TIM NOBLE AND SUE WEBSTER – STICKS WITH DICKS AND SLITS

Posted on 2017-02-13

Based on handmade maquettes made with electrical wire, the sculptures are an act of upscaling playful ephemera into physically domineering artworks with a permanency and scale that transcends human limitations.

The artists are well known for reacting to circumstance. They find inspiration by walking city streets and making sculpture from materials closest to hand in an urban environment. In the past this has included inner city detritus, discarded personal objects and animal carcasses. However, the initial maquettes for this new body of work were created during a residency on the Caribbean island of St Bart’s. This idyllic environment was initially challenging for these urbanites who found themselves stripped of their usual impetus. Struggling with this creative impasse, they began doodling with electrical wire, quickly and intuitively producing two intimate self-portraits.

Part of a great tradition of artists-as-art, their personal image and the dynamic between them is an integral part of their work. As with previous self-portraits, these new paired sculptures express the artistic personae of the duo. One pair features nudes of Tim urinating and Sue lactating — engaging in basic bodily functions is a recurring motif for the artists. As much as they have used refuse in their sculptures, the artists employ their own naked forms as a way to make art with a rawness and truth, using their warts-and-all inseparable dual image as a tool to critique narcissistic obsession.

Opposite – A Lovely Pair (Standing), 2017

Exhibition runs through to March 25th, 2017

Blain|Southern
4 Hanover Square
London
W1S 1BP

www.blainsouthern.com

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ADRIAN PACI / GIULIANA RACCO – ANOTHER PLACE

Posted on 2017-02-13

Uniting the two artist’s practices are personal histories of resettlement, as well as a mutual concern for ideas surrounding mobility, borders and ambiguous identities. The title Another Place is taken from a film by Racco, whose own research focuses on migration and other forms of individual and collective movement across territories. Throughout this exhibition are reflections on displacement as both a physical and emotional state of being, where history is not fixed and lines can be drawn across geography and memory.

Another Place begins with a series of watercolour drawings by Adrian Paci, which originate from a variety of moving-image sources such as Youtube clips and publically accessible videos. Some works depict unknown groups of bathers and swimmers, as well as stills from films by artist Derek Jarman. The soft-focus, ambivalent qualities of these drawings suggest that these images are not objective records of daily life: in fact, the seemingly uncanny bathers are derived from footage of immigrants arriving onto the Italian coast and waiting for days near the sea before being sent away. Other watercolours originate from clips of recorded training sessions from the Albanian army, where exercising soldiers with opened arms simultaneously call to mind acts of surrender or by contrast joyous celebration. By extracting and pausing what was meant to be a clear image of victory and strength, the drawings become records of more ambiguous and mysterious moments, and thus take on new meanings and identities.

Opposite – The Procession, 2016

Exhibition runs through to April 13th, 2017

Frith Street Gallery
17-18 Golden Square
London
W1F 9JJ

www.frithstreetgallery.com

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