In the land of fixed wheel bikes and hipsterdom, a highly inventive advertising agency-cum-gallery-cum-bookshop is playing host to an exciting collaborative project offering its own unique take on the Olympics.
Showing at the KK Outlet in east London’s Hoxton Square until 31 August, Art Relay brings together specially-commissioned graphic prints, photography, video art, sculpture and interactive installations by a range of artists, designers and musicians from across the globe.
Art Relay works in the same way as a regular relay, but instead of a baton, participants pass on a piece of art to the next member of their team until a final artwork is produced.
“The idea for the show is a response to the Olympics, but not in a tokenistic sense,” explained curator Danielle Pender. “Really, it’s about working with people previously not on our radar, introducing them to our regular collaborators and handing over the curatorial role to them. This left it very open and no one person could predict the outcome, very much like the Olympics.”
Art Relay is a gloriously eclectic jamboree, a celebration of what can be achieved when a meeting of great artistic minds come together. Work jostling for attention in this creative playground includes: Danny Sangra’s video montage of Olympic highlights featuring Daley Thompson, the British decathlon gold medal winner in 1980 and 1984; irreverent sculptures of construction worker helmets sprouting missiles and CCTV cameras from Andrew Friend, Sitraka Rakotoniaina, Gerard Rallo and James Bridle; and Craig Oldham’s The Print Project, a kitsch poster with Gold mirror board lettering that reads, ‘It’s not the winning but the taking drugs that counts’.
Tackling themes of patriotism and identity, victory and failure, as well as darker aspects such as doping, surveillance and displacement, Art Relay offers a vibrant yet anarchic perspective on the great sporting event that has gripped the nation this summer.
Said Pender: “I’d like people to leave with a sense of the good and bad which surrounds the Olympics, and also an understanding of how the artists have worked together in different ways to create one body of work.”
As for London 2012, Pender is suitably in thrall to the action. “I love the Olympics! I’ve been engrossed in the cycling, swimming, gymnastics and now the athletics. I’m always amazed at what the human body can achieve.”
More information on the Art Relay exhibition at www.artrelay.co.uk
