17 May 2012

Today is Norway's biggest day of national celebration, as Norwegians commemorate the signing of the country's first constitution in 1814. We’re now only six weeks away from the launch of Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner’s visually stunning new exhibition Soft City, at MK Gallery from 28 June - 2 September 2012.

The exhibition will focus on his early works, including his defining creation, the graphic novel Soft City, an epic satire of capitalism and life in the modern metropolis. Other works include intricate and obsessively detailed paintings and visually stunning silkscreen prints, presenting a personal mythology of a world under perpetual siege from pollution, totalitarianism and mass destruction. 

The exhibition will be complemented by an exciting Norwegian season of events, including video, music and performances by Norwegian artists and curators.

More information

A Short Film About Killing (1988)

Dir. Kryzysztof Kieslowski

(Cert. 18, 84 mins)

Friday 8 June / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

A Short Film About Killing is an extended feature length from part V of Kieslowski’s The Decalogue. This instalment explores the jurisdiction of the secular enforcement of capital punishment.

A youth randomly and brutally murders a taxi driver. His defence lawyer Piotr has just passed his law exams and his first case is to defend Jacek, the young murderer without any evidence of a defence or even an apparent motive. Jacek is incontestably put on trial and executed by hanging. This short film throws up the question: does the legal system, in the name of the people, have the right to kill with cold blood?

'Kieslowski is a master, and he has never made a better film than this. It is pure cinema of the highest order’ The Guardian

See all forthcoming Friday Night Films

This event has been postponed until further notice. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Artist Talk

Jon Adams

Wednesday 16 May / 6pm / Free

Jon Adams talks about the ideas behind his two-year mapping and collecting project Look About, elements of which will be on display at MK Gallery from 20 April – 27 May 2012.

Look About is a two-year mapping and collecting project led by Portsmouth-based artist/geologist Jon Adams in response to Accentuate and the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad in the South East of England. The project weaves together science and art, and Jon’s autobiographical experiences of Dyslexia and Asperger’s.  

Find out more about the project

My Dinner with Andre

Dir. Louis Malle (Cert. 12, 110 mins)

Selected by Olivia Plender

Friday 1 June / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, apparently playing themselves, share their lives over the course of an evening meal at a restaurant. Gregory, a theatre director from New York, is the more talkative of the pair. He relates to Shawn his tales of dropping out, traveling around the world, and experiencing the variety of ways people live, such as a monk who could balance his entire weight on his fingertips. Shawn listens avidly, but questions the value of Gregory's seeming abandonment of the pragmatic aspects of life. Written by Rick Gregory

See all forthcoming Friday Night Films

Mini Makers

Secret Shapes with Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq

Saturday 26 May / 1 - 3pm / Free

Suitable for children aged 4+

All of our Mini Maker workshops in May are inspired by Station X, an exhibition in the Project Space, which offers a multi-sensory insight into the derelict buildings of Bletchley Park.

For this week's Mini Makers session, we'll work as a group to create coded shapes and messages which will ultimately come together to form a large-scale sculptural piece.

This session is BSL interpreted

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Events on offer at MK Gallery during Arts & Heritage Open Places include:

• Two Friday Night Film Screenings, presented with Independent Cinema MK
• A Scratch Night performance from Northampton-based musicians
• A Saturday Night Live Music Micro Festival – Talk Amongst Yourselves

The entire Arts & Heritage Open Places 2012 Programme can be downloaded from the internet or picked up at participating venues.  

The Arts & Heritage Open Places festival is the initiative of voluntary organisation Arts & Heritage Alliance MK (AHA-mk), a representative forum of twenty-seven Milton Keynes Arts and Heritage organisations.

AHOP 2012 also marks the start of an extraordinary Summer of Culture in Milton Keynes, taking place between May and September. Residents and visitors can choose from an exceptional season of cultural events, ranging from, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, elements of the National Cultural Olympiad, MK Gallery’s Pushwagner exhibition and Norwegian Season and MKIF 2012 (the city’s very own International Festival) amongst many others.

Download press release

Find out more about the Summer of Culture in Milton Keynes

Download full programme of events during Arts and Heritage Open Places

AHOP 2012 has been generously supported by Milton Keynes Council and Arts Council England who have invested in funding artists to run activities throughout the 10-day event.

Audio Described Exhibition TourMonday 21 May / 2pm / Free

This exhibition tour for visually impaired visitors will be audio described by artist Emma Wilde, a regular and experienced audio describer for MK Gallery Access Tours.

To register an interest call Emma Fry, Head of Learning at MK Gallery on 01908 558 305.

Find out more about the exhibition

Parent & Toddler: Start The Art

Every Tuesday

11am - 12noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

Be crowned a prince or princess for the day! Join us in celebrating all things royal as we bring out the glitter and sparkles. Why not see if you can spot the royal crown in our exhibition after the session?

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MK Film Network Event

An Independent Cinema MK project

Friday 25 May / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Are you a local film maker? Looking to get feedback from others in the same position? Then send us your short film!

In conjunction with Independent Cinema MK, we'll be showing a selection of short films by local filmmakers - perhaps you would like to be one of them, or know someone with a film worth screening?

It's a great opportunity to see what filmmakers in MK have been up to.

Please submit films for screening to:Independent Cinema MK

Town HallCreed StreetWolvertonMK12 5JYThe films should be no longer than 15mins and can be any subject matter or genre. All films should have the name of the filmmaker on the DVD itself and should detail the name of the film, the date the film was made and clear contact details. We welcome films that have not gone through the final edit.

Any questions, please contact us.

Parent & Toddler: Start The Art

Every Tuesday

11am - 12noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

How do we communicate? For this week's session we'll be exploring radios, computers, telephones and TV's as we take a journey into the world of technology.

See more events for Children and Families

Parent & Toddler: Start The Art

Every Tuesday

11am - 12noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

For this week's sessions we'll be exploring the world of percussion; drums, cymbals and world rhythms. Our special guests from Milton Keynes City Orchestra will introduce you to the sounds of the instruments before you march across the square to perform in the main gallery.

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Music Taster Session with MK City Orchestra

Saturday 19 May / 1 - 3pm / Free

Suitable for children aged 4+

Join Milton Keynes City Orchestra and Musician and Animateur Matt Green to discover the exciting world of percussion.

As a multi-instrumentalist, Matt will introduce the kind of instruments he plays on stage including a variety of drums from around the world, dramatic cymbals and exciting tuned percussion. After this brief session Matt will hand some of the instruments over to the audience, giving you an easy, beginners taster to world rhythms and music. 

Bring the family along for this fun, informal introduction to music making. 

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Mini Makers

Secret Spaces with Clare Ridgeway

Saturday 19 May / 1 - 3pm / Free

Suitable for children aged 4+

All of our Mini Maker workshops in May are inspired by Station X, our latest Project Space exhibition, which offers a multi-sensory insight into the derelict buildings of Bletchley Park.

For this week's Mini Makers session, we'll be taking inspiration from the work of artists Caroline Devine and Maya Ramsay, whose work is on display as part of our Station X exhibition.

Sound artist Caroline Devine has created recordings of sounds produced by and within the decaying buildings at Bletchley Park, while artist Maya Ramsay has created work from surfaces lifted from the walls of the buildings. During this week's workshop, you'll be able to have a go at creating scratch pictures of sound, explore how mark-making creates a memory and discover the techniques used to create distressed surfaces. 

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Mini Makers

Secret Surfaces with Emma Wilde

Saturday 12 May / 1 - 3pm / Free

Suitable for children aged 4+

All of our Mini Maker workshops in May are inspired by Station X, our latest Project Space exhibition, which offers a multi-sensory insight into the derelict buildings of Bletchley Park.

For this week's workshop we'll be taking inspiration from the work of current Project Space artist Maya Ramsay, who uses a unique technique to lift the top layer of surfaces off walls in the built environment.

In this workshop we'll be capturing textures of our own, making rubbings and textures using materials such as wax crayon, charcoal, pencil and printing ink.

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The exhibition is the result of a unique collaboration between installation artist Maya Ramsay, sound artist Caroline Devine, photographer Rachael Marshall and film maker Luke Williams.  Together they provide a contemporary interpretation of Station X, by documenting the visual and aural histories imbued in the very fabric of the buildings, before they are lost when planned renovation takes place. This includes work made from surfaces lifted from the walls of the buildings, recordings of sounds produced by and within the decaying buildings, and photographic and filmed documentation of the buildings.

Find out more

BBC reporter Richard Williams interviews the artists in one of the huts they worked in at Bletchley Park.

Film Screening and Talk

Thursday 24 May / 6.30pm / Free

Film Screening: ‘Stendhal Syndrome’ by Alistair Gentry Is traditional art doing something to our minds that contemporary art can't do? Stendhal Syndrome is a recorded performance lecture about the psychiatric/psychosomatic condition in which people are mentally and physically overwhelmed by looking at too much art. Only representational art causes Stendhal Syndrome: abstract, conceptual, installation and other forms of contemporary art have never been known to do so. The Uffizi in Florence, the Louvre in Paris and the Vatican are all prime sites for Stendhal Syndrome.

Writer and artist Alistair Gentry’s diverse work has been seen and heard in digital media, on radio, television and the stage, in art galleries, at film festivals, in print and online. He has been included in group exhibitions worldwide, and he is a member of the East Anglian artists' research group Market Project. He researches extensively for his performance works and employs scientific or academic forms and methods  

Talk: Evolution of the paranormal'Why we may have extraordinary abilities' by Dr. Richard Broughton.

Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Northampton and President of the Society for Psychical Research, Dr Broughton is the author of numerous scientific papers and a critically acclaimed popular book on parapsychology. He frequently serves as a commentator in television programs on parapsychology and intuition issues, most recently appearing with Tony Robinson in a Channel 4 documentary. His principal research areas are anomalous intuition and the emotional underpinnings of extrasensory phenomena.

See more Scratch Night events

Mini Makers

Secret Spaces with Clare Ridgeway

Saturday 5 May / 1 - 3pm / Free

Suitable for children aged 4+

All of our Mini Maker workshops in May are inspired by Station X, our latest Project Space exhibition, which offers a multi-sensory insight into the derelict buildings of Bletchley Park.

This first session will explore the notion of absence. How do we identify familiar shapes, text and patterns if their form is secret or has been altered, aged, or subtracted?  During this workshop you will be asked to trace, draw, colour and create from memory and your imagination.

See more events for Children and Families

Parent & Toddler: Start The Art

Every Tuesday

11am - 12noon / Free

Do you have a child under 4 who can't wait to get their hands dirty? Join our friendly artists who will help you and your child explore the joys of art through a range of multi-sensory activities, including painting, drawing and mark-making.

For this week's sessions we'll be looking at shapes and forms. Taking inspiration from our current exhibition, have a go at creating your own 3D artwork.

See more events for Children and Families

Live Music: Longmeg

Thursday 31 May / 6.45pm, first performance 7.15pm / Free

The slightly incomprehensible ramblings of Longmeg, a band seemingly made up of people who met on the tube last night and haven’t made it home yet.

Longmeg have previously performed at Tate Modern, Wysing Art Centre, Focal Point Gallery, Architecture Foundation, Hayward Project Space, The Peckham Hotel, Haus der Kunst, Vilma Gold Gallery and ICA.

See more Scratch Night events

Fishmarket Collaboration: Joe Brown and Josh Ryan

Thursday 17 May / 6.30pm / Free

As part of the Fishmarket at... offsite season, Northampton-based musicians Joe Brown and Josh Ryan are reinterpreting Interference Interference first performed Fishmarket, Northampton in 2011. Using sound, light and projections to create and disrupt environments, they have taken elements of the soon-to-be-demolished Fishmarket building to both transform and be transformed by MK Gallery's Events Space.

This event is part of a continuing collaboration between MK Gallery Scratch Nights and Fishmarket.

See more Scratch Night events

Temporary Sites (A Proposal)

Thursday 10 May / 6.30pm / Free

Open File is a curatorial project, existing as an ongoing series of events, cumulative publications and an online archive. This May and June Open File will present two Scratch Night events, which will include a screening programme and a publication in three parts, all alongside Olivia Plender’s current exhibition at MK Gallery.

Staged in Olivia Plender’s 1970s style TV studio installation Open Forum, Temporary Sites (A Proposal) will explore the idea of exhibition making as a temporal space as well as a physical space. The event is a device to explore ideas of impermanence and specificity through a selection of performances, screenings and sculptures.

What does it mean to establish a context within an existing context? What happens to the relationships forged between these parts when they become dispersed as printed material and online resources?

Temporary Sites Artists include: Mark Essen, Tim Ivison & Julia Tcharfas, Joanne Masding, Luke McCreadie, Alia Pathan and Rachel Pimm.

Event curated by Jack Brindley and Tim Dixon.

Open File website

See more Scratch Night events

Film Screening and Talk

Thursday 26 April / 6.30pm / Free

Film Screening

Life in the Woods by Olivia Plender and Patrick Staff, introduced by Patrick Staff

Talk

Paganism: not a spiritual path but a sitting among the trees by Dr. Graham Harvey

In the spring of 2011 artists Olivia Plender and Patrick Staff invited a small group of participants to live together for a week in John’s Lee Wood, Leicestershire, in a critical exploration of folk revivalism, communal living and collaborative film-making.

Borrowing a format from radical outdoor educational programmes started in the early twentieth century, such as the Kibbo Kift, Woodcraft Folk and Forest School Camps, this temporary intentional community explored how group identities are constructed in relation to histories, traditions and ideologies. Through workshops, discussion and the collaborative film-making process the participants address the history of the counter culture in relation to queer politics in the British context.

The resulting film, rather than telling the story of their experience in the woods, reflects on whether living experiments such as this have the potential to produce new forms of collectivity.

Life in the Woods (2011) a film by Olivia Plender and Patrick Staff, in collaboration with Daniel Bower, Red Chidgey, Ade Clarke, William Clarke, Jesse Darling, Richard Dowling, Zia Dowling-Haigh, June Gillert, Amy James, Michael Mertens, Jamie Partridge, Natalie Raven, Hester Reeve, Yerang Seong, Sofia Törnblad.

The screening will be followed by a talk on Paganism by Dr. Graham Harvey, a Reader in Religious Studies at the Open University. He has researched among Jews, Pagans and indigenous peoples. His publications include Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism (Hurst 2008, 2nd edition) and Animism: Respecting the Living World (Hurst 2005). Brought up near Stonehenge, he really got to understand Paganism in a wood in Northumberland.

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Nosferatu the Vampyre

1979 / 107 mins / Cert. 15

Director: Werner Herzog

Friday 18 May / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 West German vampire horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. The film is set primarily in 19th century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, Romania, and was conceived as a stylistic remake of the 1922 German Dracula adaptation, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens.

Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula's castle to sell him a house in Varna, where Jonathan lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoul living off of men's blood. Inspired by a photograph of Lucy Harker, Jonathan's wife, Dracula moves to Varna, bringing with him death and plague... An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in which the vampire bears the curse of not being able to get old and die.

Written by Yepok

See all forthcoming Friday Night Films

Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible

2011 / 90 mins

Director: Ceri Dingle & Viv Regan

Selected by current exhibitor Olivia Plender, introduced by director Ceri Dingle.

Friday 11 May / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

This feature length documentary chronicles the life of suffragette and revolutionary Sylvia Pankhurst, tracing her ideas, campaigns and political life. The film is packed with facts from primary sources, rare images from museums and archives, interviews with historians and compelling testimony from Sylvia’s son Richard Pankhurst and his wife Rita.

“This well-researched documentary crams in a wealth of information in such a short space. It’s about time that this fascinating woman’s life was paid this small but significant tribute.”Indianna Purcell, The Socialist

Read more

See all forthcoming Friday Night Films

A double bill screening of two classics by Buster Keaton, The Play House and The Electric House, both screened with a live music score.

Friday 4 May / 6.30pm / £5 (concs £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

The Play House

1921 / 18 mins / Cert. U

Director: Buster Keaton

The opening scene of this short, a dream sequence prior to the vaudeville routines which follow, is what makes this film famous. In it Keaton plays everyone in a theatre simultaneously. He is the band leader, all its members, the dancers on the stage and everyone in the audience.

"Amazing! A cast of dozens...and they're all Buster Keaton. This is simply astounding work by Keaton and is absolutely hysterical even by today's standards."

Review: Matthew Younker

The Electric House

1922 / 19 mins / Cert. U

Director: Buster Keaton

Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home. He installs lots of fanciful gadgets. The one who should have received the degree gets even by rewiring all the gadgets to wreak havoc.

Written by Ed Stephan

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The exhibition brings together sculpture, embroidery, posters, board games, architectural models and a video produced over the last ten years. Devised as a ‘museum of communication’, four room-sized installations are organised thematically, drawing on a broad range of references to explore how attitudes towards mass education have evolved over time.

Read more about the exhibition

10 - 19 April 2012

We’re currently getting ready for our next exhibition Olivia Plender: Rise Early, Be Industrious. You’re welcome to visit the gallery during this time, and see how we’re getting on. During your visit you can also:

• Browse our Shop, with a range of books on contemporary art for adults and children, art magazines and limited edition prints.
• Watch a selection of artist films in our Video Space.
• Find out about future exhibitions and events
• See our latest Project Space Exhibition.

Visit information / Next exhibition

The successful candidate will have a strong interest in contemporary visual arts practice, prior experience of exhibitions production, publications and be a dynamic and effective team player and project manager.

£25,000 pa

Full-time (flexible terms and conditions)Find out more and download an application pack

Closing date for applications: 12 noon on Friday 20 April 2012

The event, happening this Thursday (5 April), offers local emerging artists the opportunity to present unfinished work in a pop up exhibition, and to gain feedback in a supportive and friendly environment.

If you're interested in coming along and displaying your work, just let us know by sending us 200 words about your practice, two images of the piece you want to install and any technical requirements for installation (MK Gallery can provide some basic tools) to hark.artists@gmail.com All you need is some unfinished work and the willingness to talk about it. 

Alternatively, just pop along and join in the discussion!

Find out more about the event

Up in the Air

2009 / 109mins. / Cert. 15

Director: Jason Reitman

Selected by current exhibitor Olivia Plender

Friday 27 April / 6.30pm / £5 (concessions £3)

Pre-book on 01908 676 900

Ryan Bingham's job is to fire people from theirs. The anguish, hostility, and despair of his 'clients' has left him falsely compassionate, living out of a suitcase, and loving every second of it. When his boss hires arrogant young Natalie, she develops a method of video conferencing that will allow termination without ever leaving the office - essentially threatening the existence Ryan so cherishes. Determined to show the naive girl the error of her logic, Ryan takes her on one of his cross country firing expeditions, but as she starts to realise the disheartening realities of her profession, he begins to see the downfalls to his way of life. Written by The Massie Twins

See all forthcoming Friday Night Films