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Our Worlds Collided
2-26 September 2009
East End artist Leigh Clarke launched his artist's book Our Worlds Collided, a series of photocopied latex masks, laminated and bound in a lever arch file.
Our Worlds Collided exclusively at KALEID as an edition of five, £300 each.
Leigh Clarke’s exhibition of paintings, prints, vinyl, video and artist’s book offers “a sketch, a kaleidoscope, a
prefiguration of the phenomenology of perception according to the machine”1. At first glance Clarke’s notion of disfigurement in war has the playful detachment of a dandy. But when viewed in context with Sylvère Lotringer and Paul Virilio’s The Accident of Art , his use of comedy confronts “ the consumer society’s demand for optimism”2.
Mass-produced political latex masks are manipulated beyond recognition through the mechanical process of photocopying. The artist’s subservience to the machine presents us with the death mask of comedy yet in turn evokes the resurrection of tragedy in art.
Victoria Browne
Cannon Happy 10 minute film 2009, edition of five
Great Minds Think Alike Acrylic on Canvas 2008
Mistress Acrylic on Canvas 2008
The Mummy Returns Acrylic on Canvas 2008
The Mother of All Parties Acrylic on Canvas 2008
Our Worlds Collided Screenprint 2009, edition of ten
The Happy Eater Screenprint 2009, edition of ten
Stage Freight Vinyl 2009
Dansermed Laks DVD 2009
Leigh Clarke has recently returned from a solo exhibition and an artist’s residency entitled Cannon Happy at LOKAAL01, Antwerp. His work has been included in the John Moores 24 Painting Prize, Gasworks and the Royal Academy of Arts, and can be found in national collections including the Tate Gallery archive, The Royal College of Art, The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Government Art Archives and The Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television London.
1. p94, Sylvère Lotringer and Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art Semiotexte 2005
2. p24, ibid
Photography Alessandra Chilá
FLASH Review Redchurch Idler
Babyfaced/squashed/écrasé/
flattened/punctured/mashed/
comminuted/warped/flayed/
anonymised/trashed/defaced/
plasticated/mutilated/crumpled/
stigmatised/abominated/KO’ed/
Mercatored/snagged/debased/
anamorphised/scarified/chewed/
dirempted/bashed/framed/
unidentified/abused/pulped/
compacted/deflated/bodged/
knackered/layered/embalmed/
roadkilled/Torquemada’ed/kaput/
vandalised/mullered/undercarded/
bastardised/demonised/dissed/
shrinkwrapped/cameoed/twisted/
deadbeaten/rammed/1-D’ed/
scrunched/crushed/Metzgered/
guineapigged/remixed/outlasted/
JCB’ed/Oldboyed/soft-targeted.
