Lazarides Gallery are gearing up to present “Poison”, a major nine-day site-specific exhibition of new work by Paul Insect in an out of gallery location – a former bath house in King’s Cross.
At odds with the location and in contrast with the contrived health and voluptuousness of the classic Playboy bunny, twelve skeletal bunny girls are the stars of this show. Luridly coloured with a metallic paint (like Miss August above) the bronze sculptures, entitled ‘Playmates’, reveal Insect’s concern to pick over and appropriate the visual vocabulary of popular culture, and subvert it with a satirist’s eye. The ‘Playmates’ presented in this exhibition are hardly the fantasy calendar girls of our collective dreams but instead offer a savage and witty comment on sexuality in the consumer age. As our heroines sport kitsch memorabilia (including Heffner-esque bunny ears and a cast of the fangs worn by Udo Kier in Andy Warhol’s cult 1974 film Blood for Dracula), and adopt sometimes less-than-ladylike poses, they show how the margins of exploitation and erotica, sex and death, can become intriguingly blurred.
The exact location of the new exhibition will be revealed on 11th September on the Laz website.
We’ll also have a gallery and interview coming very soon, so watch this space
- Tags: Laz Inc, Lazarides Gallery, London, Offsite, Paul Insect
