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GALLERY I & II
The Haunted Swing
Terry Atkinson, Peter Donaldson, Ryan Doolan, Keith Farquhar, Duggie
Fields, Michael Fullerton, Ronnie Heeps, Mark Leckey, Keith MacIsaac,
Craig Mulholland, David Musgrave, Lee O'Connor, Michal Pechoucek,
Alex Pollard, David Shrigley.
Curated by Dr. Neil Mulholland
5 April - 11 May 2003
Such a man dwelt upon the Bass Rock, a man
of God, Peden the Prophet was his name. Surely, ye’ll have
heard tell of Alexander ‘Prophet’ Peden?
[...]
Prophet Peden’s all-male extremism lives on in our sitting
rooms. His grandaughter married a member of the Jervis family,
Huguenot weavers who fled from persecution
in France. Prophetess Peden-Jervis moved from her beloved Scotia to 18 Folgate
Street, Spitalfields, Londonattela in 1724 where she penned The Leader of the
Free State (1727). Haunted by the ghost of Margaret Thatcher summoning faith
from strategic ornamentation, this was a most radical spiritual manifesto of
parlour, dining room, lead piping, drawing room, candlestick, boudoir and wainscoting.
Peden’s other grandchildren remained, like contented infants, in the
underground city beneath Edinburgh’s plague infested Mary King’s
Close. Their shadowy topography is protected by the Collective Gallery’s
Regency walls - floorboards creak, fires crackle, young actors play Burke
and Hare stripped
of any prettiness.
Prophetess Peden-Jervis’ great-great-great grandson Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
built Port Merrion, Gwynedd in 1925, a jolly Welsh folly sine qua non, where
the English Don Juan designed maisons by mirrors, stalked by purring genus felis,
Six of One. Williams-Ellis almost certainly had a weakness for Baroque politics,
believing that even if he were reduced to penury himself he ‘would still
hope to be cheered by the sight of uninhibited splendour, lavishness, gaiety
and cultivated design.’ In 1954, Blackpool Pleasure Beach opened the Haunted
Swing. Williams-Ellis painted a mural depicting the Prophetess Peden-Jervis on
the wall of the mesmeric ride. She clearly gesticulates toward heaven, shining
a glower that condemns those who partake of such Monkie-Tricks and blasphemie.
Her sermon still echoes in our ears: ‘yea must be this high tae enter
tha Kingdome of Jesus.’
excerpt from curators text
PROJECT ROOM
BILLY McCALL
Three works 'Indoctrinate the Young'
'All the Best Protestants Were Catholics' and 'Tag Team' are
a continuation of McCall's Kuma project, which is an investigation
and celebration into the lives of those in the 'digital underclass',
and a subversion of the classic romantic artist.
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