Eat, Use, Destroy :) / American Bodies

This is an overview of the exhibitions Eat, Use, Destroy :) and American Bodies, both at Islington Mill, Salford in October 2011. Eat, Use, Destroy :) was a group show which I curated as part of Free For Arts Festival. It's focus was described as follows:

An exhibition looking at how we form consumer relationships with objects, images and people. But not always to negative effect. Featuring fine art as well as graphic design and documentary photography by artists from Manchester, London and Dundee.

Micah Purnell, Desire, 2011

Micah Purnell's work is independently motivated propaganda, which often attacks consumerist values. One of his posters both hung in the exhibition space and was pasted to the outside of the building (above), which is the natural habitat for his work.

Jenny Evans, In The Night I, 2011

Jenny Evans' beautiful, painstaking paintings are counterpoised to work such as Purnell's. Indistinct objects are endowed with human connotations, treading a line between respect for a fragile humanity and the objectivity of contempt. In the night 1 presents as a screwed up pair of knickers for example, which could denote any element of human physicality ranging from the fully fulfilled to the awkward or broken.

Clockwise from top left, work by Celina Teague, Robson Cezar and Josh Young.

American Bodies is an exhibition of the work of by David Wojtowycz. Ink drawings portray men posing, their apparently naked lower halves blacked out with gloss black paint. The show is very slickly curated. The usual glass doors of the gallery are replaced with wooden walling, the internal surface of which is painted gloss black. This creates a formal relationship between the whole gallery space and the paper works featuring blacked out squares.

David descibed the show to me as being about the 'death of desire'. This statement alone makes for an interesting relationship between the two shows. The subject matter draws on 70's gay pornography. The crux is that that imagery can no longer be presented in the way he fondly remembers it, due to the historical knowledge relating to the emergence of AIDS.

The show seems to be very personal, and honest about the ambivalencies felt for the imagery alluded to. The 'self-censorship' and context related issues surrounding some of the works seems to relate closely to some of my own work included in Eat, Use, Destroy :) (below). The paintings are actually photographs of genuine adverts, traced over in paint. The personal ambivalence in this case is that both the adverts' subjects are people very close to me.

Josh Young, Acrylic paint on photographs, 2011.

American Bodies is still on throughout October - see Islington Mill website below for visiting details.
Eat, Use, Destroy :) also featured work by Cully, Matthew Randle and David Shamiri.
All images - copyright of the artists.


http://islingtonmill.com/
http://www.freeforartsfestival.co.uk/

Design The Future

Design the future was the title of an exhibition showcasing the work of Micah Purnell. His work includes stickers and flyposters, which are found on walls and in freely distributed packets of club advertising material (e.g Don't panic) among other places.

Some of his work is popular, designed to sell at affordable prices in limited edition poster format, which indicates his profession as a graphic designer. The flyposters are designed in a similar style to night club advertising. It seems like clubbers are the target audience for this avenue of Purnell's work; certainly the nature of the art you make will heavily influence who looks at it. There are therefore two elements to his work; the actual design and then the 'political' act of placing his work in public places.

The most obvious design feature in the work is the use of maxims and sayings. The phrases are often spiritually concerned ('look after your soul') and sometimes biblical in origin ('you are more valuable than all the birds of the air'). As far as I understand it, the latter statement speaks in its original context about deprioritising the pursuit of possessions. This context seems readily applicable in the realm of advertising, although it is more likely to be interpreted as a statement of human worth.

Are his flyposters successful at 'redeeming advertising space'? Certainly they fit in and successfully take a fraction of advertising's audience - his guerrilla work has attracted much media attention. On one level many of the messages in his work are subtly thought provoking, and advertising that provokes 'non-commercial' thought is a kind of success. A critic may write the work off because of clear Christian references. However all artwork has a motive behind it and I respect his; as his website says - 'work as if you are working for someone you love'.

Also included in the exhibition were some not for sale pieces. I suspect they were not for sale due to potential copyright issues; two were photographs of high street shop window displays. Both displays featured near naked models. Purnell placed text over the images - some quotes from John Berger on the construction of  glamour, and some personal reflections on the effect of these images on young children. I think these direct responses were some of the strongest work, perhaps more suited to a strictly 'fine art' audience than his other, more design based works.

MicahPurnell.com

http://www.manchestersalon.org.uk/design-the-future-micah-purnell.html

Addiction is cool!

What about addiction is cool?

redeeming advertising space

There is a poster exhibition going on in Manchester soon (June 2nd 2011) by Micah Purnell. The work aims to 'redeem advertising space for the sake of art and thought'. The posters have been previously appearing throughout the city in various advertising spaces. Phrases include 'The end of the world for a caterpillar is a butterfly' and biblical quotes, which definitely stand out next to other advertising.

I've also realised that Purnell is the mystery author of the 'Love keeps no record of wrongs' sticker which I posted here last year.

Poster exhibition - http://designthefuture.info/Design_The_Future_Poster_Exhibition.html
Love sticker - http://www.micahpurnell.com/Site_2/Poster_Love.html

Jack Wills advertising censored

The advertising standards agency (ASA) have banned clothing brand Jack Wills' latest catalogue. One of the picture shows a topless couple kissing:

"Because we considered (one of the images) in particular to be overtly sexual in nature, we concluded that the catalogue was sufficiently provocative as to present a risk to younger teenagers"

I was a bit surprised, I don't really know what the rules are on advertising in the UK but the image doesn't look too shocking to me. The ASA said that Wills is popular with people younger than their claimed 18-22 target audience, which I think is true. I want to say it's a good thing that they've cut it, even if it's just so that there's one less advert out there commodifying people.

Link to the Guardian news article
Earlier post about Diesel 'Be Stupid' advertising

Luci Metcalfe interview - 'God is unfashionable'

Click me, I'm a link to an interesting 2007 Luci Metcalfe interview.

Symbols

Click to enlarge the photos

St. George's Cross / England world cup squad / Sky TV

Kasabian's lead singer advertising the English away football shirt.

Its odd that every time I see the St. George's cross, I see it as a 'Christian cross'. England used to be officially Christian, but now the red cross is a symbol of us - the English. But I still see it as a symbol of Christ, which is weird on adverts and taxi's and thugs. 

Obviously symbols change meanings - my little sister was wearing rosary beads for a while because the person who had given them to her got them from a prison chaplain. She thought wearing them made her look rough and glamourous. When my mum told her they were prayer beads she didn't believe her.

I recently met a 22 year old Iraqi living in Manchester. He was a really nice guy. His family, which moved to the UK 2 years ago, is unusually Christian. He told me that after the war began in Iraq life became much more difficult for Christians there. Churches started burning down. He said this was partly to do with the end of Saddham Hussein, who as a relatively secular, nominal Muslim, was more liberal with minority faith groups. It was also because the western invasion of Iraq was seen as a 'Christian war'.

Market St.

These two spots are on Market St in Manchester, only a couple of minutes away from each other. I was interested that the sport shop actually used 'worship' as an advertising word - to encourage people to really support their team? And who wrote 'GOD IS GAY'?

Cosmopolitan

Be Stupid

I saw the words 'be stupid' covering a shop window in Glasgow. Searching it on the net comes up with the advertising campaign these images are from. The phrases are thought provoking - opposing creativity and crtique, 'stupid' and 'smart'. The 'beautiful' models appeal at a base physical level. It's great advertising.

The proposal/encouragement/instruction 'Be Stupid' seems to say, break the rules, have fun, don't think. On the Diesel website their catalogue goes into more detail. Everything from 'storming the bastille and throwing open the jail cell doors' to whistling while you work is stupid. Stupid is also 'the first guy who realized you could extract and synthesize the humble coca leaf in to a fine, white snortable powder'. So cocaine and whistling are both stupid. That high fashion cocaine culture literally filters down onto high street windows is pretty weird.

This is what the Diesel head man says of his target audience: '[young people] have changed a lot. Ten years ago they were more like sheep, everyone wore the same things, now they are more individual, more aware, they are better educated, they know reality better, ten years ago they were more naive'. It almost sounds like respect until you realise that he's implying that education amounts to young people dressing more individually, in his jeans (in the same interview he explains that he wants his company to remain smaller and more elite than Levi's).

In some of the 'Be Stupid' images they are tearing off each others' clothes, in others eating food. The association is with consumption. I think that when it says 'stupid says yes', they are not expecting their viewers to invent things or cause change. They're offering them a light hearted, semi arousing visual experience that makes them feel reckless, like doing something stupid. This is the state of mind they think will encourage people to buy their clothes.