Oona Grimes h.t.r-r.e. #5 2008
etching

27 February – 15 March 2009

Book Launch and Private View: Friday 27 February 2009 6-9 pm

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire

A Confidential Report
by Iain Sinclair
with original prints and drawings by Oona Grimes
Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books

Danielle Arnaud is thrilled to welcome the launch of Iain Sinclair’s latest book which will be accompanied by an exhibition.

Iain Sinclair’s Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire uncovers the social, historic and psycho-geography of Hackney and contains within its pages a series of prints and drawings by Oona Grimes.  At the same time as hosting the launch for this new book, Danielle Arnaud contemporary art draws together the work of artists who, through a variety of media, visually reference Sinclair’s explorations of Hackney. Participating artists include Renchi Bicknell, Brian Catling, Susanna Edwards, Stephen Gill, Oona Grimes, Emma Matthews, Jock McFadyen, Chris Petit, Emily Richardson and Sarah Simblet.

Iain Sinclair writes of the ironic metaphor of shifting this specific project to the opposite side of the Thames: ‘Transporting a raft of Hackney connected materials across the river to Lambeth is both an act of homage to the local artisan-visionary, William Blake, and an acknowledgement of a certain kind of expulsion: the dark shadow of the Olympic fence, super-malls, art as sponsored interventionism. My book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, offending the index of Orwellian politics and spin, has been banished from its generative territory. Inviting a number of artists, photographers, film-makers who are implicated in the book, or celebrated by it, to offer some of their work for this exhibition, was a conscious salute to another Lambeth manifestation: Tradescant’s Ark. That inspirational cabinet of curiosities.  Here, for me, is a museum of words reintroduced into the world, language-sounds becoming objects and images. So it folds and unfolds, the slippery narrative of memory and myth.’  

Iain Sinclair has lived in (and written about) Hackney, East London, since 1969. His novels include Downriver (Winner of the James Tait Black Prize & the Encore Prize for the Year’s Best Second Novel), Radon Daughters, Landor’s Tower and, most recently, Dining on Stones (which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize). Non-fiction books, exploring the myth and matter of London, include Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital and Edge of the Orison. In the ‘90s, Iain wrote and presented a number of films for BBC2’s Late Show and has, subsequently, co-directed with Chris Petit four documentaries for Channel 4; one of which, Asylum, won the short film prize at the Montreal Festival. His most recent book, London, City of Disappearances, was published in October 2006.

Stephen Gill Hackney Wick Series  2008
photographs

Oona Grimes h.t.r-r.e map#7  2008
etching

Oona Grimes h.t.r-r.e #08  2008
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Oona Grimes h.t.r-r.e #14  2008
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Oona Grimes h.t.r-r.e #35  2008
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Emma Matthews
paintings

Jock McFadyen Kill Matthew Barney
painting

Chris Petit
photograph and text

Emily Richardson Canal Landscape with Boat 2008
video still

Emily Richardson no games 2008
video still