Welcome to the Black Dogs website. Black Dogs is an art collective formed in Leeds in 2003. Find out more about us by navigating the site using the links down the left-hand side of the screen.
------- NEWS --------
Thanks for all the submissions we received for the Black Dogs FM project. We're currently compiling a playlist for the day which is Saturday 26th May, 10am - 5pm at Hand Made in Bradford, 1 Tyrell St, Bradford. We'll also be arranging some kind of live/participatory stuff in the space too. The installation is part of Bradford Threadfest a free cross-city live music event running 24th - 27th May, 2012. Check it out.
Also, Black Dogs will have a stall at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, Manchester on Saturday May 19th. It looks cracking and info can be found by looking here.
------- NOT VERY NEW NEWS --------
Hi friends of Black Dogs, please see below for a call for audio submissions for an event we're taking part in in Bradford, in May 2012. Please feel free to spread and share the word.
DIY art collective Black Dogs are asking for submissions of 3-minute (max) long audio pieces to become part of a 16-hour long ‘radio broadcast’ in the ‘Handmade in Bradford’ unit (Bradford) last weekend of May. The space in which the recordings will be played is a former Virgin Megastore/Zavvi and we will be playing back the audio as if it were the In Store radio over the course of the weekend. We welcome a range of submissions including songs/music, field recordings, interviews, plays, spoken word and so forth responding to the theme of Commercial Break. Original work authored by the submitter or non-copyrighted material is preferred. Audio should be sent as an mp3 file to Black Dogs blackdogsleeds@yahoo.com by 5pm Monday May 7th.
Also, we will be taking part in a great sounding event called Ante on May 5th and 6th in Shipley, Bradford. Details and website info below:
Ante
Ante is a free weekend event in Shipley, Bradford coinciding with May Day and building on the history of that day as a moment of social struggle and change. Focusing on the meeting point of politics and culture - and the politics of cultural production - Ante (from the Latin ‘before’) is ‘about the person we were until we became buried by work (or increasingly, ‘no work’), by shopping, debts, television and the all the worries and stresses and strains of modern life … It’s a day when we remind ourselves that a life always promised for tomorrow is a life robbed of today.’
Comprising of an exhibition, book fair, gig and a programme of workshops, Ante includes submissions from local and international contributors including Leeds Surrealist Group, Black Dogs, Chto Delat?, Ultimate Holding Company, Loosely Bound, Ricky Adam, Salford Zine Library, The Print Project, Seth Tobocman and many more.
5th/6th May, 2012, 11am onwards at the Kirkgate Centre, Kirkgate, Shipley BD18 3EH. Admission: free.
Details http://www.ante-art.co.uk/
----- NEWISH NEWS -----
Black Dogs have been using early 2012 as a period of collective self-development, with a number of group presentations, trips away, workshops and open ended projects in a more-or-less informal peer-learning programme. This has also seen the formation of a Black Dogs 'South' faction as there are a number of us living and working far away from Leeds. Similarly, Black Dogs 'North' are turning our attentions Bradford-way as our once-Leeds confined members gravitate there.
We do have some public-facing activity in the pipeline, however. We will be present at the 'Handmade in Bradford' launch on Saturday March 24th for the Loosely Bound Zine Extravaganza. We are also developing something to coincide with Bradford Threadfest May 25/26/27 in the same space.
More news as it comes. For now, please check out the Merzbarn Residency documentation and remember that our latest publications including the 'Next To Nothing' Fifth Almanac are still available to buy from our online shop.
------- OLD NEWS --------
The +44 141 Gallery is pleased present 'Next to Nothing: On the Price of Nothing and the Value of Everything'; a show by Black Dogs.
DIY art collective Black Dogs presents the second instalment of their Next to Nothing publication and exhibition, the first outing of which took place in an empty shop unit in Leeds in October this year with contributions from over thirty individuals and collectives. The contributors occupy various positions in relation to the label ‘artist’; raising questions about when something is art, who can make it and what the worth of calling it art is anyway.
Next to Nothing results from a series of collective meetings and conversations around notions of value. What is the radical potential of thrift and an economical approach? When and why is something cheap? What does it mean to be not-for-profit or operate in a non-capitalist fashion? How do we value our time and how does this find expression through the things we do or make? When are we working and when do we play?
Projects include: looted shop fronts, sculpture made from cheap materials and consumables, incidental knowledge, unmasked secrets of visual merchandising, a freely assembled and playable Arcade Machine, traces of ‘everyday resistance’ at work, meticulously faked money, things made in sheds, bong poems, burnt books and much more in the way of writing, hand printing, diagrams, photography, objects, music and performance.
The works, discussions and exhibition are documented, extended and unpicked in the Next to Nothing publication that will be available to browse and take away. Neither the exhibition nor publication are intended as conclusions but, rather, markers of a collective interrogation of how we value our activity and the cost of living.
Next To Nothing opens on Friday 11th November at 7pm. All are welcome and refreshments will be available. There will be an after party (8pm til 12am) featuring performances and music of the live and pre-recorded variety. The exhibition continues until 2nd December.
MORE DETAILS at www.swg3.tv
Preview
Friday 11.11.11
19:00 — 22:00
Join us for the after party in SWG3 for live music and performances. 20.00-0.00/01.00
(in no particular order)
A Rose Wine tasting
A Competition on Abbott's Dream Machine
A Charity Shop DJ set
A Youtube DJing set with projections
A pub quiz on incidental knowledge
A performance by Black Dogs Ensemble - improv by cretins
A performance by The One Ensemble - (http://vimeo.com/28683394)
A performance by Kirtsie Penman - unaccompanied folk song singer
A performance by Sarah Kenchington - music on home-made instruments
12.11.11 — 02.12.11
Weds — Sat
12:00 — 18:00
+44 141 Gallery
SWG3
100 Eastvale Pl.
Glasgow
G3 8QG
www.swg3.tv
work@swg3.tv
+44 141 357 7246
------- OLDER NEWS --------
Attention Londoners..
Black Dogs presents
Unlearned Tricks
A night of improvised music, art and general dog play.
Sunday 24 July 2011
19.00 - 23.00
The Constitution
42 St Pancras Way
London
NW1 0QT
Join us on the final night of the festival to enjoy an evening of wholesomely bizarre and entertaining music, performance and artists' film selected and presented by art collective Black Dogs. Featuring performances from Sly and the Family Drone, The Black Dogs Ensemble, the Peter J Taylor Guitar Orchestra and others, Black Dogs will celebrate and conclude the cultural adventure through Camden of Mr Eks and The Camden Players in a suitably reflective and mysterious manner.
------ EVEN OLDER NEWS ----------
Black Dogs are currently exhibiting the Audio Almanac as part of 'Performativity', an exhibition exploring the relationship between live art and its documentation curated by Details on Request. The exhibition runs from 28.05.11 - 12.06.11, 10.30am - 5.30pm and is at The Officers Club, 35-36 Stall Street, Bath, Avon, BA1 1QG. More info at www.detailsonrequest.blogspot.com.
Other things in the Black Dogs pipe include some happening at SUPERNORMAL festival 19 - 21 August at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. More info here.
Also we are currently devising a group show to take place in Leeds later in the year with around 40 contributors; watch this space for more details.
------ OLDERER NEWS ----------
A brief note to say that Black Dogs will have a stall at the Leeds Alternative Comic Fair held at Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds on Saturday March 19th. Details here.
Also Andy has an exhibition in Holbeck, Leeds entitled A Serious Waste of Time: (Non-works in Progress) running from 17th March - 26th March. Details can be found in the 'current' section of http://andyabbott.co.uk/.
----- ELDEST NEWS -----------
Happy 2011 Black Dogs-curious folk. The start of the year has been a bit of a slow one for the dogs after an indulgent and party-hard end to last year culminating in the MK2morrow exhibition at MK Gallery. All of last year's activity, including that show, are now archived on this website. Currently we are working up a proposal for an exhibition in Glasgow, scheming ways to distribute the Audio Almanac more widely and working up some ambitious plans for 2011.
In the near future our 'House That Black Dogs Built' publication (details below) will hopefully be making an appearance as part of the Merzman festival in Manchester, Salford, Cumbria, Liverpool and Bury from Feb to May 11. More details as we know them.
Last we've tweaked the 'about' section of the website to be more representative of the collective as it is in 2011. If you want to know more about the collective our latest publication might be the place to start!
Black Dogs latest publication is the third of the printed 'Almanacs'; this one conceived, generated and manufactured in less than a fortnight.
The House That Black Dogs Built comprises 36 pages of collective reflection and illustration chewing over the idea of what Black Dogs is to provide a snapshot of current thought and activity. See the publications section for details. Available for just £3 postage paid from the Black Dogs shop.
Click here for info about the Recently Released Audio Almanac
We have also added a shop section to the website so that you can purchase Black Dogs things from the comfort of your computer desk.
You can contact us by sending an email to
blackdogsleeds [at] yahoo [dot] com
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