17/08/2023
Artprojx Cinema Screening 2004
The Lark Ascending by Mark Wallinger at Prince Charles Cinema. Presented by David Gryn/Artprojx.
“One of the earliest Artprojx events at the Prince Charles Cinema was a project with Mark Wallinger, called ‘The Lark Ascending’. It started life as a simple conversation a few months prior, I bumped into Mark at the first Frieze Art Fair, whom I knew, and said do have any ideas for a new artwork to play in the cinema, he said “I have an idea”, which I replied to as “great’, let’s do it !!! …” and that was virtually the total sum of of our conversation. A few months later, I got the draft work, and it was perfect, a 33 minute piece, with a dark screen turning to bright light over its duration, with the sound of a lark playing at reduced low/slow levels, speeding up to the normal bright chirpy decibels of the bird. So the artwork was very abstract, but at the same time had a visual/audio narrative arc – with the light and sound slowly evolving/changing throughout the duration. My process was really in making the event happen and it’s marketing. The cinema was packed to its rafters, with queues around the block and over 500 in the audience, and it was very sensational, with some people not being able to cope with its minimalism and abstract nature, and some even shouting and storming out, but almost all stayed and were deeply moved by the whole experience. It generated great reviews in many newspapers, and Mark’s gallery Anthony Reynolds Gallery got great footfall as a result. There was a visceral buzz around this work, the artist, his gallery show all at the same time. Thereafter, I had galleries, museums and art fairs approaching for many years after to partner and collaborate on similar cinema based projects. This event far exceeded any expectations for what would happen and really made a huge impact on us all“ from the David Gryn interview in Generazione Critica
See Adrian Searle’s Guardian Review https://theguardian.com/culture/2004/jan/21/1
