Heather & Ivan Morison’s Professor Morello (Photo: Ivan Morison)
When: 23rd March – 18th May 2013, open Wednesday to Saturday 12pm – 5pm
Where: Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham B9 4AR
£: Free
What is it?
Eastside Projects will be revealed as a ‘puppet state’ or ‘marionette government’ in its latest project. The art organisation is being taken over by little ‘creatures’ in a new exhibition in the Main Gallery.
The power of puppets lies in their potential for sculptural articulation and performance. As constructed selves and bodies, they are able to speak through someone else’s voice. These qualities will be fully deployed and explored in Puppet Show.
Puppet Show is populated by impersonators, impostors, and transvestites. By ultimately dubious characters that are used to criticise, debase, mock, undermine or protest in the voice of others. The puppets reveal their ultimately political role. During Puppet Show, Eastside Projects has been possessed in order to come to life, and speak what cannot be said.
Puppet Show includes Edwina Ashton’s ongoing work with dour gormless creatures and Simon Popper’s zoomorphically possessed painted objects. There is also work by Heather & Ivan Morison, British artist Spartacus Chetwynd and French artist Pierre Huyghe.
Puppet Show is part of a series of group exhibitions and productions within Eastside Projects that examine modes of display and the construction of a public sphere.
Puppet Show is curated by artists Tom Bloor and Céline Condorelli.
Eastside Projects (EP) is an exhibition space in Birmingham that is open to the public with free entry.
More info: eastsideprojects.org