Pub Conversation: Ryan Gander & Bedwyr Williams

Self Service and Pub Conversations.

In 2006 through to 2008, Self Service initiated a programme of talks taking place at the Lamp Tavern in Birmingham.

Each Self Service member chose an artist or person of influence to their practice who was in turn invited to nominate someone they would like to have a public conversation with. Topics of conversation were held entirely open and reflected the interests and enthusiasms of the artists nominated.

Each conversation was recorded and released as a podcast, however the Pub Conversations website no longer exists so the files are re-posted here by way of an archive. All posts related to the Pub Conversations series can be found at www.npugh.co.uk/tag/pub-conversations/.

Self Service is a constantly evolving group of Birmingham based artists who originally came together in 2004, with the aim of generating projects which would create intimacy and enable the development of dialogue amongst the disparate groups and practitioners in Birmingham who made up a somewhat fragmented visual arts community.

At the time of Pub Conversations, Self Service consisted of Tom Bloor, Jo Capper, Mona Casey, Faye Claridge, Ruth Claxton, Greg Cox, John Hall, Cheryl Jones, Nikki Pugh, Liz Rowe, Charlotte Smith and Matt Westbrook

The talks were supported by Arts Council, UCE and Business Link.

Ryan Gander & Bedwyr Williams, July 2007

pub conversations from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Ryan Gander is a London based artist who makes works in a variety of media that draw on multiple layers of fact and fiction, often hinting at obscure narratives that reference contemporary culture, everyday happenings or personal histories. Gander’s achievements include being awarded residencies at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, after which he won the Prix de Rome for sculpture (the national Dutch art prize) in 2003. In 2005 he was short listed for Becks Futures at the ICA in London and won the Baloise Art Statement Prize at Art Basel. He won the ABN AMRO prize of the Netherlands and was also included in the Tate Triennial in 2006. Previous solo exhibitions include shows at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; Cornerhouse, Manchester; Marc Foxx, LA; Massimo De Carlo, Milan; and Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, as well as several shows at Store Gallery in London. Alongside his artistic production, Ryan is founder and director of Associates, a not for profit gallery with a programme of twelve exhibitions by artists who have never previously had a solo show in London. This year Ryan is on a one year sabbatical, and will be having a solo exhibition at Ikon gallery in Birmingham in 2008. Ryan is represented by Store, London, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Tanya Bonakdar, NY.

Bedwyr Williams is an artist who lives and works in Caernarfon, Wales. He uses a wide variety of media including video, photography, drawing and performance, stand up comedy and even karaoke to explore themes such as provincial pathos, macho stereotyping and art-world pretentiousness from the perspective of an artist born, living and working in north Wales. He was awarded the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Award for Visual Art in 2004, represented Wales at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and was shortlisted for Beck’s Futures in 2006. Bedwyr’s exhibitions and performances have taken place at Camden Arts Centre, London; Chapter, Cardiff; PS1 New York, Ffotogallery, Cardiff; Store, London; and Oriel Mostyn Gallery in Llandudno. Williams is represented by Store, London.

[audio:http://www.npugh.co.uk/media/pubcon/Ryan%20Gander%20&%20Bedwyr%20Williams%20050707.mp3]
[Download file]