GATESHEAD, UK.- The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art presents Night - Joseph Havel, on view through April 29, 2007. In his first UK show, Havel will explore and develop ideas around the fluid mental state between sleeping (dreaming) and being awake. Anxieties, memories, words and images appear and disappear in his intricate investigations into this in-between state of consciousness.

Two of the works, Sam Can’t Sleep and Gossip (Fountain) are constructed from excerpts of a diary the artist kept next to his bed in which he randomly recorded words and ideas, remembered as he was coming out of this dream state and into consciousness. In the morning he found he was unable to recall these words without referring to this text.

In a piece created specifically for his show at BALTIC, Havel used issues raised by various BALTIC employees which hinted at their hidden anxieties. The resultant Baltic Chatter is a wall piece which explores the complex web of relationships which exist between artists, staff and visitors to the gallery.

Havel’s work celebrates the physical nature of sculpture. Dispensing with the surplus of imagery in our media saturated world, he chooses images and shapes from his own life as a way to organise the formal elements of his sculptural works. Everyday objects such as shirt labels, shirts and bedsheets are used to make his work more accessible and juxtapose the often ephemeral concepts he explores. His sculptures present frozen time frames and give the viewer a space to consider the stillness of the situation he presents to them.