Kong Lear

After a busy week getting everything ready for the launch of our Excess All Areas exhibition at Leeds Gallery, I have finally found five minutes to write about another art exhibition that is open until tomorrow at Bar Lane Studios in York.

Kong Lear is the outcome of a collaboration between two artists, Claire Hind (pictured above) and Gary Winters. The pair held a special preview last week, and talked about the development of their work together and the multi-media exhibition that punctuates their progress to-date.

Claire and Gary came together around the writing of a solo performance project, Ghost Track (coming to York Theatre Royal in April), in which Claire explores the "complexities of the psyche, the workings of the vocal chords and the intricate and anxious lives we can lead" through successive and often comical re-tellings of act one scene one of King Lear. As Claire explained, "Kong Lear came about from a slip of the tongue, an unconscious play on words, that revealed what we both felt was a potential worth persuing." That potential is exposed in the interplay between the two charachters (King Lear and King Kong) and two locations (York and New York), and in Claire's interest in the work of Sigmund Freud. "We like the idea that Kong is inside Lear's psyche – imagine that. And we like the idea that Kong Lear is a woman. Freud would have a field day."

The exhibition, which includes prints, text and sound installations and an 8mm film, documents Gorrilla Mondays, a programme of events during which Claire led small groups on a performance through the streets on York. If you find yourself on those streets yourself this weekend, I'd highly reccommend that you head down to Bar Lane Studios to check it out - especially the film, which is beautifully made and hilariously funny. There is a special, early evening viewing between 4pm and 7pm tomorrow, after which the exhibition will close.