WALSALL IS NEW HOME OF CELEBRITY
New exhibition explores fame and our connection to it through the work of eight artists

20 February 2008: Starstruck, a new exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall from 25 April - 15 June 2008 explores our obsession with celebrity through the work of eight artists ranging from the photography of Mario Testino, Alison Jackson and Yasumasa Morimura, through to a specially commissioned performance/installation by Jessica Voorsanger and a video installation by Candice Brietz.

Press Preview: Thursday 24 April 13.00hrs - 15.00hrs. Lunch and transport from London provided.

Celebrity is everywhere and impossible to ignore. As is frequently acknowledged, it has become one of the most powerful obsessions of our times whether it lasts 15 minutes or a lifetime. It's not surprising that in the 21st century, visual artists have become fascinated by the world of celebrity and its wider social implications. Highly diverse in both content and media, all the artists engage with the world of celebrity in different yet often connected ways. Their explorations are sometimes critical and sometimes celebratory and often both at once.

Mario Testino is one of the most celebrated photographers of today, particularly in the worlds of celebrity and fashion. His subjects include Kate Moss, Madonna, Robbie Williams and the late Diana, Princess of Wales and he has created advertising campaigns for clients such as Gucci, Versace and Gap. Testino is immersed into a world of high glamour. His subjects are often primped and preened and beautifully posed and re-inforce the glamour and status of the subject. Testino not only lives the dream, but is a key protagonist in creating it.

Yasumasa Morimura has drawn upon iconic portraits of Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Greta Garbo. These are images which have become ingrained into our consciousness and seem to encapsulate beauty, glamour, desirability and achievement. Morimura re-creates these images as carefully as possible with the artist himself taking on the role of the subject. Morimura has observed the wardrobe, make-up and pose of the sitter and the composition and lighting employed in the original photographs. They appear at once as a tender, celebratory homage to the stars and to the original photographs, yet they also contain an element of poignant tragedy. Morimura is a Japanese man which is clearly apparent in his photographs. Set within the context of the silver screen goddesses of Hollywood, he eloquently articulates a sense of isolation, of being "other" and of never quite being able to live the dream.

Gavin Turk has also represented himself as another celebrity in a series of works in which his own identity is conflated with that of Andy Warhol. Turk's work has consistently dealt with notions of authenticity, value and the mythology of the artist. For this exhibition, Turk has produced a series of screenprints on canvas which directly reference Andy Warhol and which draw upon a series of self-portraits created by Warhol for an exhibition at Anthony d'Offay's gallery in London in 1986. The self-portraits presented a typically deadpan view of Warhol characterised and effectively branded by his messy, blonde "fright-wig".

In Turk's series of works however, it is Turk's face that looks out at us from the canvas and it is Turk's head that wears the "fright-wig". In this very conscious connection with Warhol, Turk is once again exploring notions of authenticity, originality and the marketable identity of a personality, in this case, the artist - or artists.

Jessica Voorsanger is an artist who has consistently explored popular culture, and particularly our fascination with celebrities. She has often focused upon the special relationship between fans and celebrities and her early work dwelt on her own teenage obsession with David Cassidy and the Partridge Family who became the subject of several works.

For this exhibition, Jessica was commissioned to create new work. She has chosen to develop a performance installation entitled Stage Struck. The work embraces the contemporary popular cultural phenomenon of karaoke where participants can take the stage and for a few minutes, become the performer, the centre of attention, the star. Through a series of events throughout the exhibition, visitors will be invited to dress up as their favourite stars, stand on stage and sing their favourite songs. They are then recorded and presented on plasma screens over the duration of the exhibition. Jessica herself is also a participant.

Peter Davies adopts something of the role of the fan in his epic paintings such as The Hip One Hundred and The Hot One Hundred. Lists of artists in order of their success are familiar to us through the popular music charts and Davies's paintings seem to suggest something of the nostalgia associated with avidly listening to the charts as a child and writing down lists. This is evoked further through the use of bright colours, frequent mis-spellings and the carefully constructed but far-from-perfectly rendered grid.

In Davies' Hip One Hundred, he lists his favourite artists in order, writing next to each a brief reference point. Just as the musical charts change week by week in response to commercial sales, Davies' list is likely to change too over time. The paintings seem to suggest both an obsession with those in the public eye and also a certain fickleness regarding who is in and out of favour at any given time.

Candice Breitz is renowned for her elaborate video and sound installations which draw on the content and language of popular culture and the ways in which it permeates our consciousness. Diorama, originally created in 2002, draws on the popular TV programme and global phenomenon Dallas. The programme was broadcast all over the world and households everywhere were familiar with its main characters.

In Diorama, Candice Breitz takes nine of the main characters from the show and presents them, each within a different monitor, within a living room and bedroom, complete with carpets, furniture and fittings. Breitz has undertaken a rigorous process of editing so that each character constantly repeats a set of repetitive soundbites such as "Marry me" from Bobby and "I don't want a drunk for a wife" for JR. Released from the context of narrative, they are each engaged in an endless cacophony of meaningless babble and their repeated gestures appear like a kind of strange staccato dance. They appear as a tableau containing relics from the past, historical cultural icons preserved not in formaldehyde but in the ether of technology within a media-saturated world.

Francesco Vezzoli is an artist renowned for his engagement with the world of celebrities. He works in a variety of media including video, live performance and embroidery to create works, often on an epic scale, that explore the mechanics of fame and publicity and the language of cultural forms. In his seminal work, Trailer for the Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula, Vezzoli presents an impressively star-studded mock-trailer for an imaginary re-make of the controversial 1979 cult classic Caligula. Members of the original cast such as Helen Mirren and Adriana Asti appear alongside stars such as Milla Jojovic, Benicio del Toro and Courtney Love. Even the togas were designed by Donatella Versace. The abundance of stars, the high quality production values and the familiar language of the Hollywood film trailer with its distinctive voice-over create a humorous parody of the vacuousness of Hollywood.

Alison Jackson creates images that engage directly with the world of celebrities and the photographic language used across the media to relay their images into our households. Her photographs and films seem to offer evidence of celebrities engaged in private and intimate activities.

All is not as it seems however. Jackson employs celebrity lookalikes who are then photographed in various scenarios created by the artist. The aesthetic employed, using jaunty camera angles, irregular compositions and a lack of sharp focus, cleverly ape the kind of photographs shot by hidden cameras or snatched by the paparazzi. Reality and fantasy come crashing together in these wonderfully compelling images.

Whilst once upon a time, the camera could apparently never lie, we now live in an age where digital manipulation is standard and spots, blemishes and excess curves are airbrushed away. We can no longer trust the integrity of an image. Ironically, in Jackson's case, except for some magic from hair, make-up and wardrobe, and the use of clever camera-work, her photographs remain authentic and untouched.

Jackson draws on our obsession with celebrity and takes us through the superficiality to a darker side. She cleverly draws on what we know about these celebrities and takes us to a realm of possibility beyond that. It is not quite true but it could be…

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To attend the press lunch or press preview or for further press information please contact:

Kallaway
Anna Cusden
020 7221 7883
anna.cusden@kallaway.co.uk

New Art Gallery Walsall
Hollie Latham
01922 654402
lathamh@walsall.gov.uk


About The New Art Gallery Walsall
The New Art Gallery Walsall opened in February 2000 in the heart of Walsall town centre. The £21 million world-class gallery was made possible by £15.75 million Arts Lottery and commissioned by Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council.

On permanent display is The Garman Ryan Collection which was donated to the people of Walsall by Lady Kathleen Garman, widow of sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, in 1973. This unique collection is displayed in a series of intimate, interconnecting rooms, each with a window, making a house for the collection over the first and second floors of the gallery. The Gallery is also home to the Discovery Gallery, an interactive space for everyone to look, touch, explore, create, puzzle and play.

The temporary exhibition galleries on floors 3 and 4 are dedicated to exhibiting a changing programme of exhibitions.

The gallery also offers a lively programme of activities and events for all ages.

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