Mashups is the new exhibition curated by Stuart Semple featuring five of the UK鈥檚 most exciting artists, who offer an intriguing insight into how a new generation is making sense of the complexities of mass culture.
Andy Warhol鈥檚 Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) made 拢36.3 million at Christie鈥檚 New York; Claes Oldenburg鈥檚 Yellow Girl鈥檚 Dress made $1.7 million at Sotheby鈥檚 New York; and Robert Rauschenberg last sold for $14 million at Sotheby鈥檚 New York. Auction prices are skyrocketing, especially for those artists considered to be part of the Pop Art movement: once the domain of the outsider, the artist bucking convention, Pop Art is now part of mainstream culture. Could it ever not be though? Pop Art is mass culture; mass culture is Pop Art. The boundary between is indefinable, blurred and indivisible. Pop Art hasn鈥檛 fallen by the wayside by any means though, artists such as Stuart Semple are considered the modern day equivalent, constantly negotiating the proliferation and bombardment of mass culture in their own lives and work.
Semple, an artist and curator based in London, has curated Mashups, an exhibition, which examines the use of mass culture 鈥 advertising, YouTube, the Internet, pop music, the fascination with 鈥渃elebrity鈥 鈥 through five different artists鈥 work.
Pop Art has changed drastically since its inception in the 1950s; a direct reflection of the way mass culture has changed, as everything is faster, better, and a bit more gaudy and self-aware. 鈥淚t鈥檚 interesting that we are still critiquing that culture now, maybe it鈥檚 harder for our lot to do it because it鈥檚 so much faster.鈥 Semple doesn鈥檛 let the fact that it鈥檚 a bit faster deter him; rather he lets it serve as an impetus for the show.
Mashups is currently on at the Kowalsky Gallery at DACS, the Design and Copyright Society, London. A rather fitting venue, as the artists exhibiting, Nicky Carvell, Adham Faramawy, Nathan James, Piers Secunda, and Semple, all appropriate from commercial culture 鈥 whether it be an idea, an image, or a theme. DACS functions to protect artists and visual creators from the act of appropriation; a rather ironic twist given that the show is inherently about the act of appropriation.
The exhibition, which is curated by Semple (and at which he is an exhibiting artist as well), was initially conceived of vaguely as an artist-curated group exhibition. DACS approached Semple with the proposition for the show, and Semple took it from there, approaching each artist individually and asking if they would be involved: 鈥淣one of them knew each other before the show. They were all making their own work very quietly in different places.鈥 The exhibition is all the more interesting for that reason, as the show is about appropriation 鈥 we therefore become self-consciously aware that though the artists鈥 works fall into somewhat the same category they have not necessarily drawn off each other. Although Semple admits, 鈥淚 already knew about them鈥 some of them I鈥檝e known about for a long time. They are people that have inspired things that I鈥檝e done.鈥
Semple has taken the idea of appropriation and mash-up, or the mixing together of different things, one step further and together, with Carvell, Faramawy, James, and Secunda, created one massive collaborative piece for the show. Each artist took the work in turn, at their studios, and added to it: a risky venture perhaps, but one that appears to have paid off. Semple, when asked a month ago, what he thought the end result would look like, replied slightly hesitantly: 鈥淚鈥檓 not sure how its going to end up, I mean it could be a disaster鈥 In a way it鈥檚 going to be a mashup.鈥 The risk appears to have paid off.
The exhibition doesn鈥檛 try to predict the future of Pop Art, of how it will unfold as an art movement, but rather examines the here and now of it. How artists as individuals steer through mass culture, constantly being bombarded by images, theories, adverts, and ideas, and form their own meaning through it. 鈥淚 think everything is pop, everything is mass culture, everything is pop [sic], and there is room for urban art and graffiti art in that, but I don鈥檛 think that is its future. I think that鈥檚 a recording of where it is now. I don鈥檛 think we know because we can鈥檛 predict the technology.鈥
Semple continuously refers back to technology, how it is used by artists in their work and the avenues it opens up. Faramawy, a Slade graduate, examines film as a physical medium and as a form of communication: his work is film-based, but also sculptural 鈥 often using the actual object (television set etc.) as a form. As Semple points out, 鈥淚magine if Warhol had a ten megapixel camera or YouTube鈥?鈥 His work might just have been eerily similar to the work of Faramawy, James or any of the exhibiting artists.
Technology plays a role in the curatorial aspect of the exhibition as well: the show closes with short videos documenting the artists; a not entirely novel idea (galleries such as Tate have been doing it for years), but completely relevant and a beneficial method of allowing a glimpse into the creative process of artists. This opportunity wouldn鈥檛 have been available, or necessarily affordable, 50 years ago. Again, a technological advance, which is determining the way we view art and artists themselves. Is it taking away the mystery, the enigma of the 鈥淎rtist鈥 (as photography took away the 鈥渁ura鈥 for Walter Benjamin)? Not really. If anything, Semple is utilising technology to his advantage, just as Pop Artists of the 1950s and 60s utilised low subject matter, packaging, and the cultural detritus of advertising, to their own advantage in their work.
Semple鈥檚 aim is simple: 鈥淚鈥檓 hoping that people will gain an idea that popular culture can be utilised by them, that they don鈥檛 have to be passive in it鈥rab bits of it, put them back together and create something new. It鈥檚 an empowering idea, I think that that鈥檚 possible, but all the artists in the show have demonstrated that it鈥檚 do-able and it is being done.鈥
Mashups was showing at the Kowalsky Gallery, Design and Copyright Society, London, until 12 September 2008. .
Niamh Coghlan
