Artwork by Jimmy Turrell
When: 21st February – 16th May 2019
Where: The Book Club, 100 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4RH
£: Free admission
What is it?
This month, Jimmy Turrell and Richard Turley will be taking over The Book Club in Shoreditch with their exhibition Unforsaken.
The antithesis to Marie Kondo’s modern ‘throw away therapy’, this new exhibition is about finding the true beauty in old forgotten or discarded objects.
The exhibition will come in two separate phases, with the first phase consisting of a large collage. By creating a giant mural, incorporating vintage book covers, framed magazine pages, blown up scans of the original material, screenprints and typography, Jimmy Turrell and Richard Turley want to explore the ideas of loss, re-birth and salvation.
The multi-layering of so many different elements will then be explored in a second phase (date tbc) when Turrell and Turley will transform the exhibition again by painting, collaging and drawing over the original pieces whilst also ripping into the original mural to reveal hidden meanings underneath.
Turrell at work
Last year artist Jimmy Turrell bought a single job lot of around a 1000 vintage books and objects on eBay. When they arrived outside his house in an articulated lorry (on four huge wooden palettes), to say he was a little overwhelmed is a massive understatement.
Turrell learnt from the seller on eBay that the whole job lot was days away from being taken to the rubbish dump as nobody else had bid in months. The books and objects had been in the loft of a house he had moved into and the previous owner didn’t want them anymore. Turrell bought the whole job lot for £150.
The lot included everything from 1920’s skiing manuals and vintage scrapbooks (of the Norwegian Royal family), to strange old board games and figurines.
The idea of bringing back to life, in a new context, items that had once been truly cherished and later discarded, was something that resonated with Turrell and Turley.
Turrell started the long process of cherry picking the best book covers (for both typography and imagery), board game parts, vintage postcards and ephemera until he had a really comprehensive selection of material to work with.
Over the next few months, he and his friend Richard Turley screen printed, drew, painted and collaged on top of this material; sometimes using the existing imagery and book titles as the source for ideas and concepts, and at other times relying on happy accidents and randomness to create imagery of a more abstract nature.
In addition to the exhibition, the pair will also be collaborating with the Art of Ping Pong in re-designing The Book Club’s ping pong room. The Art of Ping Pong will be customising one of their full-size tables, to encapsulate some of the discarded objects and books so that they become a visual element of the game.
Jimmy Turrell is an illustrator, designer and video director. He was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne and studied at Central St Martins. Turrell combines a love of handmade collage, drawing, screen printing and painting, alongside digital techniques. Turrell most recently worked on videos, live visuals and artwork for the musician Beck, and also designed Aretha Franklin’s very last album cover.
Richard Turley is the former design director of the Guardian in London, creative director of Bloomberg Businessweek, MTV’s first senior vice-president of visual storytelling, and most recently Weiden & Kennedy’s executive creative director of content and editorial design.
More info: thebookclub.eventcube.io