Take a trip back in time and experience the ad hoc, spirit of post-punk 1980’s through to materialistic, consumeristic, mass media now. The ICA has organised a bold, thought-provoking off-site experiment in the abandoned Selfridges Hotel (next to the department store on Orchard Street).
The show, or “experiment” as ICA Director Gregor Muir likes to call it, seeks to connect the dots between London’s vibrant and wide-ranging underground artistic past up through to the present day.
Rather than be totally nostalgic this “experiment” shows that some of what was relevant then still is now. Often, peering into these glass cases, its hard to tell the then from the now. Over fifty chronologically placed vitrines, video works and installations like these Urban Zombie mannequins spotlight London’s counterculture. Mudlarking, Madame JoJo’s, a young Boy George, YBA, Fashion East, Dalston, Alexander McQueen, Issie Blow, WAG, Princess Julia, St John Restaurant (who fed the starving artists), Giles Deacon, Zaha Hadid, Dover Street Market, Butt Magazine, David Adjaye are just a mere snippet of the dots in the vitrines.
Flyers, magazine articles, photos, drawings, bits of clothing, buttons, champagne corks and other creative remnants are there to peruse.The links are there. Enjoy the ride.
October, 2013
