The War To End All Wars at The Dazed Gallery
Published 37 months ago
Contemporary artists give us their personal vision of the apocalypse
- Text by John-Paul Pryor
The Dazed Gallery has asked some of the most exciting contemporary artists working today to explore the notion of apocalypse in a uniquely challenging group show. With the current hypocritical trend in the west of endorsing military enforced "regime change" in oil rich countries crippled by sanctions, while paying mere lip service to democratic ideals, you could be forgiven for thinking that sooner or later some kind of huge global stand-off is somewhat inevitable. The notion of encroaching cataclysm is apparent in almost every theological (and thereby political) construct and is regularly called upon by propagandists to give the most mendacious political maneuvering a cloak of divine purpose. This exhibition riffs upon such notions and includes works by Sarah Maple, Robert Montgomery, David Fryer, Luke Drozd, Rachel Wilberforce, Leo Todd, Valerio Di Lucente, Louisa Lau, Sarah Bargieala, Louisa Lau, Ben Freeman and Giuseppe Di Bella.
All of the artists involved responded to the following questions – if there truly was a war to end all wars what would it be like and how would it manifest itself? Would its outcome be positive or negative? Would it bring absolute destruction or rebirth and renewal? In response Giuseppe Di Bella presents his stamps portraying human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib (the dissemination of which have earned him the dubious honour of being investigated by the FBI); Sarah Maple presents her no doubt soon to be iconic ironic self-portrait "I Heart Jihad"; Ben Freeman presents his idyllic countryside shots of mass grave sites in Serbia; our very own Robert Montgomery presents lightbox works that play on notions of poetic melancholia and nuclear destruction; David Fryer's live art performance will witness him scrawling political slogans in fire; Leo Todd presents work that burns through the retina; Sarah Bargieala presents her McDonald's peace doves; and Rachel Wilberforce presents a piece that poses our evolution as devolution... and there is plenty more besides.
This exhibition has been curated by John-Paul Pryor and runs for four weeks from October 11. For more details please contact johnpaul@dazedgroup.com
