View allAll Photos Tagged provocation
Public Provocations IV.
expo collective / group show
June 2012 – October 2012
Vernissage: 09.06.2012 / 19:00 h
A vibrant and unique exhibition that can be experienced from June till October 2012 in the Carhartt Gallery.
Artists in exhibition :
A1one / IR
Bezt / PL
Czarnobyl / PL
Dave the Chimp / GB
EME / ES
Honet / FR
Jef Aérosol / FR
Klaas Van der Linden / BE
Maoma / NL
Marco Zamora / US
SatOne / D
Tasso / D
The London Police / NL
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
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
Group 4_
Aaron Onchi, Betty Sanchez, Roberto Gutierrez, Frank Durán , Belén Olaya García
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 ]
Group 4_
Aaron Onchi, Betty Sanchez, Roberto Gutierrez, Frank Durán , Belén Olaya García
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 ]
Group 4_
Aaron Onchi, Betty Sanchez, Roberto Gutierrez, Frank Durán , Belén Olaya García
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 ]
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 ]
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
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
Please read the full album description!
//Our society today is not ideal, very least the view on mental and physical illness. These pictures shows mental and physical illness from the society's perspective, the society's romanticisation.
A school project I did 2014/2015//
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
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]
Jamie Reid
Gouache on rag paper
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]
Chila Kumari Burman
Etching, lithograph and pastel on paper
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]
This artistic provocation seeks to estimate the orders of magnitude of critical ecosystem services that are fundamental to all planetary life processes.
It is common to describe our relationships with society, the world, and the biosphere with metaphors from economics, which has specific understandings of value. Today’s prevailing economic conventions are unable to recognise the inherent value of the ecosystems on which all life depends. In cultures overdetermined by concepts from economics, we are left without adequate discursive instruments to address the importance of ecosystem contributions to life on Earth socially or politically.
This experiment consists of 1 square meter of wheat, cultivated in a closed environment. Critical inputs such as water, light, heat, and nutrients are measured, monitored and displayed for the public. This procedure makes the immense scale of ecosystem contributions palpable and provides a speculative reference for a reckoning of the undervalued and over-exploited “work of the biosphere.”
Photo: Franz Wamhof
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 ]
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
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
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).
Given the Bittersweet reality that you and your very lovely lady have to leave the Las Vegas Strip and fly home tomorrow evening, how shall you two spend the last 30 hours of your Fabulous nine day Las Vegas Strip vacation? How about late lunch and some luxurious shopping at the Caesars Palace Forum Shops.
And what Marvelously Magnificent Mischief do you two intend to instigate tonight!
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]