -finish reminiscent of the total regeneration of East London.

Olivier Garbay’s contribution to the event is his poem Playing the Game to the Hilt, set against a backdrop of hand-made tapestries that include the depiction of an Olympian cake.

Jo Sperryn-Jones is currently finishing her PhD Breaking as making: In what ways can making sculpture con-tribute to understanding perception and experiences of breaking? The Westwerk Olympics will feature her most recent works.

The WITH Collective has created a catalogue of 60 concepts for sale such as Traumaformer where you can com-mission evidence of a more traumatic past, or Guiltry where you can pay a member of the WITH Collective to take responsibility for your actions. By purchasing these ‘products’ you can have an experience either invented or lived out on your behalf by a member of the Collective. In Westwerk WITH will present a triptych of limited-edition Promises that are revealed only once payment has been received.

Artist Ruby Wright and urbanist Tom Keeley collect observations from the forgotten fringes of the Olympic site – residential areas where promises of regeneration helped win the Olympic bid for London – to create a series of two-dimensional works offering a candid snapshot of pre-Games fever.

Hartmut Gerbsch constructs spatial and site-specific works using animation and superimposition that hover between single frame images and film. These dynamic visual edifices generate striking and intriguing re-interpretations by contrasting everyday conditions in city/nature, private/public space, old/new urbanity.

Niedervolthoudini is a polymedial collective. Since its members are scattered all over the country, the nub of their activities, their point of departure and convergence is the project’s own website.