Gone Tomorrow Gallery presents new sculptural work by Neil Zakiewicz, that humorously mix high-art pomp, vernacular objects and craft.
The exhibition is packed with the familiar accoutrements of pub interiors – a barstool, drinking vessels, an electric guitar, matchsticks and cigarettes – all crafted to monumental scales and bizarre re-configurations. The sculptures could resemble the hallucinations of a fictional painter during an epic drinking session at the pub.
“Pub Plinth” (2006) is a twice life-size barstool fabricated in wood and leatherette upholstery, with a giant head, carved from upholstery foam, ripping through the seat. “Quitter” (2006) also re-imagines the tradition of displaying sculptures on a plinth – a figure constructed from huge matchsticks walks atop a plinth that oddly appears to be an impossibly mammoth up-ended cigarette butt.
Zakiewicz also shows “Fruits of the Palette” (2007), a hand-made electric guitar in the shape of an oversized artist’s palette and paintbrush. The guitar is switched on, plugged into a stretched canvas/amp hanging on the wall, and will be played during the exhibition opening. Gallery visitors are also able to strum the guitar.
“For all their attacks on artistic traditions, there is a real sense of joy in the act of creation within these works. What the exhibition disparages are the trappings of creativity, the simple act of making is celebrated.” David Barrett, Art Monthly 2006
Neil Zakiewicz completed his MA at Goldsmiths in 2003. His solo exhibition ‘Monumental’ last year at Bearspace, London, featured large-scale foam sculptures, and was reviewed in Art Monthly and Flash Art International magazines. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Legacies of Dissolution’ at Colony, Birtmingham, Zoo Art Fair 2006, and “Eau Savage” at Gallerie Lucy Mackintosh, Lausanne. This is his third solo exhibition. |
