Patrizio Di Massimo
The Lustful Turk
3 October–1 December 2013
Preview: Wednesday 2 October, 6:30–8:30pm
Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday noon–6pm
Gasworks presents The Lustful Turk, the first UK solo exhibition by Italian artist Patrizio Di Massimo.
Comprising newly commissioned painting, drawing, sculpture and wallpaper, Di Massimo’s exhibition introduces his ongoing project The Lustful Turk, initiated in 2012 and inspired by an erotic epistolary novel of the same name. First published anonymously in 1828, the book tells the story of Emily Barlow, an English girl who is abducted by the Dey of Algiers, incorrectly described as a ‘Turk’ and with whom she ends up falling madly in love.
Both critical of and intrigued by the worldview captured in this novel, Di Massimo knowingly reproduces its bawdiness and racist stereotypes in lush colours, soft furnishings and delicate brushstrokes. Imparting a feeling of guilty pleasure, symbolic statues and ornaments are shown to indulge the libidinal desires of characters that represent either whiteness robbed of innocence or an amoral otherness. Their erotic acts and gestures are also only ever half-concealed behind exuberant décor or a thin veneer of innuendo, with candles dripping wax, voluptuous cushions and hands grasping at the air all signifying sex or the longing for it.
Existing works on show from this series directly appropriate scenes from the original novel to emphasise the relationships between cultural and sexual boundaries. The concealment of penetration, for instance, hints at a cultural encounter that poses a threat to the integrity of Western civilisation, whereas sexual role play exposes racist stereotypes. New works, on the other hand, move further away from this literary source to more freely explore the relationships between bodies and objecthood, politics and ornamentation, shame and desire, in a similarly lavish Victorian image-world.
The Lustful Turk is the inaugural exhibition of The Civilising Process, a yearlong programme of exhibitions and events at Gasworks inspired by German sociologist Norbert Elias’ eponymous 1939 book, which looks at the development of the tastes, manners and sensibilities of Western Europeans since the Middle Ages. From October 2013 to November 2014, Gasworks will collaborate with invited artists, designers and researchers to tackle a wide range of issues raised by this book in an attempt to understand their relevance for contemporary debates and practices. The Civilising Process comprises five exhibitions, a programme of interdisciplinary events, contributions to Gasworks’ online platform Pipeline and a printed publication.
Event
Patrizio Di Massimo & Alessandro Rabottini In Conversation
Wednesday 13 November, 7pm
