Crapola Central
25th September - 10th October 2008.
Red Wire Basement
Featuring:
Michael Aitken, Amy Goring, Katie Halsall, Debbie Ryan, Vanessa
Bartlett, Chris Mills, Linda Pittwood, Karen O'Brien, Joe McNulty,
Joshua Tennant, Oliver Lomax, Amanda Ferguson & Ellie Overs
(above: Michael Aitken's drawing construction, Oliver Lomax paintings with poems, Joshua Tennant's documentation of the artist Simon Alabaster)
Crapola
is Phillip Roth and Phillip Guston's view of the American junkier side-
one that starts with Burger vans and ends with trash heaps. For Guston
and Roth the prime example of crapola was Richard Nixon- this led to
Guston's repeated characterizations of Nixon, often appearing with cock
and balls for a face.
In the "crapola" or this degraded and overlooked
area of popular culture, both figures located aesthetic possibilities,
imagery, they thought, could liberate their work from the stranglehold
of the prevailing canons in literature and art.
(above: Joe McNulty drawings of guns, Amanda Ferguson 'Many Spaces' & Chris Mills latest painting 'Night Over Clearwater')
Red
Wire has responded to Roth and Guston's vision of Crapola- in our very
own building we had a junkier, seedier, grimier side of what we
ourselves had already created- this side lay in our much underused
basement. Red Wires ethics and beliefs have played a central role in
its development, our D.I.Y attitude extends from our group through to
our work, which often has a visible rawness- and now into our new
space. Obvious initial reactions to spaces that are occupied by
graffiti, dirt, awful smells and thousands of flies would be to white
wall the space and install your exhibition as normal- here we have
tried to work with what we've got.
(above) Amy Goring's Time-travelling machine (below) Linda Pittwood's paintings, Ellie Overs's self-cast awith apples & Karen O'Brien's 'Sand in the Gorgonzola'
