Simon Faithfull

Simon Faithfull (b. Ipsden, Oxfordshire, in 1966) is an English artist based in Berlin and London. His work has been widely exhibited in both international solo and group exhibitions, including The British Film Institute Gallery, London; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; CRAC Alsace, France, Stills, Edinburgh; and the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 as part of ArtSway’s New Forest Pavilion.

Biography

He was the first visual artist to receive an Arts Council England Fellowship to travel to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey. The journey began in November 2004 and lasted for two months. During this journey, Faithfull made daily drawings on a PalmPilot recording the daily events and sights of a journey ever further south. As with other drawing projects, these sketches were then relayed back to the world via email. In this case 3,000 people around the world received a live drawn message from end of the world.

"The drawings are very restricted in their detail because of the tiny screen with its paltry number of pixels. But I like this discipline of making something meaningful with such reduced means, something akin to an economy of line."
— Simon Faithfull

Simon Faithfull’s practice often involves elements of failure and anti-heroism. His works revolve around research and experiments, and during the course of the past few years he has become known for his Lecture Performances that will often accompany his exhibitions. He is cited as trying to measure the world in order to check whether it exists and whether, when absent, he also still exists.

Journeys and traveling are central to his practice, whether it involves the end of the world, outer space, or a simple bike ride, they offer crucial material for Faithfull. Influences include Smithson and Richard Long.

In 2006, Simon Faithfull released LOST (as part of a Whitstable Biennale 2006 commission), a book that catalogues the objects lost by the artist during the course of his lifetime, alongside the stories that accompany these losses. 500 of the books were left around Whitstable as part of an ongoing web project, as their finders are encouraged to record their discoveries before re-releasing them back into the world.

In a series of experiments conducted over ten years (1995–2005), Faithfull sought to defy gravity with his ‘Escape vehicles’. Seven in total to date, these Escape Vehicles range from the use of balloons, chairs, insects, and rockets. Escape Vehicle no.6 saw a domestic chair travel from the earth to the edge of space. An audience first witnessed the chair, tethered beneath a weather balloon, disappear into the sky and then watched a live video transmission from the vehicle showing the chair reaching an altitude of 30 km high. Seen against the blackness of space and the curvature of the earth the chair finally broke up at the edge of space.

Simon Faithfull is represented by Parker’s Box, New York, and Galerie Polaris, Paris. He is also an ArtSway Associate.

Artworks

Mobile Research Station no.1, 2009

Mobile Research Station was a project commissioned by SKULPTURENPARK BERLIN_ZENTRUM in 2009, that took place in the centre of Berlin, between Seydelstr and Beuthstr. Half hi-tech Antarctic Research Station and half rusty broken-dumpster, this unit created by Faithfull provided a station for a group of artists/researchers to investigate the surrounding wilderness and urban zones in Berlin.

Other researchers included Esther Polak (Amsterdam), Aug Annika Lundgren (Gothenburg/Berlin), Martin John Callanan (artist), Katie Paterson (London), Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson (Manchester/Berlin), Tim Knowles (London).

0º00 Navigation, 2008

A black and white film that shows an absurd journey made exactly along the Greenwich Meridian. Always seen from behind, a figure swims out of the seawater where the meridian hits the south-coast of Britain. The solitary person emerges out of the water carrying a hand held GPS device. Using this implement the figure then proceeds to walk directly north along the 0º00 line of longitude. Any obstacle encountered is negotiated—fences climbed, properties crossed, buildings entered via nearest windows or apertures, streams waded, motorways traversed. The figure gradually makes its way up through southeast Britain, through London, the Midlands and ultimately where the line re-enters the water in the north of Britain the figure slowly swims away into the North Sea.

Ice Blink, 2005

Ice Blink was a lecture, exhibition and book commissioned by The Arts Catalyst that collected together the body of work made during a two-month journey to Antarctica in 2004/2005, traveling with the British Antarctic Survey on their research vessel, RRS Ernest Shackleton. This tied in with Faithfull’s Antarctica Dispatches—the initial ‘live’ drawing project undertaken during the two-month journey. Prior to each of the exhibition openings, Faithfull delivered the Ice Blink lecture in a nearby theatre, drawing on the material he had collected during the course of the journey to illustrate a meandering journey through the myths of polar exploration.

Escape Vehicle No.6, 2004

A domestic chair is attached to a weather balloon and launched into space. Commissioned by The Arts Catalyst as part of the Artists' Airshow 2004. Footage is relayed back to earth as the live audience watches the chair travel 30 km away from the ground and into the edge of space. In 2009 to coincide with his solo exhibition, Gravity Sucks, at the BFI Southbank.

30 km, 2003

A journey into the stratosphere as seen by a video camera attached to a weather balloon. The film starts with the artist's face and then, after releasing the balloon, the shot pulls out, and out until the figure has disappeared into the English landscape. The film end with a glimpse of the curve of the earth and black space.

Orbital No.1, 2002

Three London circular journeys were recorded in real time and combined into a single, hypnotic, projected circular image. The circular journeys were: the M25 Orbital Motorway, the North and South Circular, and the Circle Line.

Half-life & Half-life Attachments, 2001

Each day a drawing on a palm-pilot was made somewhere in E1, London, and e-mailed back to the Whitechapel Gallery, London. The drawings were then forwarded on to an open list of subscribers as well as progressively inhabiting the gallery in a variety of forms.

Escape Vehicle No.2, 1996

A miniature chair made from spent matches and powered by three dead blue bottles attached to the chair with fuse wire.

Public Art

Liverpool to Liverpool, 2010

In 2009, Simon Faithfull made a journey from Liverpool (UK) to Liverpool (Nova Scotia), traveling by container ship, train and bus. The artist recorded the everyday minutia of the journey— recording the historic paths of trade and exodus. A total of 181 drawings were made and etched into the stone paving and glass of a new public site in Liverpool (UK).

Education

1994-1996 Master of Fine Art, Reading University, UK
1986-1989 BA First Class Honours, Central St Martins School of Art, London, UK

Exhibitions

2010 Recent Findings: Simon Faithfull, Harris Museum, Preston, UK
2010 Voyages Extraordinaires: Simon Faithfull & Christoph Keller - CRAC Alsace, France
2009 Gravity Sucks, British Film Institute Gallery, London, UK
2009 Simon Faithfull & Carla Guagliardi - Schwerlos. Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany
2008 Simon Faithfull - Selected Video Works, Gallerie Polaris, Paris, France
2006 Ice Blink, Parker's Box, New York, USA
2006 Ice Blink, Stills, Edinbugh, Scotland, UK
2006 Ice Blink, Cell, London, UK
2005 Antarctica Dispatches, CCA, Glasgow, UK (+screens at: ICA, Southampton City Gallery)
2004 Hard Drive, ICA (digital studio), London, UK
2004 Vanishing Point - Pump House, Battersea, London, UK
2004 30 km, Film and Video Umbrella Commission - Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK
2003 Dreamland, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK
2003 Terrestrial Investigation #256, SPACE, London, UK
2002 Simon Faithfull & Bruno Peinado, Parker's Box, New York, USA
2002 Dogends, Transit Space, London, UK
2002 Psychotopography, ArtSway, Hampshire, UK

References

Simon Faithfull on drawing, in the Guardian
Gravity Sucks review in Frieze magazine
Time out Artist Interview
Gravity Sucks Telegraph review
Book Works
Sarah Kent, 'Simon Faithfull, Review: Ice Blink –Cell', Time Out, 19 April 2006
Sarah Kent, 'Simon Faithfull, The art profile', Time Out, 19 April 2006
'Simon Faithfull', The New Yorker, Galleries/Brooklyn, 1 May 2006
Mark Godfrey, 'Simon Faithfull', in Emma Dexter, Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, Phaidon, 2006
Gabriel Coxhead, 'Drawing - Crossing the line', Financial Times, Weekend Magazine, 25 March 2006
The Animators
Colin Berry, 'Icy Palms', I.D.Magazine, March/April 2005
'Berg Watching', Guardian Unlimited, 14 Jan 2005
Roger Cox, 'Electronic lines on an epic voyage across the frozen Southern Ocean', The Scotsman, 14 December 2005
Karin Goodwin, 'E-mail artist to send daily show from Antarctic trek', The Sunday Times – Scotland, 5 December 2005
Martin Coomer, 'Simon Faithful – Pump House', Time Out 14–21 July 2004
V22 Participating artists
Slade Academic Staff
Helen Sumpter, 'The Great Escape', The Big Issue, 18–24 March 2002
Rebecca Geldard, 'Simon Faithfull – Transit Space', Time Out, 18 May 2002
Duncan McLaren, 'Temporary Accommodation – Whitechapel Art Gallery', Independent on Sunday, 4 February 2001
David Lillington, 'Simon Faithfull – Chisenhale Gallery', Art Monthly, November 1998

External links

Template:Persondata