Gilbert & George: The Banners at the White Cube Gallery

Gilbert & George, The Banners, White Cube Gallery, 2015. 

What’s the best thing to do on a cold Tuesday night? Expand your rude vocabulary of course, by seeing the ‘Gilbert & George - The banners’ show at the White Cube gallery in East London. 

The show comprises of 30 large-scale banners featuring 10 handwritten graffiti-like messages by the quirky duo, which follows their exploration of urban text and typography. The first line of text is ubiquitous to all the banners and reads: ‘ Gilbert & George say:’, denoting that the text following contains the artist’s thoughts and reflections. And boy do Gilbert and George have some strong opinions!

The messages vary wildly from the classic britannia anthem ‘God save the Queen’ to the more playful ‘Fellatio for all’. These messages are accompanied by some thought-provoking quotes such as ‘Decriminalise sex’ along with some anarchic and concerning messages such as ‘Fuck the planet’. 

The conflicting nature of the messages is reflective of the duo’s eccentricity and seems to divide the audience’s responses; some respond positively to the liberating and worry-free tone of the banners, whilst others become offended and are concerned by the blown-up text. I am personally caught in the middle; I quite like the banners even though I am slightly problematised by some of them. It is as if Gilbert & George aim to tackle concerns of our culture with their unique sense of humour. 

Love it or hate it, Gilbert and George base their personas on the polarity their work generates, establishing themselves as both commentators and comedians at the same time. 

Preview of Champagne Life at the Saatchi Gallery

Stephanie Qualye, Lion Man, 2013, Air-hardening clay, chicken wire and steel. 

Recently, I have had the pleasure of seeing the preview of the upcoming show ‘Champagne Life’ at the Saatchi Gallery.

Located in Gallery 8, the preview features two sculptures by Artist Stephanie Quayle; Titled Lion Man and Two Cows, the air-hardening clay, chicken wire and steel - made sculptures, take the form of a kneeling man with a lion’s head and two embracing cows respectively. 

The artifice of flesh created using clay evokes a primal emotion, accentuated by the figurative dynamism and anatomical precision which inject a breath of life in the sculptures. As a result the audience becomes tense whilst gazing these life-like sculptures, half-expecting some sort of movement. This effect is derivative from Qualye’s extensive process involving sketching live animal subjects, which imprints a trace of life in the resulting sculptures. The tension established between the object and the audience, allows them to penetrate the physicality of the sculpture and look at it as a living organism moulded by its feelings and emotions. Thus the audience surrender themselves body and soul to the sculpture.

Seeing Ah Paik, Maitreya, 2013, Pigment, rabbit glue skin, charcoal and cotton calico. 

Standing alongside Qualye’s sculptures, the audience finds the large-scale drawings by Artist Seung Ah Paik. The 4-metre-tall drawings depict oversized nude human body parts, embracing each other in surreal arrangements. The tangibility and carnality of the body become the central components in Ah Paik’s sensual drawings, which also display an element of rawness, being drawn onto the draped cotton calico.         

Stephanie Qualye, Two Cows, 2013, Air-hardening clay, chicken wire and steel. 

Exhibiting Quayle’s carnal sculptures beside Ah Paik’s raw bodily drawings makes for an intense room: the limited palette of skin tone colours contributes to the prominence of flesh which engulfs the viewer with a wave of body-heat emitted by the animated works of Qualye and Ah Paik. 

Exiting the room with a rosy face and gasping for air I realised that this experience allowed myself to view the works sincerely and establish a metaphysical relationship with the now living organisms inhabiting Gallery 8.

Performance & Remnant at The Fine Art Society

On Friday the 23rd of October,  I had the pleasure of visiting the Performance & Remnant show. The exhibit held at the Contemporary faculty of the Fine Art Society, showcased various ways in which performance art can be documented or live through other mediums, allowing artists to harness the commercial value of work derived from live art.

Jo Broughton, 2002-07, Empty Porn Sets, C-type prints mounted on aluminium

One of the artist’s capturing my attention was photographer Jo Broughton: Broughton presents the audience with a set of photographs titled Empty Porn Sets, which presents depictions of empty sets for staging pornography.  Ranging from christmas settings to ballon-filled studios and classrooms, Broughton captures the myriad of forms sexual desire acquires and the great extends to which we result in order to experience our caprices. What is quite interesting is not only how Broughton explores themes of voyeurism and spectatorship by photographing these porn sets, but also the way in which Broughton allows the audience to fill in these sets with their imagination - mentally re-enacting the scenarios that could have unfolded within these spaces. As a result, Broughton’s Empty Porn Sets is documenting the remnants of pornographic acts, as well as provoking the mental conception of new fictitious acts.

Justin Davis Anderson, 2012-15, Painted polaroid photography installation

Another interesting artist featured in the Performance & Remnant show in Justin Davis Anderson, who works with images of independent performers and musicians in NewYork. Anderson presents an installation made up of polaroids altered with mixed media. Personally I found that Anderson’s alterations of the polaroids, serve as to reimagine the narrative of the image and the characters. I am also very interested in the assemblage of the polaroids to create an installation, as I found it being reminiscent of the fleeting nature of performance.

Rashaad Newsome, 2015, Coy, Collage on paper 

Perhaps the work that has resonated the most with my practise has been Rashaad Newsome’s collages. Created in conjunction with the video piece ICON, the collages explore thematics of pop and hip hop culture, commoditisation of the human figure as well as opulence, dance and fashion. Newsome’s use of performance-imagery as the basis of his collages opens up a relationship with my practise, as I also use stills from performances to create collages; I call these performative collages, which are collages that possess the ability to host performance and allow it to unfold in a different way from live performance. My work is similar with Newsmen’s, in the way we both immortalise performative moments through the realm of collage - whose principle is to enact upon various forms of conformity, breaking the mould with the flamboyant juxtaposition of imagery. 

Overall the Performance & Remnant show shed light in the way which live artists allow performance to manifest through other mediums, liberating their practise whilst opening the next chapter for contemporary performance. As a young artist, I also appreciated the kindness and enthusiasm shown by the staff of the Fine Art society who were happy to spend time with myself and other visitors, talking about the show.

Prem Sahib : Side On at the Institute of Contemporary Art

Multifaceted Artist Prem Sahib has had his first international solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art and it was pretty interesting!

Prem Sahib, Called Out, 2015, Wood, ceramic tiles, grout. 

Sahib's autobiographical work revolves around the sense of the body and the human, channeling themes of intimacy, sexuality and relationships. Sahib's spatial arrangements of objects - as seen in Taken by Your Equivocal Stance - and architectural installations seem to evoke a sense of longing and bridging. The common trait in the work, seems to be points of contact/ intersection, which provide visual metaphors for union and relationships. 

Prem Sahib, Taken by Your Equivocal Stance series, 2015, Puffer jackets, hoodies, glass, steel, gesmonite, paint, Courtesy of the Artist and Southard Reid London. 

For instance in Taken by Your Equivocal Stance Sahib presents the physical evidence of a relationship between two people - presumably two gay men. Considering Sahib's interest in exploring sexuality through minimal means, the pieces of clothing sealed in a microscope slide-like glass frame seem to be put on display as some sort of autopsy of the relation between the two men. The audience is thus invited to investigate the lifestyles of these two men. 

Prem Sahib, Day Timer, 2015, Bronze, pillow.

The use of visual metaphors does not end there: Through pieces like Day Timer and Basic Man, Sahib presents the audience with a visual riddle they have to solve in order to access the meaning of the work, with the aid of the poetic titles. The combination of simple, everyday-life objects stimulates and facilities the spectators imagination allowing them to understand the work. 

Prem Sahib, Basic Man, 2015, MAC Foundation on Zara shirt, aluminium, paint. 

However perhaps fully understanding the work is not the goal of this show. Being a spectator in Side On, I found myself decoding enough information in order to grasp the greater meaning of Sahib's work and it was beautiful!  

Millie Brown: Rainbow Body at Gazelli Art House

What a glorious way to start the weekend; watching Millie Brown's site specific performance installation at the Gazelli Art House! Rainbow Body was seen for the very first time in the U.K. and it most certainly lived up to its expectations. 

To those off you who are unfamiliar with the performer, Brown is a body-oriented artist who uses controversial media such as vomit to create socially engaging paintings, reminiscent of the Abstract Expressionists. 

Millie Brown, Rainbow Bodies, 2015, Site specific performance installation, Gazelli Art House © Millie Brown 2015

Rainbow Body finds Brown being suspended from the gallery ceiling whilst having long strips of crystal prisms attached to her harness, over a duration of four hours. Accompanied by loud meditative music, Rainbow Body presented Brown's body as a vessel exploring notions of form, space and submersion.

Rainbow Body was a sight for sore eyes; a fierce-looking young woman putting herself on display in the heart of [fashion] consumerist London. That made for an impressive window display - as I am convinced that Brown used the large windows of Gazelli Art House, to captivate the attention of the average passerby. And boy did she! Observing her performance from the outside, I noticed many people being distracted by the floating Brown and some of their remarks were priceless: 'Is she a real woman?' and 'what is a naked lady doing hanging from the ceiling?'. 

This show-stopping effect is paramount when assessing body art; Being a spectator of Rainbow Body I found myself comparing Brown with the Christ on the cross - both of which were individuals who surrendered their bodies and suffered in the presence of an audience, for a greater purpose. The resulting spectacle provoked an array of emotions from the audience ranging from amazement to mild shock.

However, I personally empathised with Brown - spending over an hour in the gallery I found myself feeling Brown's pain and discomfort and that was when I realised it; I was observing a woman dedicated to her work. An artist so determined to become her own artwork, that was willing to lie in inertia whilst being photographed, watched and talked  about by her audience. A trait Brown shares with live artist Marina Abramovich. 

Overall I found Brown's performance installation fascinating to watch and I was mesmerised by the cross she was carrying [that came in the form of crystal prisms] whilst letting herself go in the Gazelli Art House. 

You can read more about Millie Brown here.