Doug Fishbone | Ed Templeton | Horn Head | Jesse Darling | Keh Ng | Pure Evil | Warren Garland
Private View: Friday 29 June, 6-9pm Screening of “Elmina”: Sunday 1 July, from 7pm Exhibition Continues: 30 June - 9 July Friday to Sunday 12-6pm, or by appointment
“The artists’ job is to be witness to his time in history” Robert Rauschenberg
Loser Art. Counter Culture. Subculture. Arte Povera. Street Art. DIY Art. Youth Art. Crap Art. Graffiti? Subversion... Interruption... Disruption.... The Bastard Children of Pop. Illegitimate. Below the radar. A bad taste in the mouth. The cracked mirror image of Pop, Neo Pop. All that is shiny and bright. And hollow. The witnesses.
As Neo Pop emerged as the direct descendent of Pop Art, the proliferation of larger than life celebrity bling, wanton consumerism and hollow gesture filled galleries, magazines and festivals around the world. Golden statues of Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Tiger sharks frozen in formaldehyde or life size manga cartoon statues with lasso like semen reflected the decade of excess that was being referenced and reflected upon. Popular culture had never seemed more perverse. Money was no object in the creation of these idols.
But there was an alternative faction forming within the Pop family. Subcultures had begun to emerge almost as soon as the term 'popular culture' had been termed. A desire to act in a contrary fashion to popular culture fuelled a growing group of artists who acted outside of and apparently against Pop. The slickness of Neo Pop was indeed a sickening sight to these artists and they began to use the leftovers and the discarded materials of their wealthier relatives. Where Neo Pop Artists revere Marvel comics, the Bastard children might reference internet pornography. Where Neo Pop artists might use diamonds, the Bastard Children used bathroom tiles.
In our Age of Austerity, it seems apt to begin to collect some of the artists who are representative of this movement. And it is a large movement even if they have yet to recognise it themselves. This show is a dispirate, desperate collection of detritus that demands to be acknowledged as a record of our times.
