In this issue we are exploring the shock factor in Contemporary art.
Throughout the ages shock has been used as a mechanism to engage and horrify the viewer and make them sit up and look (and think). From the use of blood and gore in 17 century paintings as a political statement or to show the prowess of the sitter or in the case of Michelangelo's fresco at the Sistine Chapel, of the “Second Coming of Christ” the use of nude figures in such a holy place which so shocked the Catholic church that after Michelangelo’s death they painted over genitalia.
Fast forward to recent times and the YBA's work was a de rigour of shock installations - Marc Quinn's "Self" - using his blood to create a cast of his head, Emin’s, "My bed" (1999) and the multiple installations of the Chapman brothers. There are so many examples. But, is this more than a movement as discussed by the philosopher Stephen Hicks "as the inevitable conclusion of trends initiated in the late 19th century modernist art movement", or is it a much needed way to agitate and make the viewer think about key issues? Is it created just because it can be or is the motivation frustration and a reflection of the zeitgeist - think The Sex Pistols.
We hope you enjoy this months exhibition.
Artist name: Alice white
Title: Shit heap
Description: The concept started as occupying space ,the debris of life. The invisible imprint we leave upon each other / domestic abuse
Instagram: @alicewhite862
Artist name: xxx JOJO
Title: Looking down
Description: There's a short walk from where i park my car to my studio which I take with my head bowed eager to see what I might be stepping on or in...
Instagram: @jojothephotographer
Artist name: Elo1se (Zhengwei Li)
Title: I ... Like A Girl
Description: Title: I ... Like A Girl
Description: 'I ... Like A Girl' is a series Elo1se painted in 2021's late summer as a reflection of the essay Throwing Like a Girl by Iris Marion Young. These works are a rebellion against the patriarchal society. As a female, Elo1se's life is full of compromises. People usually objectify women no matter how they behaved or what they have achieved. In 2021, women who show their sexual desires would be judged as weirdos in many countries. Pictures that include too much part of women's body on an online shopping platform 'Taobao' are no longer allowed to post, even if they are regular pictures for sportswear. News related to women raped by their co-workers are deleted by official social media platforms. A young lady was abused by security guards till almost half-naked in an underground station in Xi'an because a middle-aged man reported her as 'talking too loud on her phone' ... Though women help women is an idea agreed by most people, the reality is not as ideal and effective as how people expected. Elo1se's works usually contain elements considered by society as 'sexual meanings' such as genitals. She considers these elements are evidence of objectification because the feedback from the female audience is always different from the males.
Instagram: @elo1se_zhengweili
Artist name: Vinay Hathi
Title: Sports Direct Birkin Bag
Description: Work highlighting wealth inequality and how retail caters to it. Warehouse workers at Sports Direct were not being paid the national minimum wage, and were being penalised for matters such as taking a short break to drink water and for taking time off work when ill. 2014 a Sports Direct worker gave birth in a warehouse toilet 'because she was afraid of missing her shift'. She gave birth in a cubicle at the company's Shirebrook warehouse complex in Derbyshire on New Year's Day. The mother cut the umbilical cord herself with a box cutter, telling her colleagues that "she had to go back to work" within minutes of delivering her baby. Dimensions: 110 x 90 x 50 cm (H x W x D) Shown with Hackney WickED 26th July 2019 www.hackneywicked.co.uk
Instagram: @vinayhathi #vinayhathi
Artist name: Daniel Jacques-Kershaw
Title: Tommy And Mommy
Description: I wanted to create superfluous, jarring and inevitably doomed representation of an attempt to create an image of the perfect family - which leads to a decent into madness. Families that diverge from ideals of stability, routine and perfection - often due factors such as social class and mental health - still attempt to recreate the images they see on the television or read in magazines due to limited sources of information. The piece is centred around two unstable characters trying to emulate ' family values' and fulfil the roles they believe will improve their quality of life - all of which are based on a contrived image sold to them by the media that alludes towards a comparatively better life.
I wanted to show (as a working class artist) how the unstable social identity, shame and the desire to improve can be exploited through information sources such as the television. The investments in pointless items and attempts to 'elevate' themselves does nothing but create a false participatory culture; it distracts, consumes and keeps them in the very circumstances they think they are escaping.
A signifiant obstacle I had to overcome was my lack of film production skills; the piece is my first short film, and I had never had access to software such as Adobe before. I had to learn very quickly as I both wrote, directed and acted in it (with co-star @poor_mother) as well as editing it afterwards.
Instagram: @daniel_jacqueskershaw_art
Artist name: Jess Parry
Title: Why is blood taboo, even though it is inside of you?
Description: I produce work that demands a reaction from the viewer.
I produce work which is provocative and is visually confronting and challenging to the viewer.
I produce work which is uncanny and makes the viewer question exactly what it is they are looking at. It sparks a conversation. It's grotesque and taboo. That's the shock factor. The fact that they can identify with things they have seen in their daily lives before within the image they are looking at, but at the same time, they have not seen it in this context before.
For every piece I produce, there is always an obstacle. That obstacle is the viewer and how they react to my work, whether physical or psychological. A comment I had once before for 'The Dirty Clean' upon being viewed by the older generation in a commercial gallery was "That's period blood! That shouldn't be on the wall!' It shocked her. This is my catalyst.
Shock.
Instagram: @paintingsbyparry
Artist name: Diana Galimzyanova
Title: Murder Girl. A true story
Description: Follow Murder Girl, a serial killer blogger while she wanders through the Russian flea market in search of a new knife.
Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/paakojsimpson/paakojsimpson
Artist: Helen Finnigan
Title: Suicides of Artists’
Description: I made this piece whilst at University, photographs recreating the deaths but suicide of photographer’s and poets (Francesca Woodman, Diane Arbus etc.) I am now 30 and can only just look back at this work as what it is. In the year that followed I gained a place at Goldsmiths and thought myself a “true artist” who was going to be famous, however in the typical fashion of life imitating art, I decided to try and kill myself instead and have a slight mental breakdown, thus halting my artistic career.
Instagram: @cumbrianart
Artist name: Greag Mac a' tSaoir
Title: Roadkill
Description: My work has turned its gaze to that casual violence that is a perpetual feature of the human. No-one wants to look at what we do to the animals we supposedly have dominion over, the foxes and rabbits hit by speeding cars, the drowned hedgehogs, gibbeted crows, poisoned rats and mice.
Instagram: @greagpaints
Artist name: Jay Rechsteiner
Title: BAD PAINTING is not only bad in terms of style & craftsmanship but most importantly in terms of content. The 'badly' executed paintings represent the underlying bad reality of the actions depicted, i.e. the paintings are as bad as the world they depict. The paintings are based on true events. To me it is an investigation into the relativity of evil and everyone's potential to commit evil crimes. There is no moral high ground and no judgment as such within the work intended.
Instagram: @bad.painting.gallery
Artist name: Dom Marcellus-Temple
Title: Stolen Fruit Knife through Iridium Silver Paint on 1 of 370 Extant RHD Mercedes AMG CLS55, 2017
Description: This is a political statement against capitalism. With billionaires jetting off to Mars whilst inequality grows exponentially. The equation must fail: when 0.1% own 100% what happens then? Meanwhile, what if it's just a 16 year old Mercedes..?
Instagram: @dominicmarcellustemple
Artist name: Lily Dean
Title: That's Entertainment
Description: Inspired by the violence of traditional Punch and Judy Shows, the artist brings Mr Punch to life as a seedy end of the pier comedian (a Jim Davidson of a man). Here he stands holding a sexualised Judy puppet in one hand and a baton in the other, as if ready to perform the violent gag that is hitting his wife. His nose is obviously phallic to show the sexual misogyny in Punch and Judy shows. Like Pinocchio, whose nose grows when he lies. Lily has used the elongated nose as a comment on the lies that were told by politicians on the lead up to Brexit.
Instagram: @lily.dean.art