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Upcoming Event: RUSSELL HERRON & JAMES UNSWORTH Collections

Wednesday 8th July - Thursday 30th July

Sartorial Contemporary Art, London

GALLERY: RUSSELL HERRON
PROJECT SPACE: JAMES UNSWORTH

THIS WAS NOW - THE RUSSELL HERRON COLLECTION

L to R: Harry Pye, Barry Thompson, Russell Herron at the ICA circa 1990’s (photo: Julian Wakeling)

Following the recent death of London artist Russell Herron, Sartorial Contemporary Art presents This Was Now : The Russell Herron Collection, a selection of works from the artist’s private collection.

The exhibition is curated by Harry Pye, and presents a selection of works from some of the 300 pieces which were in Herron’s possession, the majority of the works purchased from emerging artists over the last 12 years.

The selection has been curated around the themes of history, location and identity, reflecting the concerns which informed much of Herron’s own work over the last few years, and includes painting, sculpture and photography.

Pye says, “I knew Herron for exactly a decade. He and I would talk a lot about ideas and changing trends. We were never close friends but there was always a mutual respect. He was to new art what John Peel was to new music. He bought work from many students who (in some cases) blossomed into art stars. He never bought any work from me but he went to pretty much every show I curated - and I curated a lot of them. I felt honoured when I was asked to organise his collection for this exhibition. “

Artists presented in THIS WAS NOW: THE RUSSELL HERRON COLLECTION
Sarah Baker, Charlotte Bracegirdle, Maria Soledad Checa, John Clayman, Julie Cockburn, Katie Cuddon, Oona Culley, Stuart Cumberland, Beverley Daniels, Jeremy Deller, Steve Double, Lee Edwards, Karin Eklund, Stewart Gough, Lucy Harrison, Mark Harrison, Graham Hudson, Tim Knowles, Hugh Mendes, Mie Mørkeberg, Chloe Mortimer, Humphrey Ocean, Hadrian Pigott, Cian Quayle, Brian Reed, Giorgio Sadotti, Dallas Seitz, David Shrigley, Melanie Stidolph, Barry Thompson, John Tiney, Bedwyr Williams.

JAMES UNSWORTH
I LOVE YOU LIKE A MURDERER LOVES THEIR VICTIMS

Sartorial Contemporary Art is pleased to present ‘I Love You Like a Murderer Loves Their Victims’, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by James Unsworth. In the project space Unsworth will exhibit over 20 photographic prints. Half of the project space is dedicated to ‘Shithead’, his first large-scale film installation.

Set on a university campus the photographs and movies from I love You Like a Murderer Loves Their Victims’ revel in their low budget aesthetic, framed by empty educational spaces that induce a sense of isolation, tension and danger. The scenes are populated by hyper-unreal depictions of murder, sex and dismemberment, comic/horrific figures engaged in acts of disembowelment, degradation and desecration while piles of body parts are splattered with simulated bodily fluids and are gradually engulfed by smoke.

The projection ‘Shithead’ features characters occupied in activity beyond the common realm of human behaviors, transgressing natural boundaries and descending into a devolved state of blood lust and self-gratification.

Scenes inspired by the low budget horror movies of his youth, research into homosexual serial killers and the life and death of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell are spliced together into an incoherent orgy of on screen horror.

Minimally displayed in a white cube gallery setting the horror, stench and gore is all in the images allowing the viewer a voyeuristic look into a world of violence and inhumanity.

Unsworth’s photographic prints and films are at once horrific and humorous, bodily and bawdy, they embody the true spirit of grotesque.

Event Contact Information

Sartorial Contemporary Art
26 Argyle Square
London WC1H 8AP
Tel: 020 7837 1013
Tuesday to Saturday 12:30 to 6pm or by appointment

art@sartorialart.com
www.sartorialart.com