In his new exhibition ‘Living Truthfully in Imaginary Situations’ Hopgood includes both retrospective and new, previously unseen works. A multimedia artist, he works in new and digital media, video, sculpture, film, photography and installation. He has exhibited in major international galleries since 1994 and has shown in London, New York, Australia, Germany and Italy. Graduating from Goldsmiths College in the 90s with a First Class Honours Degree, he was taught by Michael Craig-Martin, Julian Opie and Lisa Milroy.
His work is informed by a range of multidisciplinary fields including popular culture, entertainment and transport, and indexes such diverse worlds as TV, cinema, YouTube, fashion, shopping, clubbing, theatre, bars and MTV.
On the surface, Hopgood’s work is easily consumable, popular and inclusive. His objects deploy the psychological and emotional strategies of branding and packaging from advertising, marketing and retail. These tactics are used to create jewel-like forms, which are instantly seductive, tempting and charming, transubstatiating everyday objects into fetishes of latter-day lifestyles. Often representing common notions of fun, pleasure, happiness and the beautiful through the symbols of travel, parties and leisure. Hopgood’s material transfigurations of these symbols into other media converts them into more precious and utopian icons of other dream worlds. As Adrian Searle (art critic for The Independent) has written ‘Hopgood’s work depends as much on the awkwardness of his medium as on the novelty of the spectacle’. Hyper-real and voyeuristic, these animate mirror-like objects and genies are intended to transport and hypnotise the viewer into reflecting on the nature of new forms of desire, aspiration and art.
When glimpsing through this Victorian Railway Arch in Kings Cross does the significance of Hopgood’s individual works and his newly expanded body of work begin to emerge. Only then do these uncanny objects reveal themselves to be more than just titillating and tantalising Memento Mori. They reference the nouveux riche and the glitterati, Las Vegas and Dubai as much as Essex and Mayfair, and are as appropriate to the home, hotel and office as to the gallery and the shop. Their neutral, stereotypical and archetypal iconography are foils which present the viewer with a kind of mirror of the self.
For these are also Vanitas for the 21st century that reflect on the role that the body, media, business, commodification and consumption play in generating not just our deepest desires but the art market itself. They question the role, nature and power of the modern artist in relation to the international art world. Ultimately, they remind us that there are still real and truthful things to live for and that art can help us to live with a greater sense of authenticity and originality in an increasingly capitalistic, technological, insubstantial and unreal world.
Future projects include the development of these ideas into larger scale, more public and urban works.
Minnie Weisz Studio 123 Pancras Road Kings Cross London NW1 1UN
Preview 29th September 2011 6.30 - 8.30 Exhibition continues until 3rd November 2011
For more information contact mw@minnieweisz.co.uk
Minnie Weisz Studio Opening Times are Wednesday – Saturday 11am- 7pm, during Freeze open on Sunday 11 – 6pm www.minnieweiszstudio.co.uk
Upcoming solo show titled 'Living Truthfully in Imaginary Situations' Opens at Minnie Weisz Gallery
1 2 3 P A N C R A S R O A D K I N G' S C R O S S L O N D O N N W 1 1 U N
September 29th - October 18th 2011. For more Details contact carlhopgood@mac.com
British Artist Carl Hopgood was educated at Goldsmiths College gaining a First Class Honours Degree and was awarded an MA from Saint Martins College. He works in Video, Sculpture, Film, Photography, Print and Installation. With Exhibitions spanning across the world in places including New York, Australia and Italy.
Born: Cardiff, Wales
Education:
1990-1991 Cardiff Arts School Foundation
1991-1993 Goldsmiths College London B.A (1st) Hons
1996-1997 St. Martins College M.A
Solo Exhibitions:
1994 ‘Arrivals Departures’Karsten Schubert London
1994 ‘Arrivals Departures’ Waddington Galleries London
1997 Studio Contemporina Pino Cassagrande Rome
2003 ‘Screenings’The Groucho Club London
2007 ‘Fuck Love’ White Cubicle London
2008 ‘Fuck Love’ Sydney, Australia
2009 'Disposable Desire' Pop Up show, The Groucho Club bedrooms, London
2011 'Living Truthfully In Imaginary Situations', Minnie Weisz Gallery, London
Group Exhibitions:
1994 Goldsmiths Degree Show London
1995 ARCO Art Fair Madrid
1996 Life Is Elsewhere SpaceX Gallery Exeter
1996 Life Is Elsewhere Bracknell Gallery Reading
1997 False Impressions British School in Rome
1997 St Martins M.A Show London
1988 Art Energie Art in Jeans Florence
1999 Its What She Would Have Wanted London
2004 Barbican Arts Group Open Exhibition London
2006 Still Life, Frame Gallery Shaftsbury Avenue, London
2007 Barbican Arts Group Open Exhibition, London
2008 New Works The Groucho Club, London,
2009 Homme Made Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, New York
2009 The London Art Fair Islington
2009 SCOPE Art Show London
2009 Soho Stories Lazirides Gallery, London
2009 Outside Tape Modern Berlin, Germany
2009 New Works The Groucho Club, London
2010 New Works The Groucho Club, London
2011 Tape Modern no.19, Berlin, Germany
2011 Art Car Boot Fair, Truman Brewery, London
