Thursday, May 8, 2008

Goss-Michael Foundation presents avant garde exhibit featuring the visually radical work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster

By Pegasus News wire

Image provided by the Goss-Michael Foundation

The Goss‐Michael Foundation presents the work of acclaimed artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster beginning May 15, running through September 30. The creators of an impressive sculpture catalogue, Noble and Webster’s work subtly scorns a consumer‐centric culture and its penchant for excess, opting instead to celebrate nonconformist individuality. Using a variety of mediums – including neon lighting, scrap metal and household rubbish – through which to convey their meaning, Noble and Webster’s art is arresting, profound and revolutionary.

Initially taking the international art scene by storm in the early 1990s, the artists attribute themselves as being “consistently inconsistent” in their work. Making their pieces and underlying credos stand out in a world that often values conformity over the individual, this element of the unpredictable gives their work’s intensity cachet.

Inspired by pop and punk culture, a narcissistic consumer society and the idea of “looking at what everybody else was doing and then doing the opposite,” Noble & Webster challenge the relationship between the viewer and conceptual social statements. Using various mediums, poly‐sulphide rubber (Dirty Narcissus, 2007), scrap metal (Metal Fucking Rats, 2007) and bright lights (Excessive Sensual Indulgence, 1996 and The Sweet Smell of Excess, 1998) they create shadowed silhouettes and neon writings (fuckingbeautiful, 2002), presenting the viewer with a journey into their own romantic personas – a world of excess, grotesque, and at times, unsettling sexual behaviours.

The Goss‐Michael Foundation exhibits this innovative and visually seductive body of work through some of Noble and Webster’s most challenging and controversial pieces, now in the private collection of Kenny Goss and George Michael. The exhibition will also include the entire set of prints entitled The Joy of Sex, 2005, a reinterpretation of the 1972 bestseller by Alex Comfort that guided readers to sexual liberation. By depicting themselves in raw unorthodox self‐portraits, Noble and Webster reinterpret the search for uninhibited sexuality. This limited edition book will be available for purchase.

A limited edition jewellery collection by Noble and Webster will also be available for sale at the Foundation during the exhibition. Taking some of their most famous and iconic pieces, the couple have recreated them into wearable, and unashamed modern status symbols.

A documentary on Noble and Webster’s life and artistic process, directed by Marina Zenovich and shot for Gallery HD, will be available to viewers in the Foundation Research Centre.

Source: The Goss-Michael Foundation

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