Grey Suit Magazine Catalogue
Issue 1 spring 1993
The Critical Tirade. A regular feature of the magazine: an opportunity for critics, theorists etc. to vent their spleen about any matter that causes them aggravation. 3 mins
SHIT! A video by the German artist Kai Zimmer 'A (Federal) Chancellor's views and a young man's problems with constipation.' 3 mins.
My African Stool. Anna Petrie settles on her African Stool, but discovers it to be an unstable colonial perch! 3 mins.
Strambotti Variations. The renowned poet F.T. Prince, celebrating his eightieth year, reads love poems whose structure is based on that of Italian folk songs. Each strambotti tries to capture a moment in the experience of being in love. 4 mins.
The Discovery of the Phonograph. A video of a 16mm film by American sculptor/performer Stuart Sherman. The streets of NewYork serenade us. 6 mins.
Ohio Impromptu. This homage to the work of Samuel Beckett is created by the Finnish artist Teemu Maki. Here masochism may be conceived as penitence for love's failure- or perhaps simply as penalty for some misreading of the text. 13 mins.
Soldiers Bathing. This is one of F.T. Prince's most moving poems, written at the end of World War Two. Violence is contrasted with the fury of erotic love. 4 mins.
Water Work. 16mm film by renowned film-maker Tony Hill- exploring orientation, weightlessness on and below the surface of a swimming pool. 11 mins.
Issue 2 summer 1993
The Critical Tirade. In this issue Jason Walsh argues against arts funding which favours 'minority' status. 4 mins.
Wide (of Growth and Diversion) Norwegian poet performer Caroline Bergvall reads, with slide dissolves by Christopher Hewitt and music by Michelle Chowrimootoo. The spoken text creates an aural palimpsest over images of text, images which merge with abstraction and sound. 3 mins.
Harissa. Video from Z Productions, based in Marseilles. "L'Harissa ca m'arrache le bec." Hot stuff! 3 mins.
Toilet and other poems read by Hugo Williams, Islington's master of the sardonic, whose column in the TLS is one reason not to flush it. 6 mins.
Copenhagen Suspension. The outstanding Australian body artist Stelarc suspended by 18 meathooks, above Copenhagen. Video from TVF, Denmark's avant garde distributors. Music by Michael Nyman. 14 mins.
Brioche. Video from Z Productions. "Recette traditionelle de la brioche au beurre et ce qui s'ensuite." Delicious. 3 mins.
Baustelle from Frigo- video group based in Lyons. A chain of workers create a rhythmic ballet as they build a house in New Delhi. 10 mins.
Issue 3 autumn 1993
The Critical Tirade. Deborah Levy and Anthony Howell discuss the tendency to rhapsodise which so often debases literary and dramatic work. 5 mins.
Methuselah. Cathy Vogan is an Irish Australian living in Paris. Her video compares the oldest tree in the world with ageing actor Ernest Berk. Music by Chet Baker. 20 mins.
Nase. A short gyroscopic video by the German artist and filmmaker Harald Busch.
Autumn. British video artist Catherine Elwes invokes a personfication of the season, thus offering another view of ageing or fading in her video essay on temporality. 18 mins.
John Ashbery. The renowned American poet whose 1975 volume "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" won the Pulitzer Prize, reads a selection of his poems. 6 mins.
Captivate Violate. In the last two minutes of her performance, the artist Clare Pritchard ultimately succeeds in achieving a condition of suspended helplessness. 2 mins.
Issue 4 winter 1993
The Critical Tirade. In this issue the editor looks at the Gwen Johns in the National Museum of Wales and considers the pros and cons of regional internationalism. 5 mins.
The Sweatlodge. A 35 mm film by Mike Stubbs based on a grey-suited performance by Man Act. 7 mins.
Rotor. An 8 mm film by Julian Woropay which spins around a fairground phenomenon. 4 mins.
Derek Bailey. The renowned guitarist, pioneer of free improvisation. 5 mins.
CX/Fin. A video by Parisian Yann Nguyen Minh with the dark quality of an erotic dream. 5 mins.
Anne-Marie Albiach. One of the most innovative poets of our time reads her workin her Parisian home, videotaped by Joseph Simas. 10 mins.
The Tower. A 16 mm film of a table construction by Anthony Howell performed in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and directed by Australian filmmaker James Bogle. 18 mins.
Issue 5 spring 1994
Snig. An early 16 mm film by Jayne Parker which barred her from distribution by the feminist organisation 'Circles'. Eels are revealed among the bedsheets. 5 mins.
On the Spent and Silent Sand. An 8 mm film by Dennis Dracup. In it, a remarkable reflection captures a mournful seascape. 4 mins.
False Premises. A video by Tanya Ury. The growth of a house is contrasted with the growth of a woman. 25 mins.
I wanna be your Favourite Bee. A video by Philippe Dorain and Serge Comte evoking the urges of spring. 3 mins.
Poets of Obscurity. Huang Xiuqi, distinguished scholar of Chinese modernism, reads the abstract poems of this group of writers who surfaces in China in 1979. Many are now in exile. Disregarding established convention, they aroused heated dispute among poets and critics. 5 mins.
Over Enkele Ogenblikken. "In a few moments' time", a 16 mm film by Dutch filmmaker Wineke Van Muiswinkel. Here the home travels by rail. 13 mins.
Issue 6 summer 1994
Search. A silent video by Pat Naldi and Wendy Kirkup of a synchronised walk through Newcastle observed by 16 police-operated 24 hour surveillance cameras. 8 mins.
Spleen. Paris-based artist Yann Nguyen Minh returns with a lavish and erotic video which pays homage to Charles Baudelaire. 3 mins.
Single Space. A performance by Mehmet Sander: a Turkish dancer living in Los Angeles. In response to a more fatal condition, his strictly formal energy astounds us as he defies being braced in a frame. 4 mins.
The Loose Joints of Performance Writing. A meditation by our opinions editor, Caroline Bergvall, who uses performance to extend her texts. 8 mins.
Red Shovel. An impressionist, near abstract, 16 mm film by Iowa-based artist Leighton Pierce, shot by the verge of a roadside which it transforms with Turneresque luminosity. 9 mins.
Orgy. A performance flashed out of the dark by Gavin McGrath: the maximum excitement is generated by the most minimal means. 8 mins.
Thread of Voice. A 16 mm film by sound poetry group Arf Arf, working in Europe and Australia since 1985. "We do not concentrate on any one medium as we are specifically interested in how a particular medium can be transported into another one." 19 mins.
Issue 7 autumn 1994
Passage a l'Acte. A 16 mm black and white film by prize-winning filmmaker Martin Arnold from Austria. Four people at the breakfast table, trapped by the pulsating repetitions of the editing table. 12 mins.
Cenotaph. Brilliant improviser Phil Minton, celebrated in jazz and new music circles, vocalises in a Cardiff pedestrian subway. Operatic notes vie with gutteral sounds and traffic noises. 4.5 mins.
Transmissions. Performer and theoriest Sarbjit Samra rails against funding bodies demanding positive images in a conservative framework when supporting ethnic issues. 5.5 mins.
Encore. English perofrmance artist Francesca Gore becomes the shimmering prow of a harp at an angle which generates a tremor of tension. 10 mins.
The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle. Renowned Australian poet Les Murray reads a sequence based on an aboriginal poetic form. 18 mins.
Faint Clue. This is is one of five songs from the video album '8 Million" by award-winning American film and videomaker Abigail Child and musician Ikue Mori. 5.5 mins.
Issue 8 winter 1994
Site-Ations Selection. Work shown at the international gathering of artists in performance and installation, held in Cardiff in autumn 1994. David Shepherd's smoking oil-drum ovens salute trains passing beneath a flyover; Sheji Shimoda from Japan performs a fantastic feat of stamina "On the Table", Gary Bristow's self-sawing branch pursues the inevitability of its practice. 20 mins.
Pale Black. A beautiful 16 mm film by Australian author/film-maker Marie Craven following the shadows of her dreams. 13 mins.
City Racing. An energetic kinetic installation by Clare Charnley, whose pistoning constructions were created in London in 1993. 4 mins.
Le Bruit de la Vriette. "The Noise of the Woodworm" an utterly enigmatic video by French artist Francois Vogel, recently on military service in Noumea, New Caledonia- distorted circularity becomes the landscape for revenge and its aftermath. 9 mins.
The Jitters. Cris Cheek, poetic master of crazy languages tumbling from a hot tongue gradually consumes the lettuce that illuminates his performance. 10 mins.
Issue 9 spring 1995
The Title Role. Scintillating Hollywood-inspired video by performance artist Anne Seagrave. 6 mins.
Repast. Sexual tension over the dinner table by American video artist and poet Joseph Simas and Elodie Picquet. 8.5 mins.
Museum Pieces II. Video short Anne Griffin. 1 min.
Vivarium. Elegant video dance filmed by Australian Mahalya Middlemist and performed by Sue-ellen Kohler. 12.5 mins.
Poems. By avant garde northerner Peter Didsbury. 6 mins.
Nylon. An elegant video short by Lorraine Butler. 40 secs.
The Pink. Videographic innovation meshes with visual assault in a video by Rosalind Finch. 7.5 mins.
Gridlock. Tense images from a performance by Andre Stitt. 12 mins.
Fetishism. Artist and theorist Alasdair Peebles talking at Cardiff Art in Time. 7.5 mins.
The Hair or the Man. A clipped reaction to sensual image fetishism by Oladele Bamgboye. 10 mins.
I Will Survive. Dick Award winner by Sean Roe. 2 mins.
Berlin West. Linguistic coincidences by American Stuart Sherman. 7 mins.
Immoral Sonnets. Scandalous rhyming by Anthony Howell. 7 mins.
Suspension (Bridge). Luke McKeown hangs within his own installation. 4 mins.
Head Pieces "Revenge". Another video by Anne Griffin. 1 min.
Mbira Songs. Played by Zimbabwe's Queen of the thumb piano, Stella Chiweshe. 18 mins.
Issue 10 summer 1995
Sit. A video short by concept artist Alan Currall- using the blackboard to draw the impossible. 2.5 mins.
Fallow Field. An account of a video installation mounted at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in 1994 by Lulu Quinn, Tony Sinden and Stan Steele, and featuring Major the shire horse. Ploughed furrows make a vivid contrast to the plate glass structures of the city. Video edited by Lulu Quinn. 20 mins.
Two Cow Poems. The first by Glaswegian Liz Lochead, the second by Australian Les Murray, both recorded in Cardiff on National Poetry Day 1994. 7 mins.
The Pisser. Richard Squires prolongs the agony until homeostasis is achieved through a cascade. 5 mins.
Lap. A second conceptual video by Alan Currall. 1 min.
Cuckoo. A Grey Suit archive special. This brilliant performance by Station House Opera was first performed in 1987. To the music of bowed cellos and sawn wardrobes, the company nail each other to the furniture and elevate the floor, proving that nothing is stable other than instability. 40 mins.
Issue 11 autumn 1995
TAP. A short lyrical, watery video by Tracey McConnell-Wood. 2.5 mins.
Kitchen Show. Bobby Baker's dynamic performance about domestic and culinary ritual. 22 mins.
Stream Line. A film by Chris Welsby. This archive feature celebrates the early work of this key film-maker from the UK living in Canada. 8 mins.
Untitled. A delicately balanced video by Alan Schechner. 3 mins.
Poems. A performance by Ifor Thomas, Wales's leading performance poet. 15 mins.
Hi-8 Report. A rapportage item featuring events seen at the AVE festival this year. 4.5 mins
Issue 12 winter 1995: the crime issue
Open Closing Door. Impossible Theatre use animation to examine the relations between the criminal and victim, using the taped voices of the protagonists. 14 mins.
Let's Go Shopping. A prose piece by Canadian Kerry-Lee Powell describing the exhileration of credit card fraud. 6 mins.
Finger Burger. A short by French video artist, Paul Granjon. 100% beef? 2 mins.
Meat. Ian Williams presents a poetic use of text and image in an cannibalistic atmosphere of fear and paranoia. 11 mins.
Speed Zombie. Kim Hjorthoz, Karl Ramberg and Per Teljer from Trondheim, bathe in the gore-spattered cliches of classic slasher films. 5 mins.
Homage to Roussel. A performance by Anthony Howell. The formal techniques of Raymond Roussel applied to action appear to culminate perverse violence. 22 mins.
