Exhibition Dates: 22 January - 15 February 2020 Private View: 22 January, 6 - 8Pm
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Redfern Gallery 20 Cork Street London, W1S 3HL www.redfern-gallery.com THEM Exhibition Dates: 22 January - 15 February 2020 Private View: 22 January, 6 - 8pm The Redfern Gallery is delighted to present THEM, an exhibition exam- ining the work of five artists who came to prominence in the early 1970s, including Duggie Fields, Andrew Logan and Derek Jarman. Curated by James Birch, the show’s title derives from an article of the same name written by the cultural historian Peter York for Harpers & Queen that appeared in October 1976. With great acuity, it sought to unravel an aesthetic sensibility apparent in young Londoners of the time. To be ‘Them’, York wrote, was to be part of ‘a mysterious aesthetic con- spiracy’ prepared to sacrifice almost anything to ‘look interesting rather than sexy’. This ‘look’ was a highly refined form of camp and came at Kevin Whitney, Chelita Secunda, 1970, oil on canvas, 153 x 182 cm. Photo by Maria a time when, according to York, ‘marketing of all sorts of things sold to Anastassiou. non-queer people.’ York cited many things that weren’t Them, but also those who per- sonified it. These included the singer and songwriter Bryan Ferry and the fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, while the David Bowie film, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), which he considered a Them movie and Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World contest as the ultimate Them event. The date of its publication is significant, because one month later on 26 November, The Sex Pistols released Anarchy in the U.K., an event that Duggie Fields, Fireside Cooke, 1969. Photo by Maria Anastassiou. effectively swept away the concept of Them. This exhibition, which brings together more than twenty works dating from the late 1960s to the 1980s, including paintings, sculptures and collage, examines the aesthetics behind the concept of THEM through the prism of art. While some of the five featured artists were named in York’s article— Andrew Logan and Duggie Fields are labelled as ‘The Gang’ —this was not a movement in any sense, but a sensibility around which they all loosely confederated. It is perhaps in Kevin Whitney’s Chelita Secunda (1969/70), a monu- mental portrait of the late journalist and fashion stylist Chelita Secunda, that this spirit is most evident. The work, rendered in oil, depicts Secun- da spilling out of the window of a sports car, her arms flailing as she clasps a small revolver. Dangerous and carefree, the smudge of glitter under her eyes alludes, perhaps, to her role kickstarting the glam rock revolution of the early 1970s. The Redfern Gallery 20 Cork Street London, W1S 3HL www.redfern-gallery.com Created a year after he graduated from Chelsea School of Art, Duggie Fields’ Fireside Cookies (1969) presents two young women in swimming suits sprawled on a rug in a kitsch, domestic setting. Quotidian items surround the subjects — clothing lies scattered across the floor along- side half-read books and burning cigarettes, while beside the glowing fire sits a coal bucket and household plant. Combining elements from disparate vocabularies, Field’s painting is a masterclass in exuberant, Andrew Logan, Life, Birth and Death, Three Maquettes, 1981. Photo by Sylvain Deleu. post-Pop figuration. In contrast, Derek Jarman’s The Kingdom over the Sea (1987), strikes a darker note. One of his celebrated Black Paintings, it was created shortly after he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986 and acts as an au- tobiographical visualisation of his psychological mindset at that time. Embedded into tar are various found objects such as a candle and smashed glass in which words have been violently scratched, acting as a metaphor for Jarman’s reaction to his diagnosis. The late Luciana Martinez de la Rosa’s epic painting Pru Pru (1981) offers a homage to Manet’s Olympia. However, here the reclining nude female figure is accompanied not by a servant but the artist herself attired in a kimono-like garment, a nod to the influence of Japanese prints in the original work. One of the so-called ‘Blitz Kids’, the band of fashionable club-goers that dominated the cultural dialogue in the early eighties, this work embodies that spirit of assimilation and artful contriv- Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Pru Pru, 1981. Photo by Maria Anastassiou. ance. Also influenced by 16th-century Florentine court portraitist Bronz- ino, de la Rosa´s canvases are anything but diffident; her vivid palettes include magenta, tangerine and sheets of gold leaf; boldly modelled, her women are powerful, confident and mostly nude. Andrew Logan is represented by his iconic Pegasus sculptures, Life Birth and Death (c.1980s). Constructed from fibreglass, glass, resin and glitter, they link back to the artist’s childhood obsession with Greek and Roman myth; his imagination was fired by the tale of the winged white horse that sprang from the severed neck of the Gorgon, slain by hero Perseus. His very first Pegasus in 1980 was built in six weeks and pre- sented at the London premiere of the Alternative Miss World film, then paraded through Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Fulham. At least one new Pegasus has been created in each decade since. In white, red and black, these three Pegasus symbolise three different aspects of exis- tence – life, birth and death – which is interchangeable according to the viewer’s perspective. Says James Birch: ‘It is more than forty years since Peter York wrote about Them. It was a time — perhaps the last time — before culture be- came commodified. And while its time in the spotlight was fleeting, it has endured and the art created by the featured artists remains as fresh and Derek Jarman, Black Painting. exciting, almost timeless, and is still invested with the power to provoke and disorientate, amaze and excite.’ The Redfern Gallery 20 Cork Street London, W1S 3HL www.redfern-gallery.com The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue which includes essays by the playwright Polly Stenham and the cultural historian Barry Miles, as well as interview by art historian Adrian Dannatt with Peter York. For press information, please contact Albany Arts Communications: Mark Inglefield Carla von der Becke [email protected] [email protected] t: +44 (0) 20 78 79 88 95; m: +44 (0) 75 84 19 95 00 t: +44 (0) 20 78 79 88 95; m: +44 (0) 79 74 25 29 94 Notes to Editors: About the Artists: Duggie Fields Duggie Fields (b. 1945, Tidworth, UK) lives and works in London, UK. He graduated in 1968 from Chelsea School of Art, London and at the end of that year moved into the Earls Court apartment and studio that he lives in today. As a student his work moved from Minimal, Conceptual and Constructivist phases before ar- riving at a more hard-edge post-Pop figuration. By the middle of the 1970s his work included many elements that were later defined as Post-Modernism. In 1983, the Shiseido Corporation in Tokyo created a gallery specifically for his show, and Fields and his work were featured in a simultaneous national television, mag- azine, billboard and subway advertising campaign. He started working with digital media in the late 1990s describing his work in progress as Maximalist. Selected solo exhibitions include: Duggie Fields – Welcome to my World, The Gallery Liverpool, Liverpool (2012); Random Retrospective, Virtual Gallery, DuggieFields.com (2000); Shiseido Exhibition, Tokyo (1983); Spacex Gallery, Exeter (1982); and lkon Gallery, Birmingham (1980). Selected group exhibitions and film festivals include: Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains, V&A Museum, London (2017); THE GAP BETWEEN THE FRIDGE AND THE COOKER, The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, Glasgow (2017); Flare Film Festival, British Film Institute, London (2016); Dover Street Market, London (2008); Zulurama 2, ICA Gallery, London (2004); Britart, Selfridges, London (2003); Digital Interface, Leicester Square, London (2002); Rapture, The Barbican, London (2002); Venice Short Film Festival (2000); Fashion and Surrealism, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1989); The Embellishment of the Statue of Liberty, Cooper Hewitt Museum/Barney’s New York (1986); and London International Film Festival (1982). Derek Jarman Derek Jarman (1942 —1994) was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener, political activist and author. He was educated at the University of London and at the Slade School of Art. In 1967 Jar- man exhibited in Young Contemporaries, Tate Gallery, London; Edinburgh Open 100, Lisson Gallery, London and Fifth Biennale des Jeunes Artistes, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris. Jarman’s first work in cinema was as a set designer on Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), selected set designs include Savage Messiah (1972) and The Rake’s Progress (1982) with numerous designs for stage and ballet. Jarman’s first films were experimental Super 8mm shorts and his first full-length feature filmSebastiane was released in 1976, followed by selected filmsJubilee (1978), Angelic Conversation (1985), Caravaggio (1986), The Garden (1990) and Edward II (1991). Selected solo exhibitions include: Sarah Bradley’s Gallery, London (1978); Edward Totah Gallery, London (1982); ICA, London (1984); Richard Salmon Ltd., London (1987) and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester The Redfern Gallery 20 Cork Street London, W1S 3HL www.redfern-gallery.com (1994). Jarman also wrote several books, including the autobiographical Dancing Ledge (1984) and two volumes of memoirs, Modern Nature (1992) and At Your Own Risk (1992). Derek Jarman’s Garden, which documents the creation of his extraordinary garden at Dungeness was published in 1995. Andrew Logan Andrew Logan (b. 1945, Witney, UK) is an English sculptor, performance artist, jewellery-maker, and portrait- ist. He was educated as an architect at the Oxford School of Architecture, graduating in 1970. One of Britain’s principal sculptural artists, he challenges convention, mixes media and plays with our artistic values and has worked across the fields of sculpture, stage design, drama, opera, parades, festivals and interior design.