So, to continue part two of “an impromptu day out”…
After we had finished our visit to The People’s History Museum, we decided to take a trip (a long and tiring walk of a trip) to HOME’s exhibition of “La Movida”, curated by Sarah Perks. The exhibition was exploring works inspired by the Spanish counterculture of the 80’s, in which explores the transgression of taboos, moral conventions, and the formerly suppressed topics of sexuality and politics, through the freedom of creative expression.
Artists featured in the exhibition included:
Oreet Ashery, Shumon Basar, Marissa Burgess, Luis López Carrasco, Mercedes Cebrián, Chantal Faust, La JohnJoseph, Jonathan Kemp, Anne Louise Kershaw, Omar Kholeif, Patricia MacCormack, Adam O’Riordan, Sarah Perks, Heather Phillipson, Natasha Stallard, Esther Teichmann, Greg Thorpe, Jason Wood & James King.
I found the topic of questioning societies understanding of sexuality fitting to the themes of LGBT+ of the earlier trip to People’s History Museum. Sexuality, still being a widely explored topic in the world of art, with a constantly changing and developing of western disposition, as shown through all forms of LGBT+ rights, like the legalisation of gay marriage, and even just the development of an era that can more openly and freely talk of sexuality (in all forms of tastes and preferences) and freely explore this; the art world has particularly been, I believe, the catalytic epicentre of this throughout history, “La Movida” being a perfect example of this, art that refuses to be contained, un-apologetically so.
I have visited HOME, on one occasion before this visit, a college trip to see the play “Pomona”, and I knew from that one visit that I had a fondness of the place and I would recommend that anyone visiting Manchester should definitely take the time to explore this venue, especially as it is a great place to find contemporary theatre.
Along with the works of art, I also had the pleasure of meeting Shrek! (life long dream fulfilled) and to prove, I even have this (rather unflattering) picture. I must say, he was a lot quieter in real life (he didn’t speak at all), and I never thought of him as the art appreciative type. The work, by anonymous artist/collaborative “Puppies Puppies”, is from the meme series of “shrek is love shrek is life”, (if you don’t know what that is do not search it, unless you wish to be scarred for life) and expresses both the extremes of suppressed sexuality in the form of fictional characters, and an undertone of child abuse; The expression of the dark side of pop culture, portraying how a sexual predator may play the character of “child friendly”, as shown by the character of Shrek, to exploit a child’s ignorance and naivety, in a tediously distressing style. “Puppies Puppies” work also expresses the borderline between meme culture as an artistic concept itself… something I’ve often thought of (it sounds stupid but it does kinda make sense, right?) most art is a reaction to the social situations at that time, counterculture, I see memes as inhabiting this, as they are suppose to be the extremes of “meaningless”, satirical content, which you could argue is a form of art, in the sense that it isn’t suppose to be art in the slightest… I like to imagine that in 20 years time, they will be teaching the history of memes as some cultural movement, it seems the only thing particularly “radical” in the sense of contemporary art, anyway.
Enough of memes (got to try and keep this blog somewhat dignifying).
Art has often had a sense of encouragement of the expression of the hedonistic aspects of a given society, whether this be through the decadence of late Victorian era, surrealism, or “La Movida” (to name a few). The exhibitions explicit work evoked a discussion between my Granddad, a member of staff and I, as to whether art can really have the “shock factor” when shock has become a predictable aspect to art, this being quite an antithetical, paradox within the concept… How can something be both predictable and shocking? As it is becoming increasingly harder to evoke such response with the growth of media insensitivity. An example I used was with a comparison to the horror genre, particularly the likes of “Nosferatu”, a 1920’s audience would have found the film terrifying, yet, as horror has had to progressively intensify in order to evoke the same response, “Nosferatu” no longer has the same scare element to a contemporary audience as it would have done for its original audience (though it can still be appreciated as a great film nonetheless), this is a similar evolution in art, as my Granddad expressed it, “when you expect art to be shocking, it’s not really shocking anymore”, which I empathised, with a slight sense of underwhelming, when researching the gruelling concepts behind some of the works, I recognise that the expected reaction to such ideas wasn’t the reaction evoked, I felt somewhat indifferent to the “shocking” phallic imagery. Maybe naked bodies are no longer “shocking” in our liberated society? or it has become predictable? (but, a more detailed exploration of this is for another day, and another post).
I liked the expressionistic use of application and texture in this piece, and the more I look at it, the more imagery I seem to pick out than just a face. In the dark blue shape of the nose and eyes, I see the shape of an angel, with the brown beard and yellow mouth appearing as an allusion to the imagery of Gabriel above the stable, but the yellow becomes flames, with the religious imagery being reinforced by the distorted yellow cross on the forehead. To me, I see this piece as an expression of someones religious identity, the flames on the stable showing the disintegration of this, this can be further interpreted with the expressionist style, that the persons faith has become unclear. (this may not be the original concept at all, but this is how I interpret it, which is the great thing about art, I suppose, that everyone’s experience of a piece of work is entirely different.)
Incase you needed a slight existential crisis during your visit, “time isn’t real” by Paul Heyer, is a seemingly simple piece, but, the simplicity is the exact key to it. The piece creates a satire of modern art, questioning the conventions of art itself, as many, who don’t like modern art, seem to see it as unskilled and pretentious, as the works can be seen as less focused on artistic skill and instead a skill of analytical debate, in comparison to, say, the intricate style of renaissance art; “time isn’t real” seems like a light-hearted recognition of this opinion of art. It is almost mocking the complexities of allegorical art, where some may read a complete meaning in every use of colour, shape and texture, the antithesis of those who, just think it “looks nice”, and the question asked about every piece of art “what does it mean?”; a complete opposition to “aestheticism”. Heyer makes it garishly obvious, with the bold handwriting, (which, being handwriting instead of print, creates a sense of authenticity, maybe a further satire?) making it impossible to not understand it’s meaning. Evoking, for myself at least, both a chuckle and a recognition of the endless debates about the concept of time that I have had, all reduced into this three words on a silver canvas. When seeing the piece I could picture the perfect scenario for a comedy sketch, the artist thinking of radical expressions and writing until it reached it’s logically ridiculous conclusion. Ultimately, the simplicity of the work became rather clever and amusing.
This image of photographs by Bruce LaBruce, highlights the exploration of sex-politics, in a religiously satirical notion, the use of both religious and sexual imagery creates a clear juxtaposition, using images of chastity and purity, through the Nun imagery and use of the colour white, that explores the anti-hedonistic suppression within the history of religion, and the growing liberation of sexual desires.
And with that, is the end of the two part “An impromptu day out” post, my next post will be the promised (and long awaited) interview with artist John Casey!
~ AmyLavernia
references:
https://homemcr.org/exhibition/la-movida/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Movida_Madrile%C3%B1a
http://nightgallery.ca/artist.php?id=4
AmyLavernia 
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