2016. Fibreglass and acrylic paint, with integrated video guidance system, battery powered PA and looped laughter track. 65 x 36 x 36cm.
We have all known bullies. They like to excuse it as having a laugh. But at what point will we draw the line, and say this is enough, it’s not funny anymore? At what point does tyranny itself become ridiculous?
Coinciding with a period that saw me erase myself from the internet, this was the first in a series of wearables, designed for performance, that turned into a 3 year dark project, in which I engaged with portraiture for the first time.
Harlow Art Trust
In pouring rain, Chief (a 2010 sculpture) was installed outside the Harlow Playhouse in November 2016. It is a long term loan to the Harlow Art Trust, whose collection of public sculpture includes work by Auguste Rodin, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ralph Brown, Lynn Chadwick, Lee Grandjean and Elizabeth Frink, and joins my 2010 piece ‘Methuselah’, located at Newhall.
Liam Geary Baulch & Jeremy Laffon, G. Roland Biermann, Anne Brodie, Lidija Kononenko, Irina Danilova & Hiram Levy, Robert Luzar, Antonis Sideras, Nick Turvey & Joanna Hogg and special screenings from LIMA artists Douwe Dijkstra, Johan Rijpma, Nina Yuen.
181 Bow Road, London E3 2SJ
Abjects
2016. 30pp book of photographs. Edition of 20. 10 x 10 x 0.5 cm.
Sitting in bars and restaurants, I find my hands just making things out of the detritus on the table – peanut shells, bottle tops, toothpicks etc. A rude and nervous habit. But I started photographing the results. A timid and insignificant riposte to the big, shiny art of our era.
Last Laugh – Bashar
Harlow Art Trust
Visions
Abjects