View allAll Photos Tagged provocation
I'd think twice before using such a scandalous fuchsia in a painting. Really happy that autumn is less inhibited 🎨
by Tech. Sgt. Benjamin Rojek
Defense Media Activity
5/4/2012 - FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. -- Walking almost 90 miles, 36 Airmen completed the Air Advisor Memorial Ruck March from New York City to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., April 26-27.
The march, which started at One World Trade Center and ended at the Air Advisor Academy, was in remembrance of the deaths of nine U.S. air advisors in Afghanistan.
On the morning of April 27, 2011, an Afghan Air Force lieutenant colonel walked into the Afghan Air Command and Control Center at the Kabul Air Command Headquarters and, without warning or provocation, opened fire, killing eight active-duty U.S. Airmen and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. Those nine service members came from various bases and specialties, but were working together for a common mission: advising the Afghan military.
"It was a unique situation," said Lt. Col. J.D. Scott II, the march coordinator and chief of core knowledge at the Air Advisor Academy. "It didn't happen for a particular base. It didn't happen for a particular squadron or base or even for a particular (Air Force Specialty Code).
"Because of that, remembering their sacrifice may not have been captured as a whole," Scott continued. "The individual would have been honored at their base, but the mission of the entire of the team would not have been recognized."
Since all of the nine went through the Air Advisor Academy, Col. John Holm, the academy's commandant, decided that would be the place to honor their sacrifice as a team, Scott said. Holm made plans to create a physical memorial, but a plethora of obstacles made it impossible to complete the memorial by the one year anniversary of the tragic event. One of the obstacles was funding.
Holm and his team came up with idea of a ruck march to both honor the fallen air advisors and act as a fundraiser to help build the physical memorial. Scott was put in charge of organizing the march and, in just two weeks, succeeded in gathering people from Dover AFB, Del., to Eielson AFB, Alaska, for the march. Each marcher knew at least one of the nine fallen air advisors in some way.
"Master Sgt. Tara Brown and Maj. Phil Ambard both lived three and four doors down from me in the dorms," said Tech. Sgt. Brian Christiansen, a photographer with the 145th Airlift Wing in Charlotte, N.C., who was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan at the same time as the air advisors. "Both were incredibly friendly people. And I met several of them (the morning of the shooting) as I walked into my building and opened the door and they walked out."
Those personal connections to the fallen service members and their families drew the 36 marchers together, Scott said.
"They were coming in from all over," he said. "That's kind of representative of the nine that we lost. They came from all over the Air Force to serve a single mission as an air advisor. So the marchers that were honoring them came from all over the Air Force to remember them."
Each paid their own way to New York City to honor their fallen friends and show their families that they haven't forgotten their loved one's sacrifice. The event also drew in another 14 volunteers to help with everything from transportation to food to health and care coverage.
The marchers were broken up into four teams, each set to march three legs of 7.3 miles. During their leg, each marcher carried a ruck sack with a paver stone inside, each stone engraved with the name of a fallen air advisor and to be laid at the memorial on JB MDL.
Holm and his nine-person team kicked off the march at 9:11 a.m. April 26. However, rather than just start off near ground zero, the colonel wanted to do something more for his fallen comrades.
"We wanted to honor them by doing something significant, and to me starting at the top of the World Trade Center was it," Holm said. "We had those ruck sacks on the entire tour. It was all symbolic and important to us in our own personal, different ways. For me, it was probably the biggest single gesture we could do short of opening up (the academy's) memorial ourselves."
The significance of the march touched a lot of people along the way, starting with the One World Trade Center steel workers, who gave the Airmen a standing ovation as they marched through the structure. Other people along their route also showed their appreciation by stopping to give hugs, encouragement, thanks and even money toward the memorial.
As they traveled by foot from New York to New Jersey, state and local police departments provided escort, each district calling the next to inform them of what the Airmen were doing, Holm said. The marchers were even given a chance to rest and eat at the fire departments in both Elizabeth, N.J., and Jersey City, N.J. It was a sign of support of both the Airmen marching and the fallen air advisors, he said.
When the fourth team finished their last leg, the marchers were 1.1 miles from the construction site of the Air Advisor Memorial on JB MDL. All 36 marchers gathered together in formation and made their way through the base gate. What met them there was surprise to all.
"Security forces closed down the road and gave us police escort in," Scott said. "There were numerous amounts of people from the front gate to the memorial lining the street on both sides, just cheering us on in.
"The fact that the base community just embraces us and cheered us in on those final steps, it's very inspiring," he added.
It was an emotional moment for Christiansen as well. He was present at the base when the air advisors were killed and attended their dignified transfer ceremony. However, each person was laid to rest in different locations around the U.S., so he never got to have closure.
Christiansen said the real impact came when he saw the road signs leading to the installation. "That's when it really started to hit in not that we're all going to do this, but this is for real. We've done this for the families, we've done this for our fallen brothers and sister. It was pretty easy to get caught up in the emotion there.
"The ceremony of laying the bricks down was really powerful," he added. "It brought some serious closure."
For Chaplain Maj. Eric Boyer, who said the opening prayer for the stone laying ceremony, it was a bittersweet chance to pay tribute to two of the officers that he had a connection to.
"It makes me proud to know that their sacrifice will be honored and will be remembered," he said. "Every Air Advisor who comes through the academy here is going to recognize the price that has been paid by their predecessors."
Prior to entering military service, Boyer knew Lt. Col. Frank Bryant from their hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., where he served as Bryant's wrestling coach.
Boyer also served as squadron chaplain for Maj. Jeffery Ausborn while at Joint Base San Antonio in 2011, but had already changed duty station's to JB MDL when he got the word about Ausborn's death. His biggest regret was not being able to preside over his funeral service.
"It meant a lot to me to be able to say something to honor his memory here, since I wasn't able to speak at his memorial ceremony back at his home station," he said.
While the ruck march and stone-laying ceremony brought some closure for Christiansen and others, the construction of the memorial itself is still ongoing. However, between the pledges for the marchers, donations received during the march as well as T-shirt and brick sales, Holm estimated that the team has raised almost $10,000 toward the memorial just through this one event.
"We have that feeling that we did the right thing just by honoring our comrades, regardless of what money we raised," Holm said. "That was a tremendous feeling."
The Air Advisor Memorial is scheduled to be unveiled July 27. For more information on the memorial, visit www.airadvisormemorial.org
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
My long-trusted beautician suddenly, without provocation, put in ALL blond highlights in my hair today, and she did not tell me until after the deed was done!
Either she lost her memory...... or her mind.... because her three year old was underfoot tearing down the beauty shop piece by piece....or she was out of auburn/red highlights, and she figured she could bluff and con me into the Striped Skunk look!
Read more here
"In response to the growing anti-institution sentiment pervasive in our culture, the 'Museum of Sex' has engaged a group of 20 select street artists to occupy their third floor gallery for the opening of F*CK ART. Showcasing work that pushes the boundaries of our relationship to sexuality in public space, F*CK ART invites a dialogue around the power of visual provocation in the urban environment."
This installation is a combination of existing pieces and site-specific works created for the run of the show.
F*CK ART is curated by Emilie Baltz & Mark Snyder
Show will run from February 8th to June 10, 2012 -- New York City
Exhibit of the Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio. Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas.
Jenkin van Zyl
Preserved cakes, fridges, seatbelts, PVC plumbing, balls, cake mix, jerry cans, mirrored perspex, torch, red LED lighting
Taken in the exhibition
Monster
Opening The Horror Show!, Monster begins by delving into the economic and political turbulence of the 70s and the high octane spectacle and social division of the 80s. Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, it charts the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.
Punk prophet Jamie Reid opens the show by conjuring his Monster on a Nice Roof (1972), painting a prescient picture of the dark skies gathering over Britain. Chila Burman’s If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising (1981) and Helen Chadwick’s Allegory of Misrule (1986) refigure social discontent and anxiety in the image of horror, as the socio-political and monstrous collide. In a jarring dislocation of British cultural identity, Guy Peellaert’s David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974) and the otherworldly creatures captured by Derek Ridgers’ nightlife photography point to the emergence of the cultural provocation and rebellion that defined an era. Monster revels in a resoundingly British spirit of nonconformity, with a spectacular display of Pam Hogg’s new Exterminating Angel (2021) and works by Somerset House Studios artist and designer Gareth Pugh and the late visionary Leigh Bowery. Elsewhere, Noel Fielding’s Post-Viral Fatigue (2022) shows how the imagery of horror resonates still in our Covid-ravaged contemporary reality. As the nightmarish and otherworldly fills the gallery, a newly commissioned mural by Matilda Moors sees the walls dramatically clawed at by a monstrous hand.
Contributing artists include Marc Almond, Bauhaus, Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Philip Castle, Chila Burman, Helen Chadwick, Monster Chetwynd, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tim Etchells, Noel Fielding, Mark Moore & Martin Green, Pam Hogg, Dick Jewell, Harminder Judge, Daniel Landin, Jeannette Lee, Andrew Liles, Linder, London Leatherman, Don Letts, Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Lindsey Mendick, Peter Mitchell, Dennis Morris, Matilda Moors, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Guy Peellaert, Gareth Pugh, Jamie Reid, Derek Ridgers, Nick Ryan, Steven Stapleton, Ralph Steadman, Ray Stevenson, Poly Styrene, Francis Upritchard and Jenkin van Zyl.
[Somerset House]
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain
(October 2022 - February 2023)
Somerset House presents The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, a major exhibition exploring how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. The show looks beyond horror as a genre, instead taking it as a reaction and provocation to our most troubling times. The last five decades of modern British history are recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting told through some of our country’s most provocative artists. The Horror Show! offers a heady ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can make sense of the world around us. Horror not only allows us to voice our fears; it gives us the tools to stare them down and imagine a radically different future.
Featuring over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects, this landmark show tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Each act interprets a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype, in a series of thematically linked contemporaneous and new works:
Each of the exhibition’s acts opens with ‘constellations’ of talismanic objects. These cabinets of curiosities speak to significant cultural shifts and anxieties in each era, while invoking a haunting from the counter-cultural voices in recent British history. Alongside these introductory artworks and ephemera is an atmospheric soundtrack, conjuring the spirit of the time with music from Bauhaus, Barry Adamson and Mica Levi.
Monster, Ghost and Witch culminate in immersive installations, combining newly commissioned work, large-scale sculpture, fashion and sound installation, with each chapter signed off with a neon text-work by Tim Etchells. The Horror Show! offers an intoxicating deep-dive into the counter-cultural, mystic and uncanny, with the signature design of the three acts courtesy of architects Sam Jacob Studio and Grammy-winning creative studio Barnbrook.
[Somerset House]
View of "Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio" at the Cooper-Hewitt (June 24, 2015 - January 3, 2016).
Taken in the exhibition
Monster
Opening The Horror Show!, Monster begins by delving into the economic and political turbulence of the 70s and the high octane spectacle and social division of the 80s. Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, it charts the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.
Punk prophet Jamie Reid opens the show by conjuring his Monster on a Nice Roof (1972), painting a prescient picture of the dark skies gathering over Britain. Chila Burman’s If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising (1981) and Helen Chadwick’s Allegory of Misrule (1986) refigure social discontent and anxiety in the image of horror, as the socio-political and monstrous collide. In a jarring dislocation of British cultural identity, Guy Peellaert’s David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974) and the otherworldly creatures captured by Derek Ridgers’ nightlife photography point to the emergence of the cultural provocation and rebellion that defined an era. Monster revels in a resoundingly British spirit of nonconformity, with a spectacular display of Pam Hogg’s new Exterminating Angel (2021) and works by Somerset House Studios artist and designer Gareth Pugh and the late visionary Leigh Bowery. Elsewhere, Noel Fielding’s Post-Viral Fatigue (2022) shows how the imagery of horror resonates still in our Covid-ravaged contemporary reality. As the nightmarish and otherworldly fills the gallery, a newly commissioned mural by Matilda Moors sees the walls dramatically clawed at by a monstrous hand.
Contributing artists include Marc Almond, Bauhaus, Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Philip Castle, Chila Burman, Helen Chadwick, Monster Chetwynd, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tim Etchells, Noel Fielding, Mark Moore & Martin Green, Pam Hogg, Dick Jewell, Harminder Judge, Daniel Landin, Jeannette Lee, Andrew Liles, Linder, London Leatherman, Don Letts, Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Lindsey Mendick, Peter Mitchell, Dennis Morris, Matilda Moors, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Guy Peellaert, Gareth Pugh, Jamie Reid, Derek Ridgers, Nick Ryan, Steven Stapleton, Ralph Steadman, Ray Stevenson, Poly Styrene, Francis Upritchard and Jenkin van Zyl.
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain
(October 2022 - February 2023)
Somerset House presents The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, a major exhibition exploring how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. The show looks beyond horror as a genre, instead taking it as a reaction and provocation to our most troubling times. The last five decades of modern British history are recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting told through some of our country’s most provocative artists. The Horror Show! offers a heady ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can make sense of the world around us. Horror not only allows us to voice our fears; it gives us the tools to stare them down and imagine a radically different future.
Featuring over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects, this landmark show tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Each act interprets a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype, in a series of thematically linked contemporaneous and new works:
Each of the exhibition’s acts opens with ‘constellations’ of talismanic objects. These cabinets of curiosities speak to significant cultural shifts and anxieties in each era, while invoking a haunting from the counter-cultural voices in recent British history. Alongside these introductory artworks and ephemera is an atmospheric soundtrack, conjuring the spirit of the time with music from Bauhaus, Barry Adamson and Mica Levi.
Monster, Ghost and Witch culminate in immersive installations, combining newly commissioned work, large-scale sculpture, fashion and sound installation, with each chapter signed off with a neon text-work by Tim Etchells. The Horror Show! offers an intoxicating deep-dive into the counter-cultural, mystic and uncanny, with the signature design of the three acts courtesy of architects Sam Jacob Studio and Grammy-winning creative studio Barnbrook.
[Somerset House]
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
Try to avoid visiting a urinoir (pissoir). These malodorous, open-air, male only "comfort stations" are a standing provocation to feminists.
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
"In response to the growing anti-institution sentiment pervasive in our culture, the 'Museum of Sex' has engaged a group of 20 select street artists to occupy their third floor gallery for the opening of F*CK ART. Showcasing work that pushes the boundaries of our relationship to sexuality in public space, F*CK ART invites a dialogue around the power of visual provocation in the urban environment."
This installation is a combination of existing pieces and site-specific works created for the run of the show.
F*CK ART is curated by Emilie Baltz & Mark Snyder
Show will run from February 8th to June 10, 2012 -- New York City
At one side of the Place Saint Bavon in the center of Ghent, Belgium, rises the impressive carillon tower with its fifty-two singing bells. On the largest bell, which is taller than a tall man, is a Flemish inscription that reads:
"My name is Roland. When I toll there is fire.
When I ring there is victory in the land."
This great bell might vie with the horn carried by that other Roland, the knightly champion of Charlemagne--a horn that was heard twenty miles. On top of the belfry, is a weather vane, of dragon shape, that presides over all the winds, hot or cold, and rejoices when Roland rings.
A long, long, time ago, before the dragon began to live on the tower, he lived near Aleppo, one of the chief cities of the Saracens in northern Syria. He was such a tender-hearted old dragon that he was called The Weeping Dragon, because he wept large bucketfuls of tears whenever the Belgian crusaders and the Saracens fell to fighting. Now, as the Saracens and Belgians fought at the slightest provocation, the tears of the sympathetic dragon flowed with such abundance into the ground that the soil became unusually fertile, and there soon grew up, from this rich soil, a rare flower. The Belgian crusaders, delighted with the bright-colored flower, called it The Turk's Turban, though it is a pity they didn't know The Weeping Dragon well enough to name it for him. Buccoleon was the dragon's name. When the last Saracen war was over,
One of the crusaders, Taff, a lover of flowers, brought back the seeds of The Turk's Turban to Flanders and planted them in his own garden. Beautiful tulips rewarded him, tulips of brilliant color, that brought him high praise and much money, too. The fame of these tulips spread far, until it reached even Buccoleon himself, who, now that the wars had ceased, had been living in his quiet marshes in the outskirts of Aleppo. A soothsayer, ages past, had predicted that, if the Saracens and Belgians should ever stop fighting, the tears of The Weeping Dragon would dry up and his brown scales would turn to scales of pure gold. So it proved. For, when all the wars had come to an end, the dragon no longer felt like weeping, and his sombre, brown scales were gradually replaced by gleaming scales of gold.
Now, one afternoon, as Buccoleon lay luxuriously in the sunny marsh, he had a thought, as new and glittering as his scales--he would fly to Flanders to see the tulips which rumor said he himself had given to the earth. Since he had only a
vague notion of the whereabouts of Flanders and Ghent, he decided to ask advice of a marsh bird hovering near him.
"Tell me," said Buccoleon, "you birds fly everywhere and hear everything--how shall I go to the garden of Taff?"
"Easily told," whistled the bird. "My brother was there last month. Fly northward, and then northwest, until you see the Bosporus, the Golden Horn and the Marmora. After you arrive at stately Constantinople, ask the clouds that
float at daybreak over the citadel and they will tell you more."
"Thanks," said the dragon, "I'll start at once."
So he wriggled from jaw to tip of tail, complacently glanced along his own shining ridges, reared up with a convulsive tremor that woke all Aleppo babies from their naps, and, with a great bound, shot into the air. Aleppo had never experienced such a surprise. The men of Aleppo, dazed, looked first at the dragon soaring aloft and then at one another and exclaimed, "What! . . . the dragon? . . . the dragon going away?" The boys of Aleppo all pointed up to the sky and cried out, "The dragon! The dragon! . . . Let's follow him! . . . Come on! Let's follow Buccoleon!" And they ran down the road. The women stood in their doorways wringing their hands and said, "The dragon gone! . . . What shall we do without our dragon? . . . We've always had our dragon."
But presently all realized that to try to keep the dragon was useless. For dragons--at least good dragons like Buccoleon always get what they want, and Buccoleon wanted to go away. So all the people--men, women, and children--stood watching the great dragon soar off toward the northwest until he was only a speck in the blue distance and, finally, not even a speck. Then they went back to their daily tasks in Aleppo, and found, rather to their astonishment, that life was much the same, even without the dragon. Meanwhile, Buccoleon was well started on his adventure. Far from Aleppo he flew and flew until, one early dawn, he reached a large city.
"Is this Constantinople?" inquired Buccoleon of a pink cloud.
"It is," the cloud replied.
"Tell me, please," went on Buccoleon, "how shall I go to the garden of Taff? Clouds, like you, see every place under the sky."
"Yes, we do," agreed the cloud. "I can tell you how to go. Aim northwest to Vienna, then ask the Danube River to tell you the way."
Swiftly the dragon flew and flew, until he came to the broad Danube at Vienna, and good it seemed to Buccoleon to rest beside water again.
"Tell me, River," he said, "how shall I go to the garden of Taff? A river like you wanders far and must know all that's worth knowing."
"That is true," murmured the Danube clearly. "I can tell you the best way to go to Ghent. Steer a little to the west of north and fly onward till you see the towers and turrets of Nuremburg castle. Then ask the wind to show you the rest of your course."
The dragon left the Danube, somewhat reluctantly, and whiffled along all night under the stars toward old Nuremburg. In the morning, he poised himself over the castle turrets where a strong wind was blowing.
"Wind," shouted Buccoleon, "how shall I go to the garden of Taff? Winds blow everywhere and see everything."
"Come along with me," called back the wind; "I'm going there myself, as it happens, this very morning."
Now, as the dragon and the wind journeyed together, the dragon said, "Have you ever chanced to see the garden of Taff?"
"Many times," answered the wind. "How does it look?" asked Buccoleon.
"Like a sunset spread over the ground," said the wind.
"Are the tulips of one color?" inquired Buccoleon.
"Of as many colors as the rainbow," replied the wind; "some are like palest moonlight, others are like deep tree-shadows; and when I let one of my breezes stir them, gently, the flowers are like dancing flames."
"Ah," said Buccoleon, "that's what I want to see."
Not long after this talk, the wind pointed downward. "Look!" he said, "do you see a gleam of color over there?"
"I do," answered Buccoleon with a jubilant ring in his voice. "It is fairer than anything I have ever seen." But, just as he spoke, an arrow smote him, and he fell headlong to the earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The dragon's fall looked like the fall of a glorious golden star. People, for miles around, rushed toward the bell tower. The first to reach the tower was a tall, resolute man, liked by everybody.
"Now who sent that wicked arrow?" he cried.
A boy in the crowd made answer. "Archers went up into the high watchtowers yonder, this morning."
"Archers?" exclaimed the man. "Who sent them there?"
Then Taff, the florist, and his friend Nyken, the potter, made their way through the throng until they were beside the tall man. "Mynheer," said Taff, "the goldsmiths have been envious of me because my tulips have done so well and have brought fortune my way. Perchance they sought to kill the dragon for his golden scales, to make themselves richer."
And the potter, Nyken, nodded his head, saying, "Aye, they said as much to the baker yesterday."
Other friends of Taff now told the story of The Weeping Dragon of Aleppo whose tears had caused the marvelous tulips to grow. Then, with one accord, it was voted that Buccoleon should receive the utmost honor and should have his place on the pivot of the iron weather vane on top of the belfry. The tall leader suddenly raised his right arm and pointed up to the bell tower, as he shouted, "Victory!--not death for the dragon, but victory! He shall live among us forever!"
All the people took up the word, crying, "Victory!" while the leader, and Taff, and Nyken entered the tower and climbed up the stairs to the bells.
Soon came the voice of Roland ringing a mighty tone of gladness, and proclaiming far and wide the words so well known:
"When I ring, there is victory in the land."
There on the bell tower, today, is the golden dragon--a shining figure--turning, turning with the winds, morning, noon, and night, and looking down at the gardens of tulips in Ghent.
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Documentary Portraits, 1978-94
Derek Ridgers
Hooded Cape Ensemble, 1988
Leigh Bowery
Satin cape, sequined dress
Xterminating Angel, 2021
Pam Hogg
Latex and mesh
Taken in the exhibition
Monster
Opening The Horror Show!, Monster begins by delving into the economic and political turbulence of the 70s and the high octane spectacle and social division of the 80s. Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, it charts the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.
Punk prophet Jamie Reid opens the show by conjuring his Monster on a Nice Roof (1972), painting a prescient picture of the dark skies gathering over Britain. Chila Burman’s If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising (1981) and Helen Chadwick’s Allegory of Misrule (1986) refigure social discontent and anxiety in the image of horror, as the socio-political and monstrous collide. In a jarring dislocation of British cultural identity, Guy Peellaert’s David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974) and the otherworldly creatures captured by Derek Ridgers’ nightlife photography point to the emergence of the cultural provocation and rebellion that defined an era. Monster revels in a resoundingly British spirit of nonconformity, with a spectacular display of Pam Hogg’s new Exterminating Angel (2021) and works by Somerset House Studios artist and designer Gareth Pugh and the late visionary Leigh Bowery. Elsewhere, Noel Fielding’s Post-Viral Fatigue (2022) shows how the imagery of horror resonates still in our Covid-ravaged contemporary reality. As the nightmarish and otherworldly fills the gallery, a newly commissioned mural by Matilda Moors sees the walls dramatically clawed at by a monstrous hand.
Contributing artists include Marc Almond, Bauhaus, Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Philip Castle, Chila Burman, Helen Chadwick, Monster Chetwynd, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tim Etchells, Noel Fielding, Mark Moore & Martin Green, Pam Hogg, Dick Jewell, Harminder Judge, Daniel Landin, Jeannette Lee, Andrew Liles, Linder, London Leatherman, Don Letts, Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Lindsey Mendick, Peter Mitchell, Dennis Morris, Matilda Moors, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Guy Peellaert, Gareth Pugh, Jamie Reid, Derek Ridgers, Nick Ryan, Steven Stapleton, Ralph Steadman, Ray Stevenson, Poly Styrene, Francis Upritchard and Jenkin van Zyl.
[Somerset House]
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain
(October 2022 - February 2023)
Somerset House presents The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, a major exhibition exploring how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. The show looks beyond horror as a genre, instead taking it as a reaction and provocation to our most troubling times. The last five decades of modern British history are recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting told through some of our country’s most provocative artists. The Horror Show! offers a heady ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can make sense of the world around us. Horror not only allows us to voice our fears; it gives us the tools to stare them down and imagine a radically different future.
Featuring over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects, this landmark show tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Each act interprets a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype, in a series of thematically linked contemporaneous and new works:
Each of the exhibition’s acts opens with ‘constellations’ of talismanic objects. These cabinets of curiosities speak to significant cultural shifts and anxieties in each era, while invoking a haunting from the counter-cultural voices in recent British history. Alongside these introductory artworks and ephemera is an atmospheric soundtrack, conjuring the spirit of the time with music from Bauhaus, Barry Adamson and Mica Levi.
Monster, Ghost and Witch culminate in immersive installations, combining newly commissioned work, large-scale sculpture, fashion and sound installation, with each chapter signed off with a neon text-work by Tim Etchells. The Horror Show! offers an intoxicating deep-dive into the counter-cultural, mystic and uncanny, with the signature design of the three acts courtesy of architects Sam Jacob Studio and Grammy-winning creative studio Barnbrook.
[Somerset House]
Tevez Poster.. Manchester.
As a City fan I obviously get the joke.. but would I like it the other way round....Absolutely NOT... Althougn my response would have been to laugh and shrug it off without comment.. I was equally surprised by Ferguson's reaction...I must admit I was initially surprised by this kind of marketing, branding from the Club itself...
HoD - Provocation Piercing Set - Super infected 100%
Glam Affair- Leah skin - Ethereal Sadness (Past TDR)
Glam Affair - Liliana top - Red
LeLutka - Trend hair - Arctic
ID - Vampire eyes (Past hunt gift)
Don't know why, but recently Kuma has - seemingly without any provocation - taken to attacking poor old Lulu.
Now most of the time when Lulu gets whacked (be it by an overexcited male, or mischievous young one) then she's left to deal with it on her own. And recently i've seen Kuma give Lulu a couple of whacks without anyone else responding. However, on this occasion, all hell broke loose when Kuma hit Lulu.
My memory (possibly wrong) is that virtually all Lulu's and Shiba's family responded, attacking Kuma ... who was forced to retreat to the moat.
I captured a brief bit of the action (it was all over pretty fast). In my bit of video, i can't see all the participants (like Lubutu) who i'm sure were there. But Lisa (Lulu's daughter) is in the vid (she's the one who ends up in the middle, behind the log). And Lani (Lisa's daughter) is the one who comes down on that log, and exits stage right back along that log at the end of the vid). The one at the front, taking a swing at Kuma, is Kamili. It is only looking at the vid now that i can easily recognise her. I doubt she is there to support Lulu. Rather, i would suspect she's taking an opportunity to lay one on her rival Kuma, or maybe she's scoring brownie points by showing her support for Lulu's family. (Same thing with shiba's family i would think). Shabani, Lubutu's sometimes beta offsider, is there. In the vid when i watched him approach poor Lulu, i thought he might -- in his overexcited state -- add to her woes by hitting her. But he does the sweet hand-offering gesture.
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
View of "Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio" at the Cooper-Hewitt (June 24, 2015 - January 3, 2016).
Serie I love…
The plate is a unique piece of artwork. [Private Collection].
Plato de gres pintado a mano. 21,5cm ø. 2011.
Documentary Portraits, 1978-94
Derek Ridgers
Xterminating Angel, 2021
Pam Hogg
Latex and mesh
Taken in the exhibition
Monster
Opening The Horror Show!, Monster begins by delving into the economic and political turbulence of the 70s and the high octane spectacle and social division of the 80s. Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, it charts the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.
Punk prophet Jamie Reid opens the show by conjuring his Monster on a Nice Roof (1972), painting a prescient picture of the dark skies gathering over Britain. Chila Burman’s If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising (1981) and Helen Chadwick’s Allegory of Misrule (1986) refigure social discontent and anxiety in the image of horror, as the socio-political and monstrous collide. In a jarring dislocation of British cultural identity, Guy Peellaert’s David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974) and the otherworldly creatures captured by Derek Ridgers’ nightlife photography point to the emergence of the cultural provocation and rebellion that defined an era. Monster revels in a resoundingly British spirit of nonconformity, with a spectacular display of Pam Hogg’s new Exterminating Angel (2021) and works by Somerset House Studios artist and designer Gareth Pugh and the late visionary Leigh Bowery. Elsewhere, Noel Fielding’s Post-Viral Fatigue (2022) shows how the imagery of horror resonates still in our Covid-ravaged contemporary reality. As the nightmarish and otherworldly fills the gallery, a newly commissioned mural by Matilda Moors sees the walls dramatically clawed at by a monstrous hand.
Contributing artists include Marc Almond, Bauhaus, Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Philip Castle, Chila Burman, Helen Chadwick, Monster Chetwynd, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tim Etchells, Noel Fielding, Mark Moore & Martin Green, Pam Hogg, Dick Jewell, Harminder Judge, Daniel Landin, Jeannette Lee, Andrew Liles, Linder, London Leatherman, Don Letts, Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Lindsey Mendick, Peter Mitchell, Dennis Morris, Matilda Moors, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Guy Peellaert, Gareth Pugh, Jamie Reid, Derek Ridgers, Nick Ryan, Steven Stapleton, Ralph Steadman, Ray Stevenson, Poly Styrene, Francis Upritchard and Jenkin van Zyl.
[Somerset House]
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain
(October 2022 - February 2023)
Somerset House presents The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, a major exhibition exploring how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. The show looks beyond horror as a genre, instead taking it as a reaction and provocation to our most troubling times. The last five decades of modern British history are recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting told through some of our country’s most provocative artists. The Horror Show! offers a heady ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can make sense of the world around us. Horror not only allows us to voice our fears; it gives us the tools to stare them down and imagine a radically different future.
Featuring over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects, this landmark show tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Each act interprets a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype, in a series of thematically linked contemporaneous and new works:
Each of the exhibition’s acts opens with ‘constellations’ of talismanic objects. These cabinets of curiosities speak to significant cultural shifts and anxieties in each era, while invoking a haunting from the counter-cultural voices in recent British history. Alongside these introductory artworks and ephemera is an atmospheric soundtrack, conjuring the spirit of the time with music from Bauhaus, Barry Adamson and Mica Levi.
Monster, Ghost and Witch culminate in immersive installations, combining newly commissioned work, large-scale sculpture, fashion and sound installation, with each chapter signed off with a neon text-work by Tim Etchells. The Horror Show! offers an intoxicating deep-dive into the counter-cultural, mystic and uncanny, with the signature design of the three acts courtesy of architects Sam Jacob Studio and Grammy-winning creative studio Barnbrook.
[Somerset House]
OVER HALF A MILLION PEOPLE took to the streets of London on Saturday 26th March. They were marching against the Con-Dem government’s cuts. It was one of the biggest protests this country has ever seen. Every single trade union was represented on the protest and they were joined by anti cuts campaigners, pensioners, students and the unemployed.
No amount of police provocation against peaceful protesters or headlines in papers about violence can obscure that this was a massive working class demonstration.
And its power came from numbers and the social power they represent. It was a determined but angry protest. Millions of workers fear for their jobs and millions more are right to believe that the Tories are out to destroy their communities.
Magnificent
This government, held up by it’s Lib Dem collaborators, knows and cares nothing about the pain it causes, after all the majority of the cabinet are millionaires and two thirds went to private school.
The marchers’ message was clear—not one cut and not one job loss. And they are right: why should workers and the poorest in society pay for a crisis they did not create?
There doesn’t have to be a single cut or job loss. Greg Philo published an important article in the Guardian newspaper recently. He highlighted the fact that the personal wealth of the richest 10% of the population in Britain is £4,000 billion.
A one off tax of 20% on the wealth of this group would raise £800 billion and would wipe off Britain’s debt in one fell swoop.
With this in mind it’s crazy that Ed Miliband and New Labour are arguing that some cuts are necessary and that it’s the pace of the cuts that’s the problem. There’s no need to make cuts at all!
Saturday’s demonstration was magnificent, but it alone will not be enough to force Cameron and his cronies to make a U-turn. The Socialist Workers Party believes that if we are going to stop the Tories in their tracks, we will need further mass protests—and more importantly, strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
And we are not alone. On Saturday the leader of Unite (Britain’s biggest union), Len McCluskey, told those at the rally “This is only the start. We need a plan of resistance including coordinated strike action.”
Strike
Again when Mark Serwotka (the general secretary of the PCS) addressed the march he said, “Imagine what a difference it would make if we didn’t only march together but took strike action together.”
It’s time to turn those words into action. Already some unions, including the NUT, PCS and UCU are moving to joint action on pensions at the end of June—this could see 700,000 teachers, civil servants and lecturers on strike together.
That would be a good start, and would put pressure on the government, but we could really finish Cameron if the GMB, Unison and Unite also called their members out. We would see 5 million on strike—that would signal the end of Cameron.
Now we are all back at work, there is no time to waste. Union meetings need to be called as soon as possible and every union section/branch/region needs to be passing motions calling on their unions to call joint strike action now.
The message is simply that we marched together, now it’s time to strike together.
Article: Socialist Worker www.socialistworker.co.uk
Cheerleader
Skin: Enfer Sombre- Momo- in Porcelain
Hair: tram J0731a hair
Make-up: .
Nails: Formanails-Pia
Costume: [Provocation] Cheerleader
Tevez Poster...Manchester
The pavement below is covered in red paint from repeated attempts to deface the poster..
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Networked Fabrication for Urban Provocations.
Shifting Paradigms from Mass Production to Mass Customization
Computational architecture and design course
Conventional construction methods all depart from the basic premises of mass production: standardization, modulation and a production line. What these systems developed during the last two centuries fail to take into account are the evolutionary leaps and bounds the manufacturing industry has taken over the last decades. With the introduction of CNC technologies and rapid prototyping machines have altered the paradigms of fabrication forever. It is due to these new tools that it is now possible to create (n) amount of completely unique and different pieces with the same amount of energy and material that is required to create (n) identical pieces. The possibilities for implementation of new forms, textures, materials and languages are infinite due to the versatility that these new tools offer a growing network of architects, designers, fabricators that are integrating them into their professional practices to generate unique and precise objects that respond to countless data and real-life conditions.
Instructors:
Monika Wittig [ LaN, IaaC ]
Shane Salisbury [ LaN, IaaC ]
Filippo Moroni [ SOLIDO, Politecnico di Milano ]
MS Josh Updyke [ Advanced Manufacturing Institute, KSU, Protei ]
Aaron Gutiérrez Cortes [ Amorphica ]
Documentary Portraits, 1978-94
Derek Ridgers
Hooded Cape Ensemble, 1988
Leigh Bowery
Satin cape, sequined dress
Xterminating Angel, 2021
Pam Hogg
Latex and mesh
Taken in the exhibition
Monster
Opening The Horror Show!, Monster begins by delving into the economic and political turbulence of the 70s and the high octane spectacle and social division of the 80s. Against a backdrop of unrest and loud uprising, it charts the origin story and ascent of the individuals who will go on to disrupt, define and destroy British culture, while exploring the monsters which plague society today.
Punk prophet Jamie Reid opens the show by conjuring his Monster on a Nice Roof (1972), painting a prescient picture of the dark skies gathering over Britain. Chila Burman’s If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising (1981) and Helen Chadwick’s Allegory of Misrule (1986) refigure social discontent and anxiety in the image of horror, as the socio-political and monstrous collide. In a jarring dislocation of British cultural identity, Guy Peellaert’s David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974) and the otherworldly creatures captured by Derek Ridgers’ nightlife photography point to the emergence of the cultural provocation and rebellion that defined an era. Monster revels in a resoundingly British spirit of nonconformity, with a spectacular display of Pam Hogg’s new Exterminating Angel (2021) and works by Somerset House Studios artist and designer Gareth Pugh and the late visionary Leigh Bowery. Elsewhere, Noel Fielding’s Post-Viral Fatigue (2022) shows how the imagery of horror resonates still in our Covid-ravaged contemporary reality. As the nightmarish and otherworldly fills the gallery, a newly commissioned mural by Matilda Moors sees the walls dramatically clawed at by a monstrous hand.
Contributing artists include Marc Almond, Bauhaus, Judy Blame, Leigh Bowery, Philip Castle, Chila Burman, Helen Chadwick, Monster Chetwynd, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tim Etchells, Noel Fielding, Mark Moore & Martin Green, Pam Hogg, Dick Jewell, Harminder Judge, Daniel Landin, Jeannette Lee, Andrew Liles, Linder, London Leatherman, Don Letts, Luciana Martinez de la Rosa, Lindsey Mendick, Peter Mitchell, Dennis Morris, Matilda Moors, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Guy Peellaert, Gareth Pugh, Jamie Reid, Derek Ridgers, Nick Ryan, Steven Stapleton, Ralph Steadman, Ray Stevenson, Poly Styrene, Francis Upritchard and Jenkin van Zyl.
[Somerset House]
The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain
(October 2022 - February 2023)
Somerset House presents The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain, a major exhibition exploring how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion. The show looks beyond horror as a genre, instead taking it as a reaction and provocation to our most troubling times. The last five decades of modern British history are recast as a story of cultural shapeshifting told through some of our country’s most provocative artists. The Horror Show! offers a heady ride through the disruption of 1970s punk to the revolutionary potential of modern witchcraft, showing how the anarchic alchemy of horror – its subversion, transgression and the supernatural – can make sense of the world around us. Horror not only allows us to voice our fears; it gives us the tools to stare them down and imagine a radically different future.
Featuring over 200 artworks and culturally significant objects, this landmark show tells a story of the turbulence, unease and creative revolution at the heart of the British cultural psyche in three acts – Monster, Ghost and Witch. Each act interprets a specific era through the lens of a classic horror archetype, in a series of thematically linked contemporaneous and new works:
Each of the exhibition’s acts opens with ‘constellations’ of talismanic objects. These cabinets of curiosities speak to significant cultural shifts and anxieties in each era, while invoking a haunting from the counter-cultural voices in recent British history. Alongside these introductory artworks and ephemera is an atmospheric soundtrack, conjuring the spirit of the time with music from Bauhaus, Barry Adamson and Mica Levi.
Monster, Ghost and Witch culminate in immersive installations, combining newly commissioned work, large-scale sculpture, fashion and sound installation, with each chapter signed off with a neon text-work by Tim Etchells. The Horror Show! offers an intoxicating deep-dive into the counter-cultural, mystic and uncanny, with the signature design of the three acts courtesy of architects Sam Jacob Studio and Grammy-winning creative studio Barnbrook.
[Somerset House]