3 colour screen prints on plywood in 3 colour-ways
3 colour screen prints on plywood in 3 colour-ways
18 x silver, magenta & blue/black
16 x blue, magenta & blue/black
16 x yellow, magenta & blue/black
total edition of 50
signed and numbered on the reverse
rubber stamped HA on the front
30 cm x 21 cm
only £75
Available now from L-13.
Invitation to COLLIDER Part 3 at The Clinic, W1
L-13 Light Industrial Workshop presents the 3rd and final part of Harry Adams’ COLLIDER Project:
A series of large scale ‘double vision’ screen-print paintings and studio grown oak saplings installed over three floors of an abandoned clinic in the heart of Mayfair, London.
19 – 27th June 2021
THE CLINIC, 56 Brook St, London W1
Opening times 12:30 – 6:00 pm daily
Post-Lockdown COLLIDER party
Friday 25th June
6 – 9 pm
RSVP: L-13@L-13.org
Harry Adams present: COLLIDER PART 2 (the book) double vision
COLLIDER part 2 (the book) double vision is a remix of the paintings made for COLLIDER part 1: (the exhibition), an online exhibition of screen-printed landscape paintings made during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020.
Mirroring and zooming in on the screen-print paintings, confusing the original and the digital image, manipulated, made real again, into something new.
COLLIDER part 2 (the book) double vision can be read front ways, back ways, in a mirror, or on a Zoom call without diminishing your viewing experience.
90 full colour pages
300 mm x 203 mm
Printed by the fantastic Narayana Press in Denmark on 150 gsm Munken Krystal Rough paper and solidly bound in Germany with flush cut 3mm book board and a printed mirror paper finish.
Available in two edition formats:
Special Edition of 150
With hand-painted black edges
Signed and numbered by the artist
Wrapped in a screen-printed and rubber stamped cardboard slipcase.
Unadulterated Edition
Shrink-wrapped and pure.
Available from the L-13 shop.
New Archival print - with free copy of Jan Woolf’s new play
Flooded Land III
Archival reproduction print on heavy matt stock
Edition of 31
The first 10 come with a free copy of author and friend of L-13 Jan Woolf's latest play, Streaming The Dead.
"Ten minutes to perform and less time to read, the vital spark was anger as I watched the 75th anniversary of D Day on June 6th this year. As war veterans lay dying of Covid in care homes I thought of lungs - and water. The play, published by Pentameters Press, has a limited print run."
We have 10 copies of the limited edition play available for FREE with a new Harry Adams print.
Jan Woolf will be doing an online reading from her short stories Stormlight with the socialist bookshop Bookmarks
Tuesday 15th December
7pm
More details at the Facebook page here.
The print is available now from the L-13 shop.
This year it seems that death is a lot closer.
There has been much of talk about it, and plenty of tallying up the final count.
In all the debate about the value of life vs “normality” and the health of the economy, one of the major questions on everyone’s lips as the year draws to a close has been: “….Will they dare?”
And dare they will and dare they have!
Finally…we proudly present the World Famous Harry Adams “Will You Die This Year Calendar” for 2021!
With adaptions and improvements for these trying times. Available from the L-13 shop.
HARRY ADAMS
COLLIDER
part 1
an online exhibition and video
NOW AVAILABLE TO VIEW
ONLINE ONLY
As other galleries around the country reopen and eagerly await
the vaccine-drenched return to 'normal',
we here at L-13 once again decide to buck the trend, ignore government advice, and refuse to leave the peace & quiet of lockdown life (and the cold, dark basement).
To that effect this exhibition is only available to view on our website, from now until the end of time.
EXTRACT FROM EXHIBITION NOTES
Harry Adams: COLLIDER part 1
The original HA Collider was a theoretical experiment invented by Harold Rosenbloom Snr for the HA Protocol 2013. The methodology required Marcel Duchamp in one wheelbarrow and Edvard Munch in another, with both being pushed at high speed towards each other through a large cardboard tube by two notable contemporary artists (possibly Martin Creed and Anselm Kiefer, but any would do) until they smash into each other. Rosenbloom conjectured that within the wreckage of that crash a new egalitarian and timeless art would be formed: part mechanical, part human, and of great terror and beauty.
WORK FOR SALE
Every single of the 86 pieces made for this exhibition are available to buy
13 "COLLISION PRINT PAINTINGS" are available at a reduced price. These have been randomly selected and can be found mixed in with the full priced work.
Available to purchase directly from L-13.
COLLIDER EXPERIENCE
A special immersive film created for the exhibition.
Turn up the volume.
Enter full screen.
Sit back
& watch:
Exhibition
Eagle Gallery
159 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3AL
+
Open Studio
L-13 Light Industrial Workshop
31 Eyre Street Hill, London EC1R 5EW
All welcome, no RSVP necessary
With the title taken from the crazed 1913 Futurist Opera for which Kazimir Malevich made his first Black Square painting, the exhibition features new paintings and monotype silkscreens that continue Harry Adams' musings on apocalyptic romanticism.
Sun you bore the passions
And scorched them with flaming beam
We’ll yank a dusty coverlet over you
Lock you up in a concrete house!
Exhibition continues
12th July - 9th August 2019
L-13 studio visits by appointment
L-13@L-13.org
Harry Adams are showing in an exhibition of hand-made prints at The Eagle Gallery, Wednesday 27th March
You are warmly invited to an exhibition of hand-printed works at
the Eagle Gallery, which includes five prints specially selected from the Harry Adams Dark Waters Rising screen print edition.
Eagle Gallery
159 Farringdon Road
London
EC1R 3AL
www.emmahilleagle.com
Private View
27th March
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Exhibition continues until 20th April.
PLUS
Harry Adams are working towards a new solo exhibition opening at Eagle Gallery, July 2019.
+++SAVE THE DATES+++
New Work and Exhibitions
Harry Adams
5 – 7th April
MIART fair, Milan with Galleria Alessandra Bonomo
www.miart.it/en
3rd July
Solo exhibition at Eagle Gallery, London
www.emmahilleagle.com
Screen prints derived from two or three Harry Adams paintings that have been simplified and half-toned: Flooded Valley, Blue Cloud, and Nothing Remains Unchanged But The Clouds. The motifs mashed together in overlapping layers to form variations of the same image. All the same but all different with interlocking and offset colours and textures to create a beautified yet miasmic landscape.
EACH PRINT UNIQUE
POT LUCK COLOUR-WAY
THERE WILL BE NO CHOOSING, DELIBERATING OR BARGAINING
Choice is an illusion and you must play with the hand you are dealt.
The illusion of choice causes stress. L-13 is dedicated to relieving stress. For this we do not allow you a choice of colour-way or allow you to worry about the condition of your print. We won’t even choose. All the prints will be sealed in a cardboard portfolio and you will be surprised and happy with what you receive, and the world will be at peace.
Click on the images to go to the L-13 shop.
+++PLUS+++
FREE BONUS BOOBY PRINT TO the 13th CUSTOMER
PURCHASING THE NEW HARRY ADAMS SCREEN PRINT
Cow with Cloud and Moon
ONLY ONE EVER MADE
The Harry Adams paintings on which these screen prints are based are also available for sale.
Please email L-13@L-13.org for more information.
HARRY ADAMS HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE HARRY PYE AWARDS FOR ART
sponsored by Joffe Books.
You are warmly invited to attend the AWARD CEREMONY
6pm – 9pm
The A Side B Side Gallery
353 Mare Street, E8 1HR (opposite Hackney Central Station)
Friday 31st August
The evening will feature live performances from
best musician: Ritchie Lamy
best newcomer: Simon Love
and
best live act: Sukie Smith
You will also witness one of the following artists walk away with an amazing trophy and cash prize…
Harry Adams, Gordon Beswick, Martin Brown, Sohrab Crews, Mikey Georgeson, James Lawson, Lee Maelzer, Raksha Patel, Raphael Pepper, Rachael Robb, Geraldine Swayne, Sarah Sparkes, and Sandra Turnbull
Read all about it in the Rebel Magazine here.
The Harry Adams exhibition Nothing Remains Unchanged But The Clouds is now open at AirSpace Gallery and runs to the 2nd June 2018.
A Limited Edition Series of 31 Mighty Oak Saplings in Artist Made, Raku-Fired Ceramic Pots are available to adopt exclusively from AirSpace Gallery.
Own a piece of original Harry Adams ceramic ware but more importantly Adopt your own Mighty Oak Sapling*.
*Adoption requires you to do all in your power to ensure this sapling’s safety and survival. This includes caring for this future giant until you feel it is strong enough to lay its own roots and can be replanted out in a site of your choosing. Adoption requires an initial documentation of the planting followed by an annual growth and health report.
PLUS new MANGéL PRESS WOODCUT and Reproduction Prints, all available to buy from AirSpace Gallery.
Artist Soup Kitchen
Self Funding in the Arts: the Good, the Bad and the Future
Saturday 26th May
AirSpace presents the Artist Soup Kitchen – talks and workshops to explore support networks, good practice and sustainability of the arts and artists in a changing climate.
Steve Lowe will be presenting L-13’s model of self-funding based on making and merchandising* as the basis of a discussion which seeks to develop new strategies on how to successfully fund a practice in the face of a never ending austerity.
*Disclaimer – L-13 admit to one instance of receiving Arts Council funding.
Seats at the Artist Soup Kitchen Table are limited, so to avoid disappointment, please book early, and only if you fully intend to attend.
More details on the AirSpace page here.
Nothing Remains Unchanged But The Clouds
HARRY ADAMS
at
AirSpace Gallery
Stoke-on-Trent
28th April - 2nd June
OPENING PREVIEW
And Artist Talk With Harry Adams
Saturday 28th April 2pm-5pm*
An exhibition of paintings vs trees (and strategies in art avoidance).
ON THE OPENING DAY
EDITION OF 31 OAK SAPLINGS
IN ARTIST MADE POTS
AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION
+++PLUS+++
WITNESS THE GREAT MANGéL PRESS
IN ACTION ON SITE
PRINTING THE NEW HARRY ADAMS
LIMITED EDITION WOODCUT
AirSpace Gallery
4 Broad Street, City Centre, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 4HL
Open during exhibitions
Thursday to Saturday 11:00am to 5:00pm
Tuesdays and Wednesdays by appointment
www.airspacegallery.org
*Trains to Stoke-On-Trent from London Euston take between 1.5-2hrs and tickets are available from £18.00 return. Don't miss this unique opportunity to enjoy PAINTINGS, POTTERY AND PLANTS beyond the sanctum of the metropolitan elite!
28th April - 2nd June 2018
AirSpace Gallery, 4 Broad Street, City Centre, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 4HL
www.airspacegallery.org
“A generation that had gone to school on a horse-drawn streetcar now stood under the open sky in a countryside in which nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, and beneath these clouds, in a field of force of destructive torrents and explosions, was the tiny, fragile human body.”
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
Walt Whitman, from the introduction to the first edition of Leaves of Grass
“Our work may look like it’s confused and conflicted, but it is in fact a highly controlled poetic outpouring”²
Harry Adams
“L-13 …. Like the mind of a man about to ride into battle with the heart of a child at play”
Anon
Harry Adams³ and the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop⁴ has a spirited and highly dynamic LOVE/hate hate hate HATE/love relationship with Art and the Art World.
Over the past 30 years as practising artists Steve Lowe and Adam Wood (aka Harry Adams) have developed strategies to enable themselves to function with creative freedom and, to the best of their ability, avoid what they consider the restrictive, prescriptive and destructive norms of contemporary art practice. An art orthodoxy they see as rendered near impotent and lacking in the elemental primacy, spiritual power or search for meaning that informed the high arts of past ages, or the critical/moral outrage and courage that informed the fights and challenges against dominant culture in the avant-garde movements of the modernist era.
Taking up Duchamp’s mantel as “anartists” they position themselves not so much as opposed to art, but as artists despite it. Unlike Duchamp who abandoned painting (then the mainstay of the elitist art world) in 1923 to develop a radical language of non-art in a reinvention of what art could do or might be in the modern age, Harry Adams refuses the corrupted and recouped version of his defiant strategies (now the de-toothed and sanctioned mainstay of the elitist art world) to develop a romantic vision of the unruly and reactionary painter as the true radical for what they describe as our “post-art” times. They embrace Duchamp’s despised retinal art⁵, now that serious retinal art is scarce and distrusted. This time not as egocentric ‘lone genius’ art, but with a commitment to collective creation, collaboration and the wish to stimulate a passionate community of spirit. That said, they don’t mind others playing the contemporary art games of the mind, they just find it a bit boring. They understand that some children like to play chess and engage in other tactical or academic pursuits, but these ones grew up playing on old bomb sites and in muddy streams, firing catapults and throwing sticks at passers-by. They are doers, they want to go places for real – to explore, not discuss going, or deal in notions of going.
The clinical corridors of the analytical art maze are not for them. They have a metaphorical bulldozer for such things.
As such, Nothing Remains Unchanged but the Clouds is simply an exhibition of what they love to do: Painting and making stuff… and gleefully enjoying the critical difficulty such base pursuits might cause to those on the cutting edge of contemporary art practice. After all, painting (in its simple glory) can be difficult to quantify in the current cultural climate as an effective contribution to the complex socio-political debates and explorations that a serious contemporary “radical” artist must engage in. As Jeremy Deller said on winning the Turner Prize “Artists don’t paint these days, just as we don’t go to work on a horse.” Painting can be too easily dismissed as an old-fashioned bourgeois, indulgent and romantic activity that lacks relevance to today’s critical dialogues. This is all true and, as previously mooted, that is why Harry Adams is a painter. Harry Adams paints because he is in love with painting, its shifting sands of uselessness, and the lack of comprehension it provokes in those that might dismiss it as a retrograde art form lacking the rigour of concept led art.
Harry Adams sees the radical potential of painting as poetic and unquantifiable in our algorithmic mediated world. They are endlessly curious, thrilled and frustrated by it - consumed by the challenges, the joy, and the disappointment it brings. They are the savage from Brave New World, the spanner in the works for the likes of Cambridge Analytica. They want to know what a good painting for our time would look like if they were able to make one. They paint because they want to make beautiful, evocative and terrible things that people can fall in love with or find appalling. They keep on trying. This exhibition is evidence of their most recent efforts, for better or worse.
So here, presented by Harry Adams, are paintings of an imagined flat empty landscape with big chaotic skies (or is it just paint?): The Dereliction Series made. Also, more traditional landscapes with “real” fields and hills and trees. These works are tactile and made of stuff (oil paint and oil mediums, beeswax encaustic, gesso, cotton dust sheets, hessian, charcoal and plywood), tangible in their combination of illusion and materiality and smell – mineral, wholesome and toxic. Also present are works showing curious religious imagery or animals, and reference to paintings of the distant past. These paintings, big and small, may contain personal meaning that no one will get or care about, but it is all of beauty and confusion; and glory in a lack of clarity or intent that leaves them open to poetic interpretation.
Paintings Vs Trees
Then, posed as a challenge, or to compliment these imaginated painted worlds are the real trees: an edition of little oak saplings planted in ceramic pots made here in Stoke by Harry Adams with the help of local ceramicist Joanne Ayre at the old Spode Works. This is their first attempt at pottery and all 31 pots were made over four days of frenzied activity. Two days of throwing (and learning) then two days of glazing (and learning). Harry Adams is not a master potter, the pots are inconsistent, warped and imperfect - the trees are small and delicate.
And then we have other things produced through the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop: the home of Harry Adams, their day job. Editions, publications and projects they devise and make with or for a small group of other artists they’ve worked with over the years. Artists that have all influenced them and provided an anchored point from which they can develop their own practice: namely (amongst others) Jimmy Cauty, Billy Childish, Neal Jones and Jamie Reid.
Through all this energised activity they recognise and honour the special necessity of collective human creativity and its holistic power. To this end subscribing to a vision of making, doing, sharing and communing with those who seek or wish to make, do, share and commune with them. All done with the devilishly playful glee of those content with their self-validated freedom.
Harold Rosenbloom, January 2018
---------------------------------------------
¹Formally known as the fine arts. (i.e. arts with no functional purpose or value)
²Harry Adams has since confessed that the “highly controlled” part of this statement is in fact a lie.
³Harry Adams is the pseudonym used to present the collaborative work of Steve Lowe and Adam Wood. They have collaborated together on various visual, conceptual and music related projects since they met at art school in the late 1980’s and adopted the name Harry Adams in 2007 specifically for the purpose of making paintings.
⁴The L-13 Light Industrial Workshop and Private Ladies and Gentlemen’s Club for Art, Leisure and the Disruptive Betterment of Culture is an organisation founded by Steve Lowe (with the help of Adam) that provides a creative platform for the development and dissemination of work by a small group of artists he has found himself working with since 2003.
⁵Essentially, ‘visual/aesthetic’ rather than ‘idea’ based art.
28th April - 2nd June 2018
AirSpace Gallery, 4 Broad Street, City Centre, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 4HL
www.airspacegallery.org
An exhibition of paintings vs trees (and strategies in art avoidance) that seeks to degrade, debunk, re-mystify and re-purpose the useless arts in a post-art culture.
AirSpace Gallery presents a set of brand new landscape paintings by artist duo Harry Adams, made in direct response to Stoke-on-Trent. Stripped of their figurative content, each painting is accompanied by its errant tree forms, escaping from their 2d plane and inhabiting the Gallery, planted in bespoke ceramic vessels - made by the artists, by hand, in the city of Stoke-On-Trent.
The New Year is Upon Us
and already we have been touched by
The Finger of God
THREE NEW AUTOMATIC PAINTINGS for the price of ONE
By that renowned & prolific macho bastard genius
PABLO PICASSHOLE
Macho Maroon
Bastard Brown
Fucking Genius Grey
Each painting is unique. Placed on a thick book of Dada and touched by the Finger of God. Witnessed by Harry Adams.
Edition of 31 sets stamped, numbered and signed by the artist.
Available now from the L-13 shop.
Confused?
Read all about the Patented Finger of God Painting Machine in an archive post from Steve Lowe which will answer your every question (probably).
Click the image below to read the blog post.
IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN
BACK BY UNPOPULAR DEMAND
THE WORLD FAMOUS
HARRY ADAMS ‘WILL YOU DIE THIS YEAR?’ CALENDAR
2018 Edition
Available Now
THIS YEAR IN AN ALL NEW FULL COLOUR DESIGN.
THIS YEAR WITH SOME NEW WORDING.
THIS YEAR IN 3 NEW STUNNING EDITIONS.
Evil Sixes
Edition of 66 numbered copies and 6 APs
Will you fry when you die?
£6.66
Heavenly Sevens
Edition of 77 numbered copies and 7 APs
For the lucky and blessed, pay more die less!
£7.77
Unlucky 13
Edition of 13 signed and numbered copies
For L-13 chancers and connoisseurs.
£13.13
ALL CONTAIN RANDOMLY SELECTED DATES CIRCLED IN RED.
PERHAPS THE DAY YOU DIE?
MAKE YOUR CHOICES AND TAKE YOUR CHANCES!
WARNING
These calendars are advisory only – no action should be taken.
These calendars are not magical in any way and and have never been known to work.
DISCLAIMER
Any death coinciding with a ringed date is entirely coincidental.
ADVICE
DO NOT buy one if you are in any way superstitious.
DO NOT give one to friends or family who are in any way superstitious, sensitive, or easily alarmed.
DO NOT buy any for your enemies. It won’t work.
MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
If you do die by mistake on a selected date we’ll issue you a full refund and a written apology.
Click the images to go to the L-13 shop.
As part of an upcoming Harry Adams exhibition at AirSpace Gallery in Stoke-On-Trent, L-13’s Steve Lowe will be taking part in the gallery’s curriculum programme in partnership with Staffordshire University with an artist talk on Thursday 16th November.
AirSpace Curriculum is a programme of events, talks and workshops organised by AirSpace Gallery in partnership with Staffordshire University which recognises and responds to the need for continuing professional development for artists in Stoke-on-Trent and the West Midlands.
The first part of the Curriculum offer is a series of artists’ talks, organised by Staffordshire University and usually available solely to students on their Fine Art BA Course, but now being opened up for any interested artists and members of the public to attend. This offer will be augmented by additional artist talks at AirSpace Gallery.
The programme offers an insight into the professional practices of a number of interesting and varied professional artists and arts practitioners.
Please note – For talks held at Staffordshire University, booking is essential for non-University attendees. For booking information please visit the Curriculum page at airspacegallery.org
The Fourth MANGéL PrESS Print
The Ridge
Edition of 13
Mangled linocut on Somerset Book stock
42 x 30 cm
Edition of 13 unique prints
Though this is an edition each print is hand-inked, no two are the same
Signed and numbered by the artist
Click here to view the full edition on the L-13 website.
The second print from the L-13 MANGél PrESS Editions is released.
Broken Harbour by Harry Adams
Mangled linocut on Somerset Buff Velvet
30 x 42 cm
Edition of 31 signed and numbered by the artist
Each print is hand-inked and unique
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE L-13 SHOP
ABOUT THE L-13 MANGéL PRESS
All L-13 MANGéL PrESS editions are printed using an old clothes mangle.
We are called the MANGéL PrESS because although our spelling is bad, we are highly adaptable here at L-13.
This, the second issue from the mangle, is one of a series of 13 prints you can collect at affordable prices.
