A spoken word piece I ommited from the full Writings From HMS Brexit performance (listen here https://soundcloud.com/theunrealisedproject/writings-from-hms-brexit-1    ). This piece is based around my home town in the early months of 2017.

Writings From HMS Brexit

Ends (Writings From HMS Brexit

The Retro Bar at The End of the Universe is an artist-led thinking and doing collective. Roughly originating in 2014, it formed from a sense of stuck-ness, within our hauntological and 'non stop-inertia' [Ivor Southwood] times. Originally evading the command to materialise within the steroid-pumped gentrification/photoshop-isation of a 'cult of self-belief' Britain, the collective is now working on other ways of engaging and acting, that try not be fast food for a neoliberal appetite. 

Our Soundcloud page contains projects from individual collective members, and will also begin to feature podcasts and other collaborative works in the coming year.

James Webb is an artist, recognised for his site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the conceptualist traditions. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces bind Webb’s background in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering poetic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.

As Brandon LaBelle writes, “The works of James Webb circulate around a complex mixture of emotional and affective states; of longing and despair, of the ecstatic and of hopefulness, states of bodies and minds that move throughout his practice to raise questions of individuality and community, belonging and displacement, fragmentation and recuperation.” (Xenagogue, edited by Anthea Buys, published by the Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015.)

Webb has had solo exhibitions at, amongst others, the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2018); SPACES, Cleveland, USA (2018); Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2016); Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2015); CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain (2013); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2012); and mac, Birmingham, United Kingdom (2010).

Major group exhibitions include the 13th Biennial of Dakar (2018), 4th Prospect Triennial of New Orleans (2017), Documenta 14 (2017), 13th Biennial of Sharjah (2017), 12th Bienal de la Habana (2015), 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), 3rd Marrakech Biennale (2009), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2009), and the 8th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007). Other notable group shows include  those at spaces such as Wanås Konst and Historiska, Sweden; MAXXI Roma, Italy; Darat al Funun, Jordan; Théâtre Graslin, France; and the Tate Modern, London. 

Webb’s projects have been the subject of the two monographs, “. . .” (blank projects, 2020), and “Xenagogue” (Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015). 

Impressum: All rights reserved. The copyright for these audio pieces and artworks  are reserved. Any replication or use of the content such as images, audio, and texts is not permitted without James Webb’s written consent.

Gallery representation: 
Galerie Imane Farès, Paris www.imanefares.com 
blank projects, Cape Town www.blankprojects.com