Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Leeds Beckett University
The Nest Exhibition
In November 2012, I was invited to exhibit at Gallery Monitor in Rome by curator Paola Capata. The exhibition featured paintings, sculpture and photographic works resulting from my on-going collaboration with Nathaniel Mellors. The exhibition combined Nathaniel Mellors’ video THE SAPROPHAGE and other video work made collectively with actress Gwendoline Christie with sculpture, photography and painting.
The painted and sculptural works developed out of a researched theme that considers ‘a cultural apocalypse’ created by a ‘permanent present’, in which any sense of history or possible future have been deleted, imagined partly as a consequence of the impact digital archiving culture has on creative improvisation. The works also investigate and question ideas of digital permanence and the decomposition of matter, the matter, which the Saprophage feeds on.
The research that develops the theme of THE SAPROPHAGE is folded into the photographic work that is made by replacing certain patterns of letters in the digital code of video stills from ‘The Saprophage’ with specific thematic words pertinent to the script. This results in photographic landscapes of corrupted digital information. The series of paintings ‘SAPRO-DIGITALIS were made experimentally in the gallery space. They combine corrupted digital photographic images with improvised applications of building plaster, ‘fired’ at the surface using industrial application methods. The frugal use of cheap billboard prints and building material is a reflection of the conditions of ecology and austerity researched throughout the development of the exhibition.
During the making of the exhibition in Rome, Nero Magazine interviewed Nathaniel Mellors and myself. The interview explored the relationship between Pier Paolo Pasolini and the import of his legacy for contemporary culture. The transcribed 13 page article is published in the Nero Spring issue 32 released in order to co-inside with the Venice Biennale 2013. Mike Watson reviewed the exhibition for Frieze magazine.
