STITT Substance

The present volume, and accompanying exhibition, explores the material & hidden narratives that inform
Stitt’s public demonstrations as an internationally acclaimed performance artist.These reliquary artworks
are imbued with the stained, battered souvenirs of encounter, redolent of bodily contact and involvement.
They represent an insight into the artists multi-faceted studio practice, and reveal further, intimate
strategies, investigations and processes that inform his public work.
These works question and reveal concerns that delight and celebrate a symbiotic relationship between
the private and public. As Roddy Hunter points out, “[they] clearly exist to sublimate his more public
performances and to provide insights into process where they may be currently lacking.”
Substance
Includes an introductory essay by Heike Roms with interviews & texts by Stewart Home, Simon Herbert, Roddy
Hunter, Lukasz Guzak & Phil Babot plus an exclusive interview investigating formative work made in Belfast
during the late nineteen seventies.
STITT André Stitt:Performance Akshun
Substance x Material x Evidence
STITT
Substance
Residues, Drawings
& Partial Objects
1976 - 2008
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04.10.2008
29.11.2008
Spacex
Exeter
England
André STITT
www.andrestitt.com
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Stitt is considered one of Europe’s foremost performance and interdisciplinary artists. He has worked as an experimental artist since 1976 creating hundreds of unique works at
major galleries, festivals, alternative venues and sites specific throughout the world. Recent commissions
include the Venice Biennale 2005, The Drawing Center, New York, 2006 and Artspace, Sydney 2007.
In 2008 he was recipient of the prestigious Creative Wales Award.
Stitt was based in London from 1980-1999.
He located to Cardiff in 1999 to become programme director of
Time Based Practice at Cardiff School of Art & Design.
In 2004 he became a professor of the University of Wales.
He is currently chair of the Centre for Fine Art Research at CSAD.
In 2000 he opened TRACE: Installaction Artspace in Cardiff with a programme of international
time based work exploring the relationship between ‘live’ process and installation art.
www.tracegallery.org
29.01.2010
06.03.2010
gtGallery
Stitt is identified with a strain of performance relating more to visual art and art action [identified in Stitt’s
work as “akshun”]. His work focuses on difficult and traumatic themes; issues of oppression, freedom,
coercion, exploitation, experiences of alienation, appropriation of cultures, globalisation, and communal
conflict. His work physically and emotionally embodies the divisive forces of capitalism and materialist
addiction; processes of building and disintegration and the resulting journey toward redemption.
Front cover:
Nostalgia
Baltic Centre for
Contemporary Art,
Gateshead, England
2005
Back cover:
Pilgrim
The Bedford Project
BCA Gallery,
Bedford, England
2003
Belfast
N. Ireland
© Steve Collins
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© Martin Figura
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