THE EXQUISITE CORPSE EXHIBITION

My final show as curator for the Dalston Superstore was a huge success, I am so happy with the standard and diversity of work and the effort the artists put in. The pieces really show the identity of the artists and this subconscious portrayal of them selves is what makes the work so interesting. The opening night was completely packed and turned into a great party. Hopefully the show will travel as every one is so impressed.
Its up until the end of the month so if you haven't seen it the check it out, scroll down my blog for links to the artists personal sites and blogs. Here is a selection of the work and I'll post the rest when I get a chance to take the pictures.
These images are courtesy of Amy Gwatkin

                                                                 Artist: Fred Butler

                                                                Artist: Moses Powers

                                                                     Artist: Celia Arias

                                                                Artist: Emma Gibson

                                                                Artist: Alex Noble - ME!

                                                               Artist: Cordelia Weston

                                                             Artist: Clare Whittingham

                                                        Artist: Jay Barry Matthews

                                                                 Artist: Luke Embden

                                                                   Artist: Anna Bruder

                                                                   Artist: Louise Riley

                               Left to right, Artists: Moses Powers + Justine Josephes, Moses Powers

                                                                      Me with my legs.

THE EXQUISITE CORPSE EXHIBITION

My final show as Curator for the Dalston Superstore is 'The Exquisite Corpse' an amazing group show filled with eclectic cadavers and super talented artists from the fields of fashion and art combined.
It's the last show for the Gallery superstore and me, but not my last show as a curator as I hope and plan for more exhibiting opportunities as artist and curator.

Here is the flyer and Press Release.

02 September 2010, 18.00 - 22.00
Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High St, E8 2PB

Emma Gibson, Fred Butler, Louise Riley, Anna Bruder, Celia Arias, Jay Barry Matthews, Moses Powers, Adam Vergette, Clare Whittingham Luke Embden, Justine Josephs, Cordelia Weston, Alex Noble.

The Gallery Superstore invites artists for it’s fourth group show, to explore the themes and practices of the parlor game originating ‘Exquisite Corpse’. A name given by the Surrealists  when they first played the game also known as ‘Consequences’. In it’s original form it was a play of sentences and adjective nouns. Finding the practice playful and enriching, the surrealist developed it into more of an art form that has been celebrated to this day.
And can now be seen as drawing, collage and sculpture and inspires artists to fashion designers and photographers.

The morbidness of the games title seems to push through when inspiring previous art works of this theme, moving away from the playful to the more subversive, as seen in the work of Hans Bellmer’s ‘poupee’ series and the sculptures of  Louise Bourgeois.
The art of creating figures from a varied number of objects gave a way to represent characters and symbolize parts of their psyche with effective and sometimes disturbing results. The random objects used may reflect the jumbled assortment of ideas and emotions manifested by the artist. To show physical strength or weakness as well as mental intent.

With the modern obsessions for body modification, ground breaking scientific developments and constant referencing to the past and the future. This exhibition gives artists scope to produce a figure that is diverse and unique, surreal and hap hazard or meticulous in creation.
The concept gives access to explore gender and social roles with the freedom to be playful as well as serious in discussion, what will we learn about the artist by what they create?

The exhibition seeks to be 3D installation lead, with the artists life size ‘cadavers’ hanging from the Superstore meat hooks, as an eclectic morgue of objects of intrigue.

'TAUT' - THAT CERTAIN TENSION BETWEEN FASHION & ART' exhibition at the TRAJECTOR ART FAIR, BRUSSELS

'A IS FOR EVE'

'A THIN LINE'.

'TRANSFORMER'

'CRUTCH'

'F'.

'GIVE'

'HOLY MATRIMONY

'ISM IT?'

'LOVE'.

'PROCESS'.

'SECOND SKIN'

'SHEEP'

'STROKE'

'TWO ARE ONE'

'WORSHIP'

This is the fifteen piece collection I produced for the exhibition, a surreal and satirical, fashion illustartive cartoon strip, telling the story of the many sides of the tense relationship of fashion and art.

I am curating an exhibition this September called 'FASHION, FETISH AND THE INANIMATE OBJECT', which also discusses the relationship between these two cultural and subversive power houses.

Press release for Taut

Taut – That Certain Tension Between Fashion & Art– Press Release 19/03/10
Hotel Bloom! Brussels - 23 to 25 April, 2010
Art and fashion are like a pair of problematic lovers: not sure that they are good for each other; uncertain that they even understand each other and yet inextricably linked and attracted to each other…
And where better than in Belgium to consider this dichotomy? Belgium, whose medieval city-states founded their wealth and importance on expertise in textiles; whose old master paintings still form the basis for what we understand as ‘costume history’ in northern Europe. Belgium, whose disproportionate influence on international fashion thinking in much more recent decades is, perhaps, only matched by the disproportionate influence its artists and patrons wield in international terms.
It is, therefore, entirely fitting and appropriate that as the special programme forming part of Trajector Art Fair, Taut develops its discourses – through events and a special exhibition programme- in the midst of a young and vibrant international art happening in the middle of Brussels.
Taut will be curated and programmed by Laurent Dombrowicz and Ken Pratt. Their respective roles as Fashion Director and Art Editor – and later as Joint Editors in Chief - of the lauded niche magazine Wound perhaps explains why they are so suited to this task. From their respective fashion creative and art curatorial backgrounds, whilst at the creative helm of Wound, they created a thinking magazine in which the respective disciplines of fashion, art, architecture and design always developed a thematic discourse; each discipline operating with autonomy and credible in its own field, and yet always in dialogue with the other respective disciplines. In many ways, Wound remains one of the few ‘glossy’ magazines that managed to offer its positions on fashion, art, architecture and design on equal footing.
In programming the events and exhibition manifestations for Taut, they will once again launch into navigating a paracours through the intersections between fashion and art, though this time in physical space and real time rather than between the covers of a magazine.
As was always the case in Wound, Taut will address serious questions of the roles and positions of fashion and art in contemporary culture to a broad, thinking audience. Intelligent without being humourless, thoughtful without being insular, Taut is sure to be a treat for anyone interested in fashion and art. If their published efforts have already shown that they entirely refute all notions that fashion is only for the superficial and art only for a pretentious elite, then Taut promises to be a continuation of the paths they have already developed together so well.

NEW EXHIBITIONS AND INTERVIEWS

Check out the new exhibition I've curated at the Dalston Superstore - NOUVEAU NUDE-The Male Nude Now.
www.gallerysuperstore.blogspot.com

And an interview with me on the the new Mc Queen blog, interviewed by the lovely Anna Trevelyan,
check it out at -
http://www.m-c-q.com/diary/

NEW EXHIBITION - 12TH NOVEMBER AT DALSTON SUPERSTORE - AMAZING ARTISTS, COME TO THE OPENING!

 

NOUVEAU NUDE

THE MALE NUDE NOW
Opening Night: Thursday 12th November, 6.30 -10.00
Exhibition: Thursday 12th November - Sunday 6th December
Dalston Super Store, 117 Kingsland High St, E8 2PB

Contributers: Exterface, Mikel Marton, Cathal O’brien, Matthew Brindle, Justino Esteves, Elizabeth Eamer, Theo Firmo, Emma Gibson, Anna Kriskova, Anna Stubbe, Echo Morgan, Alex Noble, Moses Powers, Ed Relph, Jens Stoltze.
Contributing Magazines + Fanzines: BUTT, PinUps, Spunk, Anal, Flit.
Light and Illustration installation: Prick Image and Alex Noble

This exhibition seeks to celebrate and explore the male nude, celebrating those who examine, muse and obsess over this controversial subject.

Exhibiting work from a new generation of home grown and international artists: from Paris duo Exterface intensely stylized nude narratives to Canada’s Mikel Marton, who’s male nude portraits are winning critical acclaim across America and around the world.
Alongside photography, mixed media work and 3D installation will be covers from ground breaking Butt magazine and fanzines including New York’s PinUps and Spunk.  Aiding the review of the Male Nude’s place in a commercial and subcultural context.

Male nudity has always been more subversive than it’s female counterpart, falling in and out of popularity through out art history, but always celebrated and developed by the gay and erotic arts.

The ‘gaze’ has shifted from being predominantly on women to men in fashion, film and advertising, and within the last decade the increasing trend for homo eroticism and full frontal male nudity begs the question, what is the place of the male nude in contemporary society? And will it ever develop and evolve into being as common place as a pair of breasts in a newspaper?

As it takes more and more to shock us, what now is the reaction towards the male nude,
and can the more untraditional images and growing trend for alternative visions of beauty be viewed in their own right with out being labelled homo erotic, classicist or pornographic.
 (c) curation and text by Alex Noble

http://gallerysuperstore.blogspot.com

NEW ART WORK

This is an unfinished section of a new piece of work, originally titled 'David Loves David' but is now called 'Original Sin', up now at Dalston Super Store.
This piece was up at the last exhibition at Dalston SS and is titled 'The Hand Maids Tale', and is a dark view of the future, where man kind has done so damage to them selves and the earth that the human reprodructive system is failing to produce enough eggs and sperm for procreation. Therefore a huge market has emerged for homosexual sperm and eggs, to give heterosexual partners the opportunity to conceive. Would you 'Pay For Gay?'
Title: Urban Jungle

Mural for Dalston Super Store, a kind of retro, electro, drippy spectrum thing.

DIRTY LAUNDRY EXHIBITION

My new role as curator for the East Ends newest bar for people to rave about, The Dalston Super Store, is proving to be very interesting indeed. Our second group show titled Dirty Laundry' invited artists to share inner most thoughts, desires, regrets and fetishes. I was more than impressed by the works that were submitted and it became a very diverse show, exhibiting installations, projection's, painting, illustration, photography and even tea towels!
If you didn't make it to the private view then you have until the 10th of July to go check it out and I strongly recommend you do.

The Tree Of Fucking Creatives,(2009) Tony Hornecker
'Masked', (2009), Moses Powers
'Untitled', (2009) Erin Petson
'Jonie', (2009), Morgan O'Donovan
'Questionably Activities', (2009), Emma Gibson
'Untitled Tea Towels', (2009), Rebecca Maynes
Cathal O'brien's captivating film projections


My new role as curator for the East Ends newest bar for people to rave about, The Dalston Super Store, is proving to be very interesting indeed. Our second group show titled Dirty Laundry' invited artists to share inner most thoughts, desires, regrets and fetishes. I was more than impressed by the works that were submitted and it became a very diverse show, exhibiting installations, projection's, painting, illustration, photography and even tea towels!
If you didn't make it to the private view then you have until the 10th of July to go check it out and I strongly recommend you do.