Richard Grayson
The Magpie Index
An exhibition
16 January – 14 March, 2010
De La Warr Pavilion
+44 + 1424 229 111
Richard Grayson’s work as an artist investigates how language and narrative are used to make sense of the world around us, and how in turn these narratives generate worlds of their own. Subjective personal readings and constructions of the world and the ways that these achieve social political and cultural function is the focus of his work.As a retrospective of the past five years, the exhibition brings together films, drawings and prints by Grayson for the first time and premieres a new work, The Magpie Index.
The Magpie Index
The Magpie Index is a new single-screen high-definition video artwork focusing on legendary singer-songwriter Roy Harper. In The Magpie Index Roy Harper delivers a series of monologues to camera. Each section addresses a different aspect of his work, his philosophy and history, covering the counter culture; religion and superstition; ornithology; nature and the environment; political engagement and the end of politics as well as Harper’s experiences in the music world and the importance of changing light bulbs.
The Magpie Index explores the ways that a fierce personal vision has developed and how this might have shaped the belief systems of a cultural movement. The work moves from the biographical into the social and cultural spheres to present this individual voice in ways that allude to the traditions of the radical non-conformist, the visionary and the outsider.
The Magpie Index is a co-commission by Locus+, Newcastle upon Tyne and The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea. Produced by Locus+
Messiah
Messiah is a dual projection video work in which an Australian country and western band perform new musical settings for the libretto of Handel’s 1742 oratorio The Messiah. The band use the language of country rock in the new tunes that only occasionally reference the original melodies – The Hallelujah Chorus – for example. Visitors are asked to sit on bales of hay to consider this work.
Messiah is scheduled for presentation at the 2010 Sydney Biennale and was commissioned by Matt’s Gallery, London
The Golden Space City of God
This large-scale video installation features a new choral work written by Leo Chadburn, performed by a 26-piece choir and is presented in the gallery that has been re-figured to resemble a church or community hall. Taking text from a website of The Family, a movement grown from the 1960s American Christian cult Children of God, the work tells of the extraordinary events leading up to the end of the world, drawn upon the Book of Revelation and the images and language of science-fiction.
The Golden Space City of God is a co-commission by Matt’s Gallery, London and ArtPace San Antonio
Ways the World Ends is a series of prints that use texts found on the internet that prophesize the end of the world and presents them in decorative, spiralling forms and acid colours. Large Colliders combines ariel photographs of Hadron Collider sites with texts extracted from blogs expressing concern at the implications of this form of scientific research. Intelligence is an ongoing series of hand drawn computer generated commentaries and star-charts of people associated with the current Middle East situation. Tombs of Christ are five pencil drawings of sites, taken from the internet, all of which are believed to be the burial place of Jesus Christ.
Richard Grayson is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London; and Yuill/Crowley Gallery, Sydney.
The De La Warr Pavilion is a Modernist icon for contemporary arts on the south coast of England in Bexhill on Sea.
+44 + 1424 229 111
