‘Markey and Friends’ in Falmouth

The Falmouth Art Gallery are celebrating the 80th Birthday (a few years early!) of ‘the father of the Falmouth automata makers’ Peter Markey.
The exhibition ‘Markey and Friends’, will also feature the paintings of Peter’s son and artist Danny,  as well as plenty of automata from Peter.
Opens 22nd September 2007.

Peter’s ‘Kissing Couple’ paper cutout (seen here) is available to buy and make from our online shop.

Mechanics Alive!! opens in Thailand

Now on the last leg of it’s Far East tour, our Mechanics Alive!! exhibition was officially opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Siriwanwaree Nareeratana of Thailand on July 26th at the Thailand Creative and Design Center in Bangkok.

The Princess was enthralled by the exhibits, and also tried out the designing automata kit in the workshop area. The exhibition is proving to be a real crowd pleaser, as last weeks article in ‘The Nation’ reveals. The exhibition closes on 30th September 2007.

USA Touring Exhibit opens in Kansas

This Saturday, 19th May, sees the opening of our USA touring exhibit at the Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Salina, Kansas.

A great place for a day out this summer, this fascinating place also has a collection of Animatronics, robotic humans including a Hindu snake charmer.
CMT exhibition closes 22nd August

I Remember Gundestrup

Paul Spooner’s latest piece, ‘I Remember Gundestrup’ is currently on show at our exhibition at Kinetica. The two figures slowly move around in the vessel of blood-red Janus heads.
For those who can’t visit, the caption reads:-

‘This is not as bad as it looks: customs change in Denmark as they do all over most of the world. Long ago when customs were unlike those of today (in most places) a young prince of Denmark had had a bloody but ultimately successful battle. Luckily, he possessed a wondrous cauldron that had the magical property of reviving any corpse that was simmered in it. That sort of thing happened in those days. The woman is someone he won in the battle.’

Heads will roll.

Media Coverage

Our latest show at Kinetica is no. 1 choice in TimeOut’s Around Town this week. If you’re in London, the local news slot on the BBC should have coverage today (Sunday) at 7:35pm. We were also on BBC Radio London’s Breakfast Show yesterday - you can ‘listen again‘ (until Sun 15th April). Leave a message in the comments if you spot anything else.

Kinetica Exhibition Opens Today

There was a fantastic opening party for the CMT and Ride of Life Exhibition at Kinetica last night. Guests were enthralled by the range of automata old and new, it was a great launch for the show. Guest Chris O’Shea took some great pictures and as he says:-
‘I can safely say that this one of the most beautiful, playful and magical exhibitions I’ve been to for a long time. My photos don’t do it justice, you need to go and see them moving in real life. It has a real feeling of British crazy backyard inventor to it, mixed with detailed tiny models to large scale automata.’

One of the most exciting pieces is Will Jackson’s Robo Thespian (pictured) - Photo: Chris O’Shea.

Mechanics Alive!! tours to South Korea

Our travelling exhibition, Mechanics Alive!! will open at the Seongnam Arts Center in Seongnam near Seoul, South Korea on April 12th.
757 Yatap-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do.
It can be seen here until 19th May 2007.

The exhibition will then move to Chungmu Art Hall
131,Heungin-Dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea 100-880
(23rd May until 30th June 2007).
There will be a series of workshops for children and adults throughout the exhibitions.

This first ever Korean tour has been organised by our colleague Min Kyoung Cho, at UTOSPACE. Cho has been a tremendous fan of CMT since she first saw our exhibition at the Oxo Gallery in London 3 years ago. Cho’s current exhibition Cookie Architecture is a great favourite!

Jeppe Hein’s Rolling Ball kinetic sculpture

Here is something else to see on your upcoming visit to London. Danish artist Jeppe Hein has created a site-specific installation for The Curve at The Barbican.
The piece is called ‘Distance’ and you can see it working here.

Visitors trigger the rolling balls by entering the space, so the experience varies depending on how busy it is. If you can visit when it is quiet you will be able to follow your own ball from start to finish. Good fun.

Sharmanka Travelling Circus

If you are coming to London for the CMT exhibition at Kinetica, make sure to visit the Museum of Croydon to see Eduard Bersudsy’s fantastic travelling circus.
Beautiful while still, once an hour this magical menagerie of recycled metal will spring to life to perform an incredible choreography to haunting music and synchronised light, weaving funny and tragic stories about human life.

CMT Talks at Kinetica

Tim Hunkin’s talk ‘Popular Art’ (11th April 6pm) will be the first in a series of talks at Kinetica to coincide with the CMT retrospective and Ride of Life exhibition which starts on Friday 6th April. Tim’s Chiropodist (1986), originally made for CMT in Covent Garden, will be treating visitors’ feet throughout the exhibition, which runs until 5th May 2007.

Other talks include Will Jackson, Paul Spooner, as well as an evening with Sue Jackson and Sarah Alexander looking back over the past 28 years of CMT.