The Centre of Attention is a London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based contemporary art organisation set up in 1999. Projects are shown internationally and constitute an ongoing enquiry into the phenomenon of art production, presentation and consumption.

The Centre’s participatory or Gonzo

Gonzo journalism

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to be first used in 1970 to describe an article by Hunter S. Thompson, who later popularized the style...

 curating approach include controversial exhibitions such as “Viva la republique” set during the Golden Jubilee

Golden Jubilee

A Golden Jubilee is a celebration held to mark a 50th anniversary.- In Thailand :King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, celebrated his Golden Jubilee on 9 June 1996.- In the Commonwealth Realms :...

 with Banksy

Banksy

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter.His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique...

, Jamie Reid

Jamie Reid

Jamie Reid is a British artist and anarchist with connections to the Situationists. His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK...

 and Genesis P-Orridge

Genesis P-Orridge

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...

; “The curators” which entirely eliminated the artists from the exhibition by putting the curators on display, as well as in-depth solo projects with artists such as a Fluxus

Fluxus

Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...

 concert with Ken Friedman

Ken Friedman

Ken Friedman, is a seminal figure in Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, literature, and music. He had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1966. He has also been involved with mail art, and he has written extensively about Fluxus and Intermedia...

 or a kinetic art

Kinetic art

Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...

 retrospective of Nicolas Schöffer

Nicolas Schoffer

Nicolas Schöffer was a Hungarian-born French artist. He can be considered as the father of cybernetic art. He was born in Kalocsa, Hungary and resided in Paris from 1936 till his death in his Montmartre atelier in 1992. His career touched on painting, kinetic sculpture, architecture, urbanism,...

.

The Centre of Attention was selected for the 51st Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 by curator Rosa Martinez

Rosa Martinez

Rosa Martínez is an independent curator, art critic and international art advisor based in Barcelona, Spain. Currently she is co-curator of "TRA.Edge of Becoming" for Axel Vervoordt Foundation and Palazzo Fortuny Museum http://www.tra-expo.comAs an independent curator, Rosa Martínez has...

 and presented Swansong/Schwanengesang an installation with works from Benedict Carpenter

Benedict Carpenter

Benedict Carpenter is a British sculptor and artist based in the West Midlands.He works in traditional materials such as bronze, mild steel, as well as more modern substances such as polyurethane foam, bread, rubber and spray paint....

, House of O'Dwyer, Damien Roach and Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans is a German Fine-art photographer and artist. His comprehensive and diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first...

. In this piece, also presented in MousonTurm Frankfurt and Mercer Union

Mercer Union

Mercer Union is an artist-run centre in Toronto, Ontario, established in 1979 to exhibit contemporary art.In 2009, the gallery moved to the Bloor and Lansdowne area in Toronto's west end. Previously the gallery had held homes at 29 Mercer Street , 439 King Street West, 333 Adelaide St...

in Toronto, the audience is given an opportunity to rehearse its own funeral: participants select a song; then lay on a plinth, performing death, while the song is webstreamed, formally, reversing the viewer/art-object dynamic.

External links

• The Centre of Attention
• Artists, 51st Venice Biennale, 2005