The exhibition followed Clunie Reid’s solo exhibitions at Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2009), MOT International, London (2009 and 2007) and Galerie Reinhard Hauff (2009). Reid has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Bielefelder Kunstverein, Germany (2010), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich (2009), Camden Arts Centre (2008) and Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2007).
Clunie Reid
Dumb Down, Get Dressed
A new exhibition by the British artist Clunie Reid, the artist’s first large-scale solo presentation in a not-for-profit space in London.
For Studio Voltaire, Reid created a series of works that draw on sexual and banal content as well the rhetoric of advertising and popular magazines. Large sheets of aluminum were overlaid with crude drawings and text: photo-collage and assemblage interrupt the reflective surface of the metal.
Reid often uses a strong punk/DIY aesthetic, this is evident in the use of bricolage as it the attempts to take back control of visual culture. Celebrity culture, art theory, pornography, fashion and cartoon caricatures are spliced into visual jokes of both image and text. This regurgitation of references often questions the media from which they were created. With a certain amount of ambivalence, the work questions casual sexism and sexual politics within contemporary culture.
Supported by The Elephant Trust.
Clunie Reid, Dumb Down, Get Dressed, Move Out, 2010. Installation View, Studio Voltaire, London. Courtesy of the artist and Studio Voltaire, London. Credit Andy Keate.