Tuesday 16 November 2010

For Life Series (2010 - 2012)




The Endless Press Up,

Single channel video intended for endless loop

August, 2010

'The Endless Press Up' is one of a series of videos in which a short performance by the artist is seamlessly looped to create ‘false’ evidence of an excruciating and ultimately impossible act of endurance or resistance. For example, in this work, I appear to perform the action of the title indefinitely. Although one may initially be entertained by the illusion, over time the figure can come to resemble a mechanised object, trapped in a Beckettian cycle of absurd, repetitive and pointless struggle: a subject being trained, disciplined or punished.
 



Stand Up Straight

Looped video. Filmed at Green Fields studio, Leipzig, Germany. February, 2012

Thursday 12 August 2010

Collaborators2, 10th September - 17th October 2010


Press Release




Stay Behind the Line 2010

Covert performance document, Framed A2 print, Edition of 5, POA, Availible through R O O M Gallery, London.

Friday 30 July 2010

Reynir Hutber and Toby Huddlestone at R O O M Gallery, London





Stay Behind the Line (Example 2)

Video Installation, R O O M Gallery, London, UK

June - July, 2010

In this example of the work, a low resolution CCTV camera allowed visitors to view the installation space before they entered it. What the visitors on the other side of the barrier were actually seeing, and reacting to, was not revealed and from this 'outsider' perspective their behaviour may have appeared haunted and irrational. A white spotlight marked out the parameters of the space where my body was recorded and also had the effect of illuminating the visitors in a strange and spectral light as they reached towards its ‘mirage’. For more information about this project please see below…

Click for more images at R O O M, London

Tuesday 29 June 2010

'Open' Magazine Interview

'Some people have chosen to cover the figure with their jackets to keep it warm or have tried to feed it. Others have reacted in a way that speaks of serious sexual abuse or gang violence.'

Click here to read an interview with Reynir in 'OPEN' magazine.

Monday 17 May 2010

Reynir is awarded the Catlin Art Prize 2010







'Artist Reynir Hutber is named as Catlin Art Prize winner by eminent panel of judges as collectors flock to purchase shortlisted works.In the most exciting year yet for the Catlin Art Prize, collectors vied for the opportunity to purchase work by some of the most inspiring new names in visual art. Featuring painting, sculpture, film and performance work, the prize provides a platform for artists who have graduated the previous year.'

Judge Ben Lewis commented: ‘...Reynir’s video installation, which turned the viewer into a perpetrator with an unmistakeable reference to Iraqi and Afghani prisons, eventually won out over the rest, thanks to its combination of pressing political urgency yet modest and un-theatrical form, and the relational way it turned the position of the viewer into the real subject of the piece.’

Reynir said of his work: ‘My current art is broadly concerned with the devices through which social behaviour is coerced, monitored and evaluated. Rather than focus on the production of objects, I stage open-ended scenarios whose implications are ultimately determined by the audience’s response and interaction. I am hugely excited to have won the Catlin Art Prize, especially as the other work on show was of such a high standard.’

Quote from www.artcatlin.com









Stay Behind the Line

Interactive video installation,The Village Underground, London, UK

May, 2010

"In a small enclave to the back of Shoreditch’s Village Underground, a video screen captures artist Reynir Hutber’s naked body lying curled into a ball on the floor. A haunting evocation of surveillance culture, Hutber’s Stay Behind the Line won the Catlin Art Prize, a selection of over 500 young artists selected by curator Justin Hammond from last year’s graduate art show program."

"The screen mixes footage of Hutber twitching with a live-feed of the screen’s viewers. It’s only upon seeing one’s movements echoed behind the prone body that one realizes that the space Hutber occupies in the video is the vacant gap right besides you. It’s a subtle and clever exploration of those parts of ourselves we lose within the media watching us."

Dont Panic Magazine, Brian Welk, William Alderwick / 17 May 2010








Images © Justin Green photography and Nathan Toper

Tuesday 2 March 2010

New works in Video and Performance



The Eigenheim Gallery in Weimar, Germany

Installation View

The Eigenheim Gallery, Weimar, Germany

February, 2010