A Modest Show - for starters - an overview

Jo Manby

A Modest Show is the collateral programme to British Art Show 9 (BAS9) which visits four of the city’s leading venues in May. Shaped by the advice and direction of Manchester artists and arts organisations, A Modest Show is an artist-led programme, funded by Arts Council England (ACE) and Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The concept behind A Modest Show was devised when ACE chaired a steering group formed of Rogue Studios, Islington Mill and Paradise Works with Nathaniel Pitt, director of Division of Labour, as lead curator. Here, the Fourdrinier previews some of the fare on offer.

For all times, dates, details and to book for events, (more than are referred to here), please refer to https://www.amodestshow.com/

Exhibitions and events, both indoors and out, are being sourced, prepped, chopped and cooked ready to serve up to the public for A Modest Show, between 12 May and 4 September. With over 100 artists across 23 artist-led and alternative venues, new artworks, dining, interventions and performances will be staged as part of A Modest Show. Artists were given the brief to show off their brilliance under the satirical themes of ‘food, hospitality, consumption and dining’ with the legend ‘Eat Manchester Artists!’ in mind.

The title of the four-month long programme originated when lead curator Nathaniel Pitt tapped into the undercurrent of dissatisfaction amongst Manchester and Salford artists that none of them had been included in BAS9. As US politician Elizabeth Warren pointed out (in relation to women’s position within the Senate), ‘If you haven’t got a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.’ Hence the reference to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, a 1729 satire against the British government’s incapability of solving the issue of Irish poverty. Swift suggested that the Irish sell their children as food. The eighteenth-century satire shockingly included descriptions of how the children were best prepared and served.

A Modest Show’s website is stuffed with a banquet of shows, events, performances and activities. Across the summer, the Fourdrinier will be featuring a series of reviews and articles by a range of writers covering some of these delectable offerings. Meanwhile, there follows an overview of what promises to be an unmissable summer-long feast of art.

Robin Broadley and Luke Routledge, along with guest artists Claire Dorsett and Robin Megannity, first launched the idea of A Modest Show at The Manchester Contemporary in November 2021. The actual A Modest Show opening event is Friday 13 May (booking required), the sculptural intervention on show at Seesaw, ‘Superposition: Deliveries and Functions’, which gathers work by Broadley and Routledge, acting together as a fictional art installation and general odd job company. Their collaborative interventions will deliver and remove artworks in and out of A Modest Show throughout the programme.

Claire Dorsett presents ‘Nibble Island’ at Rogue Studios, where eight artists have been invited to exhibit on her studio table, ‘like a buffet table at a family function’ – slightly awkward but better in numbers. This coincides with Rogue’s open studios weekend. Also running open studios with A Modest Show are Bankley Studios & Gallery with their 30th anniversary show and Paradise Works with three-tier art event ‘Triple Decker’, while Hotbed Press are also hosting a large group show, ‘Printers Pie’, featuring the work of 80 artists.

A Modest Show curator Nathaniel Pitt, along with MMU senior lecturer Nicola Singh, presents the curatorial work of ten final year curating students at MMU. Artwork created through workshops with other students and members of Ancoats Visual Arts group is displayed as ‘Let Them Eat Cake: Who Controls Your Plate?’ in Pitt’s Abstract Kab mobile gallery and performance space and will be on view 18 & 19 May outside All Saints and 20 & 21 May outside The Whitworth.

Also outside, in June, Laura Mansfield and FEAST Journal present ‘A Botanical Library’ with Ryan Woods and Sneha Solanki, two creative lunch events in a secret garden community space in Fallowfield. Meanwhile PROFORMA bring together a street party, procession and celebration of 50 years of carnival in the city, running alongside an exhibition, ‘Fertile Grounds’, by Nikita Gill, at Longsight Art Space.

PAPER Gallery devotes its May-September programming to A Modest Show, beginning with ‘My New Favourite Shop’ by Leslie Thompson (reviewed alongside this article, and on show now until 4 June), followed by Ruby Tingle ‘Familiars’ and Left Winter ‘Silk Graves’, both running from 11 June – 6 August; and ‘Axel Obiger presents: Die Geduld des Papiers’, from 13 August - 17 September.

Shannon Tran’s installation and publication ‘Are You Hungry?’ at Seesaw explores the idea of mixed heritage and food as the key to ‘in-between spaces through cultures.’ Two newly commissioned film works at Seesaw, ‘Soft Things’ by Sarah Boulter and ‘Deviant Diners’ by Emily Bold examine escapist gorging, and the stigma autistic people face at the dinner table, respectively. Claire Tindale exhibits her installation work, ‘Working Towards a Goldilocks Society’ at Seesaw, using chocolate as a sculptural medium.

Into July, Andee Collard’s CNC machines create mechanized drawings and paintings as the artist explores links between art and cookery in ‘The Making of the Sausage’. Foreign Investment stages ‘The Incredible Re-Birth Dinner’, inviting guest speakers to debate the morality of genetics from inside ‘a giant pig’s heart’ in a recreation of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ 1853 Crystal Palace event ‘Dinner in the Iguanodon Model’. Short Supply’s ‘Eat Sh*t!’ is a Queer performance night at SOUP followed by a club night collaboration with Bollox.

In August ‘The Grand Pear Supper’, a one-off bookable event at Longsight Art Space, serves up a five-course meal with performative presentations exploring stories of migration from feudal China and the ancient gardens of Afghanistan to French orchards and the British landscape. Kieran Healy echoes the popular TV cookery show in ‘Combine with Me’, a group exhibition at Cass Arts where artists representing different regions of Greater Manchester have been invited to make a piece of work answering to the theme ‘Utopia’. The participating artists have then switched works with those from neighbouring or opposing regions and responded, added to or adjusted the work given to them. The idea here is to connect Manchester’s diverse art scenes, to embrace collaboration and build trust.

Across September, Maisie Pritchard has generated a new sculptural medium of paper clay and will be running workshops towards the creation of a cardboard dinner service and a final ‘Cardboard dining exhibition’ on show at Paradise Works and Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces Wigan later in the month. In addition to these and many other events and shows, are a range of undated publications such as the zine produced by artists Arthur Simons and Ell Edwards, fundraising for Family Action FOOD Clubs, and Chewing the Fat Podcast by James Mathews-Hiskett that brings together north-west curators. This is in addition to longer running exhibitions already in preparation earlier in the year. You can still catch ‘Theirs, Yours, Ours’, an exhibition by queer and non-binary artists showing at the New Adelphi Gallery, until 30 September.

There’s already an atmosphere of excitement building up around A Modest Show. Already, aims of inclusivity, connection, hospitality and welcome are being established and strengthened. The idea of a socialist aesthetic combined with food programming and satire looks to be a winning strategy that will not only make a huge impression as it goes live across summer 2022 but also will leave an indelible mark on the social and cultural scene of the Manchester, Salford and Greater Manchester region. Its resulting map and website will form the legacy of a resource for people to look up Manchester’s artist-led spaces, events and venues all year round.