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15/6/2012

Two Exhibitions

Centre for Contemporary Arts CCA, Glasgow

Jack McConville - We Have No Bananas

Jack McConville’s practice, though derived from art historical references, often commences from diverse sources (from popular culture to scientific articles) culled from the online sphere. For his last solo show the body of work took inspiration from You'll Never Spa in this Town Again, a book by Robert Randolph that reveals the closeted gay subculture of Hollywood stars centered around an LA spa. This setting of the spa, and the vulnerable borders between the public and private which it transgresses, was referenced back to the art historical theme of the odalisque. This marriage of contemporary source and traditional form sought to examine notions of permanence and identity within an anonymous culture and the dislocation of the distinguishable narratives of visual language.

For Intermedia, a new body of paintings will take their point of departure from a scientific article published by the New Yorker entitled We Have No Bananas. This explores the fate of the Cavendish Banana plant, (representing 99% of the banana export market), which is threatened with devastation from a bacterium called Tropical Race Four.

The use of genetic engineering to produce a resistant strain of the Cavendish plant will be used as an analogy to the shifting nature of the formal and theoretical models of art objects. The paintings created for the show will combine elements of defunct modernism as a pastiche on the search for resistant organisms and the quest for the perfect ideal; the perfect banana. Their placement within the white, cleansed space of the gallery will be juxtaposed against the sterile environment of the research laboratory, where hybrid banana plants await dissection, decipherment and judgement from an external participant.

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Sarnath Banerjee - History is Written by Garment Exporters

Indian graphic novelist, artist, and filmmaker, Sarnath Banerjee presents an overview of his work including both drawings and films.

Since 2004, he has published three major books - Corridor (2004), The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers (2007) and The Harappa Files (2011). Through these works he reveals the daily tensions of contemporary India, from the local events of a city neighbourhood, to the pressures of its global economic rise.

Banerjee evolves his novels through periods of research and exhibition, gathering and displaying a bewildering array of material before honing everything down in a publication. His work draws on artistic genres such as collage and classic book illustration, while exploiting the openness of the contemporary graphic novel as a space to push beyond comic book narrative. The freedom he finds in these techniques allows him to explore the psyche of modern India, creating images and stories that are accessible and decptively simple.

This exhibition brings together works spanning the period 2008 - 11, including several key sequences from Banerjee's most recent book, The Harappa Files, of which he comments, "My third book is more like an illustrated text. It opens up the form of graphic novels using design in an imaginative way. I am imploding the form, I am working with it all the time, constantly playing with it".

Events accompanying the exhibition:

Bagdad Café (1987, Dir. Percy Adlon)
Thursday 19 Jul / 7pm / £5 (£3)
Screening followed by a Q&A with Sarnath Banerjee and Francis McKee

1001 Comics: Who Are The Geniuses Who Transformed Comics Forever?
Saturday 28 Jul / 3pm / FREE (ticketed)
An illustrated lecture by Paul Gravett, writer of 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die and Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life.

Press contact:
Clare Harris 07957 652701 press@cca-glasgow.com

CCA
350 Sauchiehall Street Glasgow
Opening Hours: Mon - Sat: 10am - midnight
This exhibition will also be open sunday 22 april and mondays during Glasgow International (23 & 30 april and 7 may)
Admission free

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