The Last Judgement - MOSTYN, Llandudno

PRESS RELEASE

NEW EXHIBITION SEASON AT MOSTYN, WALES, UK, BRINGS ARTISTS TOGETHER 'IN CONVERSATION'

Derek Boshier - It's Only When the Tide Goes Out... Selected works and ephemera, 1976 – 2018

S Mark Gubb - The Last Judgement

Exhibition Dates: 16 March - 30 June 2019
Opening: Saturday 16 March from 4.00pm - 6.00pm

Artists' Talk - Derek Boshier and S Mark Gubb will be in conversation with writer and art critic Chris Fite-Wassilak - Saturday 16 March at 2.30pm

MOSTYN, Wales UK is pleased to present two new exhibitions 'In Conversation' by Los Angeles based Derek Boshier and Wales based S Mark Gubb.

The gallery's ongoing 'In Conversation' series brings together two solo exhibitions and presents the dialogue, collaboration or similarity in exploring themes that can occur between artists. This iteration, which stems from a chance introduction through a mutual friend between Derek Boshier and S Mark Gubb, takes the series a step further with Gubb co-curating the exhibition by Boshier in collaboration with MOSTYN Director, Alfredo Cramerotti.

Derek Boshier, who first came to prominence as part of the British Pop Art movement in the early 1960s, is also known for his work with cultural icons such as The Clash and David Bowie.

The exhibition includes a range of drawings, paintings, prints and videos, along with lesser known photographic and sculptural works, and ephemera from the artist's personal collection. Through this broad collection of works and artefacts the exhibition reveals how Boshier's creativity steps beyond the studio or gallery space. Containing works from the last four decades of the artist's career, presented here is a never before seen portrait of an artist whose own work he has described as "art that's political, not political art".

The exhibition also includes works and archive photographs made in the 1970s when Boshier lived in the Welsh village of Llangadfan.

Taking Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of the same name as a starting point and reference, The Last Judgement by S Mark Gubb includes a range of new and existing sculptural works exhibited as an installation.

The exhibition builds on Gubb's long-standing use of popular culture and history in his work, along with his interest in historical paranoias, created by things such as The Cold War, and in our ability as individuals to influence the world around us, for better or for worse. As part of his research for The Last Judgement, Gubb revisited classic works from art history such as Goya’s ‘Black Paintings’, key works by Hieronymous Bosch and works by the acclaimed Welsh artist, Edgar Herbert Thomas, the latter a great-great uncle by marriage.

To accompany the season a combined catalogue, funded by the University of Worcester, will be produced containing a new essay by Jonathan Griffin.

Derek Boshier's exhibition is thanks to generous support of Colwinston Charitable Trust and the assistance of Gazelli Art House, London.

S Mark Gubb's exhibition is supported by the Arts Council of Wales.

S Mark Gubb (b.1974,UK) lives and works in Cardiff. His work has been widely commissioned and exhibited in solo and group exhibitions for organisations including Artangel, Turner Contemporary (Margate), Aspex Gallery (Portsmouth), Postmasters Gallery (NYC), Matthew Bown Gallery (Berlin), Mostyn (Llandudno), Castlefield Gallery (Manchester), ICA (London) and PS1 MoMA (NYC)

Residencies/fellowships include URRA International Residency, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011), Standpoint Futures, Standpoint Gallery, London (2010), Cove Park, Scotland (2008), Arts Council of England’s International Fellowship at Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland (2005) and The Wheatley Fellowship at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (2005)

Permanent public works include commissions for Grizedale Arts, Nottingham Contemporary, Aspex Gallery (Portsmouth) and The Welsh Assembly Government.

He is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Worcester.

Derek Boshier

Derek Boshier (b.1937) lives and works in Los Angeles. He attended the Royal College of Art where he was a contemporary amongst notable artists involved in the pop art movement such as R.B Kitaj, Allen Jones and David Hockney. It was within his ‘Image in Revolt’ exhibition at London’s Grabowski Gallery with Frank Bowling that Boshier launched his career, introducing icons of American consumer culture with the incorporation of big brand logos within his work.

Boshier’s work has been widely shown internationally, particularly in Europe and the USA. Along with numerous solo exhibitions Boshier has also appeared in several group exhibitions, including at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Tate Britain and British Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Centre Pompidou. His work is held by major public collections across Europe and the USA.

In recent years Boshier was the recipient of the Honorary Fellowship of the RCA (2016) as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship and NEA award for the arts, he is also an accomplished teacher and lecturer.

About MOSTYN, Wales UK

MOSTYN presents international art and culture of our time, activating people’s lives through exhibitions, cultural programmes and commercial activities. Situated in the coastal town of Llandudno, it is Wales’ foremost contemporary gallery and visual arts centre, serving as a place to form and share new perspectives through artistic/curatorial practice and audience engagement.

MOSTYN is part of Plus Tate, the UK's contemporary visual arts network.

MOSTYN receives fi,nancial support from the Arts Council of Wales and Conwy County Borough Council Art Service. Mostyn Gallery Ltd is a registered charity trading as MOSTYN.

MOSTYN, 12 Vaughan Street, Llandudno, Conwy, LL30 1AB +44(0)1492 879201 www.mostyn.org

Open Tuesday – Sunday 10.30am – 4.00pm ADMISSION FREE

Be (In)Visible at ALL Times

This is a post I made to start the year on my various social medias. To clarify, I don’t think I’m especially important and talking about my own posts feels horribly naval-gazing but it deserves some context.

There are lots of problems with the art world and the systems we exist within, but the above is a huge one. Just before Xmas I attended the Punk Scholars Network conference at Leicester DMU, ‘Doing Metal, Being Punk’. It was excellent. One of the presentations that really struck a chord was a paper by Sally-Anne Gross and Dr George Musgrave about the important research they’ve done in to musician’s mental health. Check this link out for an article about it and a link to key findings, it makes for fascinating, if depressing, reading. Everything they have discovered could, I am confident, be mapped directly on to visual artists - insecure working conditions, confused notions of ‘success’, financial pressures etc.

One thing that really struck me was their findings around the pressure to be constantly providing new ‘content’. I’m paraphrasing their excellent research, but the thrust of it is that to remain visible and relevant, musicians need to be uploading new tracks as often as possible - weekly, daily, whatever - a crippling and impossible rate of production, all to satisfy the clamour for online visibility and the vain hope that visibility translates in to being picked up and heard.

In terms of our industry, Instagram appears to be a fair equivalent. How many times have you heard or been given the professional advice, ‘Post once a day to Instagram and/or twitter etc’? Build that online brand and visibility. Of course that doesn’t necessarily have to be a new piece of work, but it’s a piece of you all the same. 

Do you really owe your industry that much access to your creativity? And even if you’re prepared to do it, do you think it’s healthy that your industry increasingly requests that of you? Yes, there’s always a game to play, you want your work and creativity to be seen, but it should surely be on (y)our own terms, including how much and how often.

Artists have always had an ebb and flow of moments of visibility and moments in the shadows. I believe, each is as important as the other. The idea we need to be on show and visible all the time seems extremely unhealthy and counter-productive to experiment and risk. It serves no-one other than lazy curators who want thumb-swipes in the comfort of their office to replace getting on a train or bus to meet with an artist in their studio/workspace. Our environment.  

Equally, I’m not sharpening a stick to prod curators, it’s just a plea to take a breath, for your own mental health, and consider how much these things serve YOU as opposed to other people. 

A Pop Art Odyssey in Los Angeles

Over the weekend of October 13/14th I headed off to Los Angeles to meet with Derek Boshier to begin the selection of works for his part of our shows at Mostyn next year and to talk about the project. It’s the second time this year I’ve had to make a three-day trip to Los Angeles and, whilst I will never EVER complain about spending time in LA as I love it, it’s a blooming long way to go for a couple of days. So, much of last week was lost in a fog of time-based disorientation (plus a PhD transfer presentation and a trip to London for the People’s Vote March) hence this slightly belated account of that trip.

As I say, I love LA, which sounds like a real arsehole-type-comment to type, but I do. I love the architecture, the sunshine, the pace of life - it’s a huge, sprawling, city but doesn’t seem to act like one. There’s none of the aggressive hustle and bustle of New York or London, just a bunch of folks seemingly going about their days at a pace to suit. Equally, that doesn’t mean the place lacks dynamism. I find it one of the most inspiring cities to visit, in the same way I do Berlin (another city that, on a day-to-day pace of existence level seems to be permanently stuck on ‘Sunday’.) Maybe I’m lazy and like laid back places. Who knows. Who cares.

As I say the primary focus of the trip was to meet with Derek Boshier, whose show I’m curating alongside my own solo show at Mostyn next March. I’d had the pleasure of meeting Derek back in 2016 when I was staying with a friend who moved to LA about 6 years ago and had become friends with Derek. He invited us over for breakfast and became very animated when I told him I lived in Cardiff, as he’d owned a cottage in Wales through he 70s and loves the country. That conversation sparked off an ongoing correspondence which has led to this place and the shows at Mostyn.

Friday night was spent dashing out through the thunder and rain (!) heading out to meet an old friend who moved there about 10 years ago to make movies. He’s managed to maintain a positivity about the whole thing in a city where EVERYONE claims to be part of the film industry and so it can, apparently, be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. He found out that a producer he’d been working with, who had gone a bit quiet, had been sent to prison by reading about it in the pages of an entertainment magazine. After 27 hours awake, I ducked out back to my little Silver Lake bungalow to attempt some over-tired sleep, with a quick stop off at Cruzer’s 100% vegan pizzeria. One of my true joys in life is checking out different vegan places when I go abroad and L.A. has an absolute plethora to choose from. Philly Cheese Steak pizza was my choice on the night and I highly recommend paying them a visit.

Saturday morning started with an essential visit to Moby’s ‘Little Pine’ restaurant, another staple on any vegan trip to L.A. The American biscuits with gravy and sausage is a joy of breakfast indulgence. The last two times I’ve been there Moby has been in there too, eating breakfast coincidentally enough. But this wasn’t just indulgence, this was also where I’d arranged to meet Derek and my friend Jonathan Griffin - now L.A. based for 6 years or so and still writing for frieze, the New York Times and other esteemed publications. He’s also agreed to write a catalogue essay about mine and Derek’s work for this show.

So, following breakfast it was off to Derek’s studio in Frogtown. Derek’s had his studio there long before it became the ‘hottest new neighbourhood’ referred to in the article I’ve linked there. So has David Dedlow of plan:d gallery - a space just next to Derek’s studio, who was kind enough to give us an impromptu tour of his current show. He explained how the name ‘Frogtown’ was actually the name of a tough local gang, but has slowly been reclaimed by residents over recent years. A real highlight of the show were the carved wooden sculptures of Matthew Rosenquist, whose studio is in the same block as Derek’s. A particular favourite was this one appropriately positioned in the gallery’s bathroom, just in front of the mirror…

Jonathan was also keen to show me the L.A. river which runs just near to Derek’s studio. I’ve already mentioned that it was raining on my arrival in to L.A. - something that virtually never happens and so pleases all L.A. residents when it does, less so a man who’s just flown half-way round the world from South Wales. According to Jonathan the river had an unusually high volume of water running through it as this time, due to the rain…

That trickle of water at the bottom of the picture is the unusually high volume of water currently passing along the river. What that does mean though, apparently, is that this area is particularly rich for wildlife due to the vegetation that grows in the river. So much so that someone’s dog had recently been snatched by a coyote I was reliably informed.

The day was then largely spent looking through Derek’s archive of current and past works. I’ll post a couple of images but, as an artist myself, feel I need to be discrete and respectful to the extremely generous access that Derek provided. We spent hours looking through paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and nothing was too much bother. His archive, as I’m sure you can imagine, is extraordinary and makes for very rich, if difficult, pickings. Some real favourites of mine were a series of large ‘99c War’ drawings from 2004, each one measuring about 2.5m x 1.5m.

Understandably, for a man who’s now in his sixth decade of making work, there’s an awful lot covered in the themes and subjects of his work, but something I feel a real affinity with is how he returns to the politics of the day. There’s a great ‘What Do Artists Do All Day?’ about Derek (not currently available to view unfortunately, unless you work at a university and have access to BoB, though there are a few clips on that linked page) where he makes a comment about making ‘art that’s political, not political art’. A sentiment I really connect with.

That evening there was an RCA Alumni event at The Grafton Hotel on Sunset and Derek very kindly invited me along. Knowing my time in L.A. was limited, and spotting that the hotel was very close to the Rainbow Bar and Grill, I made an early stop at the Rainbow to pay my respects to a bar that has played such a central role in so much of the music I’ve grown up loving. So much so that they’ve renamed the outdoors bar ‘Lemmy’s Lounge’ after the great man who would spend hours sitting at the end of the bar playing on the quiz machine (R.I.P. Lemmy).

At the RCA event it struck me what a wonderful thing it was. No disrespect to the universities where I gained my undergrad and postgrad degrees, but imagine being so confident as an institution that you have alumni spread all over the world that you can just organise an event in Los Angeles and expect people to show up…

So, to end the night it was a drive right back across L.A. to the Vegan Hooligans pop-up at Abby’s diner - a lovely traditional diner in Eagle Rock that gets taken over by the hooligans every night to ply their vegan trade. I went for the ‘Flaming Melt’ (one of they most popular dishes apparently) washed down with a traditional root beer (when in Rome and all that).

Sunday started off with a visit to Sage Vegan Bistro and Brewery in Echo Park, followed by a walk to the park itself. The building that Sage is in is beautiful, topped off with an amazing sign. And the food is great. As is Echo Park. So I spent a while enjoying the lake at its centre and daydreaming about a super-ambitious public project whereby I’d build a bunch of Silver Lake-style bungalows somewhere and use them as residency accommodation. If there are any major public commissioners reading this, do feel free to drop me a line to chat more about it…

Then it was off to Derek’s house for the day to look at the archive he has there, including an incredible collection of photos from his days living in the cottage in Wales. It was exciting to see more work but it was pretty extraordinary looking through the photographs. They’re a wonderful document of a moment in time, and of Welsh rural life at that time, and the fact that they happen to be through the lens of one of Britain’s foremost Pop Artists just makes them all the more interesting. So much so, I already think there’s another project in the photographs alone, so am in the process of following some relevant lines of enquiry back in my home city of Cardiff.

Again, Derek’s generosity was humbling, in terms of his time and access to his house, life and work. We unearthed some really exciting things too - particularly some photographic works that have only ever been seen once, back in the 80s, some of which relate specifically to his time in Wales. So, fingers crossed, we’ll be able to include those in the show. It feels important to unpack this relationship that Derek has with Wales in the exhibition, but avoid simply illustrating the fact that he used to live there. The quality and relevance of the work remains key.

So, after bidding Derek a fond farewell, that left me with an evening and a day in Los Angeles. I had to make my first stop a place called Vromage - a store dedicated to exclusively selling it’s house-made vegan cheeses. As with anything in L.A., of course the guy who runs/owns it has more of story than simply being of a catering background, so regaled me with tales of his time as a fine art and antiquities dealer as he made me an excellent sandwich.

Then, it just so happened that one of the presenters from the conference I was involved in, back in February - Michelle Cruz Gonzales - was involved in an event that night. It’s a bi-monthly literature event at a cafe downtown and this event was listed as a Punk Extravaganza. In one place, on one night, we had Michelle (who used to be the drummer in Spitboy) reading alongside the likes of DH Peligro (drummer for the Dead Kennedy’s, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nailbomb) and Jack Grisham (T.S.O.L) What an event! Couple that with the fact that Michelle’s buddies Alice Bag and Allison Wolfe came along to support her, I was in some kind of British-man-in-America punk-fanboy heaven.

So, Monday was a day processing what on earth had happened in the past 48 hours-or-so, plus a trip to Venice Beach to catch up with my old URRA Residency buddy Halina Kleim, who is actually from Berlin but just happened to be in town doing some research. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a bunch of residencies over the years and I can honestly say that the experience of the residency is one thing - great in-and-of itself - but the thing I really value about all of these experiences are the friendships and networks that are formed. I did the URRA residency about 8 years ago now and am still properly in touch with a handful of my fellow residents spread all over the world. This meeting also provided one last opportunity for some excellent vegan food, this time at Cafe Gratitude in Venice Beach, where I had the best Key Lime Pie I’ve ever tasted.

From there, I had one last visit before the airport - the Wende Museum - a museum that houses an incredible collection of Cold War artefacts and memorabilia and curates these collections alongside contemporary art. It just so happens that a friend of mine from the UK, Danny Birchall, has just co-curated an exhibition there. Coincidentally, I met Danny when he was working at the ICA and he agreed to be one of my American GIs in my performance ‘The Death of Peter Fechter’ It’s a really amazing museum, relatively newly moved in to this space. If you find yourself in L.A. and have an interest in the Cold War, I can’t recommend it enough.

Anyway, that’s a pretty exhausting and exhaustive account of my very brief trip to L.A. Suffice to say I’m very excited for the show next year.

Computer Wizards

I’m looking to get this introduction to Celtic Frost’s ‘Morbid Tales’ turned in to a choir - the kind of voice-of-angels choir that one might hear during a beatific vision. I’m guessing this could be a pretty simple process of just loading it in to some programme with a plug-in of some description, but it’s beyond me. Any of you good folk out there know how to do it?

Rome, Madrid, Llandudno

Things are ramping up now for my solo show at Mostyn in Llandudno next year. If you don’t know I’m having a show alongside the legendary Derek Boshier (Pop Artist, friend of David Bowie and Joe Strummer etc.) I’m also going to be co-curating Derek’s show to draw out connections between our works. Exciting times. (If you don’t know him, here’s an interview from 2017 to get you started... https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/evg7zn/david-bowie-and-the-clash-were-fans-of-derek-boshiers-art-and-you-should-be-too )

I’m heading out to Los Angeles next month to meet with Derek. Whilst I’m there I’m also hoping to get along to this... 

I met Michelle Gonzalez when I was in LA back in February, talking alongside her at a conference about punk at UCLA. Her paper was drawing comparisons between George Orwell and Joe Strummer. I love these kinds of coincidences and connections...

Anyway, last week I was in Rome and Madrid for research purposes. The work I’m developing takes Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgement’ as it’s starting point, so a visit to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel were pretty essential. it was a great few days. A top tip I would offer is that if you’re visiting the Vatican, book your entry tickets online. You can just turn up on the day, but if you’ve booked it means you get to stroll past queues like this, that had already formed by 8.30am...

I took my fabrication-collaborator, Chris Gadd, with me too...

Chris is the extremely talented airbrush artist I worked with on my g39 show in 2016 and will be working with again on this project.  

The Sistine Chapel is extraordinary. Quite different to how I had imagined (though I’m not sure how) and ‘The Last Judgement’ is a thing of wonder. It’s really important just to go and stand in the presence of this stuff. I’ve seen it a thousand times in reproduction but had never really ‘seen’ it. It’s important to see it in context too. It’s not just a big religious painting on a wall - it’s surrounded by all the other paintings, and people, and priests, and sounds. Like anything in this world, it’s not enough to see it in reproduction, it’s all this other stuff that brings it to life and helps you understand it.  

We also went to visit the Rooms of St Ignatius, which is another must-see. A pretty basic room that’s been painted as one big optical illusion to give it the impression of being an architecturally grand chapel-type space.  

Every bit of what you see here is painted on a flat wall, designed to be at a proper perspective when viewed from the centre of the room. Really extraordinary stuff. 

So, after a couple of days in Rome it was on to Madrid for one day and a visit to the Prado. The main things to see there were Goya’s ‘Black Paintings’ and Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’. Again, truly extraordinary. 

Goya’s ‘Drowning Dog’ is one of my all-time favourite works of art and something I’m sure I’ll be returning to for many years to come. 

I was also reminded how Celtic Frost used a section of ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ for their ‘Into the Pandemonium’ album cover. A reason to love both things that little bit more. 

In the afteroon a quick visit to the Reina Sofía to see ‘Guernica’ rounded off the trip. Three days and three of the building blocks of art history.

So now I’m in to the process of sketching out designs for the new painting, trying to figure out how to process all this stuff and make it work for me without just creating a visual carrier bag of art history references. 

Then today was a 9 hour round-trip to Llandudno for a meeting about practicalities. Great to stand in those beautiful spaces again and begin to imagine how the shows will take shape in there. 

Next stop (later this month) in Portsmouth to catch Derek and his show at Jack’s House Gallery before he disappears back to LA. 

 http://www.jackhousegallery.co.uk/