PRESS RELEASE

CLARE CHARNLEY (UK) opens her exhibition The Gift of Tongues at Hobusepea gallery at 5 pm, December 5, 2007. Clare Charnley has in the project several collaborators: Ronni Ahmmed, Tanja Frank, Adalet Garmiany, Mererid Hopwood, Katrin Kivimaa, Anat Pick, Bryndis Ragnarsdóttur, Xavier Rodriguez, Guillermo Santamarina, Magda Sowierszenko, Françoise Vincent, Shu Yang and Katja Kamenozemlyanskaya.

Extra: presentation of the book in the opening - "So Communication: Translating Each Other's Words'" (eds. Clare Charnley, Katrin Kivimaa)
ISBN Estonia: 978-9985-9841-0-9
ISBN UK: 978-0-9553626-2-0

Positioned and embarrassed by the global ascendancy of the English languages, Clare Charnley dreams of combating this situation on a personal level by becoming an amazing linguist. The Gift of Tongues sets out to momentarily trick it's viewers into thinking that she has achieved this goal. Fluency in a dozen languages or more!
Numerous monitors each show the artist giving a different speech in a different language. There are no subtitles. Sound levels are very low, you have to move close to hear clearly. The soundtracks together form a sort of murmur, punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter or applause. The speeches were originally written and performed as part of a long-term collaborative project for audiences in different countries. In The Gift of Tongues the collaborators are made visible for the first time. Attention is shifted away from the words' meanings their sounds and the double act of speaking.
The lower gallery contains a new video work The Best's Is Still Ahead by Clare Charnley and Katya Kamenozemlyanskaya in which a foreigner offers advice, in an unusual way, on the current troubled relationship between Estonia's Russian and Estonian communities. The foreigner herself doesn't have a clue. Nevertheless, this work which makes use of Soviet popular culture and recent internet commentaries asserts that eventually everything is going to be all right.

Clare Charnley and Katrin Kivimaa

Exhibition will be open until December 17, 2007.

Supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia and University of Lincoln.

CLARE CHARNLEY

www.clarecharnley.com

Born 1949

Current employment
0.5 Fellow in Fine Art, University of Lincoln
PT Lecturer in Fine Art, Leeds Metropolitan University

Selected exhibitions screenings & performances
2007 Fresh Arts Festival, Hastings. Performance
2007 DaDoa Festival Macao. Performance with Wen Yau
2007 Arbil, Kurdistan. Performance with Adalet Garmiarny
2007 Le French Mai Festival, Hong Kong
2007 The Bengal Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh
2006 The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland
2006 Casino Luxembourg Forum d'Art Contemporain
2005 Transborder Language, 2nd Dashanzui International art Festival, Beijing China
2005 Performance Art Platform, Tel Aviv. Two performances. Two lectures
2005 National Eisteddfod, Caernarfon
2005 Perspective Antarctique, Galerie ÉOF, Paris
2004 Parnu Videofest ja Rael Artel Esitlevad, Estonia
2004 Zamek Wyobra?ni - Castle of the Imagination Utska, Slupsk & Krakov, Poland
2003 Look to this Day' Castlefield Gallery, Manchester. Member of public panel idiscussion 'The Personal was Political' chaired by Dave Beech
2003 Fuero do Campo. XI Muestra Internacional de Performance. Ex Teresa Arte Actual. Mexico City. Mexico
2003 Floating Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada
2003 Naprosty Navrat Pam?ti Cesta 9th Arts Festival on International interdisclipinary Collaborations. Tábor, Czech Republic
2003 Alternator Gallery, British Columbia, Canada
2002 Wax for your Ears' Underwood Audio, Underwood Gallery, London
2002 Kana Nahk Live Art Festival, Estonia
2002 Aorta Gallery. Chisinau, Moldova
2001 Day of the Unread. House Gallery, London
2001 'East of Eden' Spacex Gallery, Exeter
2001 'Egzotika' Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania
2000-1 'Girl' The New Art Gallery Walsall, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham and touring. Cat.
1999 'Anotomicum', Tartu, Estonia. Site specific sound work.
1998 I inIVA library and Archive, London. This was the outcome of a residency at the Lloyd Loom Furniture Factory, Spalding. Also publication of artist's .book . 'Nothing Like This' distrubited by inIVA.
1998 'Der Wanderer in der See der Nebel' Petrikapelle beim Dom-Brandenburg, .Brandenburg, Germany. Solo.
1998 'Maised Rõõmud' Tallinn, Tallinn International SculptureSymposium, Estonia. Cat.
1998 'Muscles' in collaboration with performance artist Lisa Watts. Leeds City Art. Gallery Also Channel Four short film
1997 'Travel Light'. Site specific project for Birmingham city centre, Birmingham. Arts Trust.
1997 'Horticulture II'. Leeds Metropolitan Gallery, Leeds Metropolitan University. Solo.
1997 Horticulture I' Castlefield Gallery, Manchester. Solo.
1994 The Burn; Pumping for a Pleasing Physique. Collaboration with performance artist Lisa Watts. Peak Physique Gym & Ponds Forge Leisure Centre, Sheffield.
1994-5 Maximum Exposure', The Photographers' Gallery, London and touring. .Photographers' Gallery commission
1993 A Roof' Metropolitan Galleries, Manchester Metropolitan University. Solo.
1993 Summer Residencies' Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Two person show.Cat.
1993 City Racing, London. Solo. Review Art Monthly
1990 'Mothers' Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and touring. Cat.
1990 Post Morality' Cambridge Darkrooms and Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Cat.
1989 Staged For Bulgaria'. Plovdiv International Festival of Photography. Bulgaria.
1989 Angela Flowers East.
1988 'In an Unsafe Light' kon Gallery, Birmingham. Cat.
1988 'Death' Cambridge Darkrooms and Kettles Yard, Cambridge. Cat
1988 'Fragments of False Houses' Pomeroy-Purdy Gallery, London. Cat.
1987 Impressions Gallery, York.
1987 'Works for Shelves'. Kettles Yard, Cambridge.
1987 Photo Galeri 2.5 x 4.5, Amsterdam.