James Ostrer
dal 29/7/2014 al 10/9/2014
Segnalato da
29/7/2014
James Ostrer
Gazelli Art House (new location), London
Wotsit all about. The images, referencing icons of contemporary sugar worship, Ostrer's imagined result of a corrupted globalization and increasingly dangerous methods of food production, will occupy the glass facade of the gallery and spread over the ground floor.
I love to eat - Kit Kats or cookies-and-cream
ice cream. I need sugar like five times a day -
Kim Kardashian
As part of the Window Project, Gazelli Art House will present the commissioned photographic works by
National Portrait Gallery Curator’s Choice, artist James Ostrer, from the 30th July 2014. The images,
referencing icons of contemporary sugar worship, Ostrer’s imagined result of a corrupted globalization
and increasingly dangerous methods of food production, will occupy the glass facade of the gallery and
spread over the ground floor. A glimpse into a post apocolyptic world which has been destroyed by mass
production, we are encouraged to question the decisions that are made for us: Wotsit all about?
James Ostrer’s (England, 1979) photographs of sugar adorned subjects allude to the history of primitive
art, synthetic dietary sugar intake, and an irreverent twist on the absurd in which societal practices of
ingestion oscillate into a nightmarish world of abject effrontery and nutritional disillusionment.
The works are feverishly and painstakingly created tableaus with layers of sweets and foodstuffs being
applied to a human subject, often the artist himself, which, when staged, are photographed and patterned
for re-consumption through the distribution of photographic practice. Speaking largely on the twentieth and
twenty first centuries’ dietary concerns and sugar’s uncomfortable place within this, Ostrer’s photographs
conjure metaphorical allegories as Ketchup flows as tears down frosted cheeks and Kit Kats’ mouths
bark back with menacing grimaces. This adornment becomes a mask of what we eat which then becomes
entwined with a hyper-pop sensibility and an obsequious inquiry into the great volumes of sugar that flow
through our bodies.
Image © James Ostrer, 2014
Preview: 30/07/2014
Gazelli Art House
39 Dover Street - London W1
OPENING HOURS
MONDAY - FRIDAY 10:00 - 18:00
SATURDAY 11:00 – 19:00
SUNDAY By appointment only.