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7/10/2015

Eddie Peake

Barbican Centre, London

This autumn, London-based artist Eddie Peake presents an ambitious web of architectural installations, choreographed performance and video set within the Curve gallery. Foregrounding the naked body – both male and female – The Forever Loop presents continuous live performance set against a backdrop of large scale installations, from a maze-like, plastered wall structure, and a raised scaffold walkway to an exquisitely designed chequer-board dance floor. These installations are populated by an array of surreal objects including a cast of anthropomorphised acrylic bears, brightly coloured replica whale bones, delicate bronze pipettes, amorphous plaster sculptures and a strange metal figure with an acrylic box head filled with autobiographical items. A stencilled wall text painting squeegeed with fluorescent pink paint spans the 90-metre curved wall inviting the viewer to loop back on their trajectory through the Curve. Eddie Peake: The Forever Loop opens in the Curve gallery on Friday 9 October 2015.

Eddie Peake said: “I want to make a show that uses a loop structure, in terms of both time and the very specific conditions of the Curve gallery space, to convey a narrative in which unrequited desire, jealousy, love – and other real emotions implicit in the experience of being in a relationship with another person as well as the various manifestations of one’s sense of self, are all emphatically alluded to. I want the show, and its looped structure, to utilise the fact that the curved gallery necessarily cannot be viewed all at once, and in so doing, I’d like the act of viewing to be a narrative element, implicating the viewer as a sort of protagonist."

Sexuality and desire are constant themes in Peake’s live performances. For his Curve commission, he has choreographed a performance that weaves in and out of synchronisation with a video that flits between footage of past performances, a home movie from his childhood in which he is surrounded by his siblings and cousins at play, alongside a film shot at the studio of koollondon.com, formerly known as Kool FM, the London underground radio station whose mix of Jungle and Drum & Bass is part of Peake’s diverse cultural landscape. Accompanied by a sheer-suited roller skater gliding fluidly through the Curve, the performers move in and out of the installation spaces taking the viewer on a dramatic journey that is endlessly repeated.

Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican , said: “I am delighted that Eddie Peake is realising the 24th installation in our acclaimed Curve commission series. Focusing on how bodies move in space – and a follow up to his outstanding Adjective Machine Gun show at White Cube in 2013 – this show foregrounds Peake’s ability to combine different media with performance, and no doubt proves to be an unmissable spectacle. This is the first time that live performance features throughout the duration of a Curve commission, and as such reflects our commitment to groundbreaking cross-arts programming.”

Eddie Peake’s practice intimately connects art with sexuality. Firmly rooted in the language of sculpture, Peake’s work celebrates the body as both a sculptural and sexual object and extends to painting, installation, video and performance. His art is located in the discrepancy between words and other artistic languages, such as images, emotions, body movements or sounds. Peake’s work is an often-energetic spectacle in which the absurd and the erotic each find a place, and in which the artist plays a central role. In his performances, Peake plays with idealised notions of the human form, to create an energetic and erotically charged spectacle that actively destabilizes the boundaries between high and low culture.

While studying at the Royal Academy, Peake staged a naked five-a-side football match in Burlington Gardens, London where the two teams were differentiated only by their socks and trainers.

As the work's title suggests, Touch (2012) addressed the inherent tactility and homoerotic exhibitionism that comes with contact sports. For Peake, the work was ‘a joyous event’, but one that quickly became commonplace as the audience became used to the nudity of the players. Peake has recently presented the result of a year living in Rome, A Historical Masturbators at the Galleria Lorcan O’Neill in Rome.

Born in London in 1981, Eddie Peake has lived in Jerusalem, Rome and London. Having graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2006, he undertook a residency at the British School at Rome from 2008 to 2009, and in 2013 graduated with a Master’s degree from the Royal Academy Schools, London. Recent performance projects include The David Roberts Art Foundation (2012), The Tanks, Tate Modern in conjunction with the Chisenhale Gallery (2012); The Royal Academy of Arts (2012) Cell Project Space (2012) and Performa 13 (2013). International solo exhibitions include Galleria Lorcan O’Neill, Rome (2012), Southard Reid, London (2012) (with Prem Sahib), Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2013), White Cube, Sao Paulo (2013) and Peres Projects, Berlin (2014).

Please note the exhibition features nudity, as well as some explicit imagery and strong language.
Parental guidance advised. No unaccompanied children aged 14 and under.

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and with the support of the Henry Moore Foundation.

Image: The Forever Loop. Photo Justin Piperger

Press contact:
Ann Berni, Media Relations Manager +44 207 382 7169, ann.berni@barbican.org.uk
Ariane Oiticica, Media Relations Officer +44 207 382 6162, ariane.oiticica@barbican.org.uk

Media View, Thursday 8 October 10am – 1pm

Barbican Art Gallery
The Curve opening times:
Saturday - Wednesday 11am–8pm
Thursday & Friday 11am–9pm
Bank Holidays 12pm–8pm.
The Curve Christmas opening times:
Closed: 24, 25, 26 Dec
Open: Sun 27 Dec 11am–8pm, Mon 28 Dec 12noon–8pm & Fri 1 Jan 12noon–8pm
Admission Free

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