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Pop After Facebook Stuart Semple Presents an Exhibition of New Artists

This summer British artist Stuart Semple tackles the concept of the visual 'Mash-Up' in his first curated group show in London.

Already acclaimed by critics internationally for his challenging curated projects, this time Semple will take the concept of appropriation, and the re-articulation of mass culture to the heart of the system.

Featuring 5 of the UK's most fascinating young artists, this show promises more than just a bright and glossy homage to pop, but an interesting insight into how a new generation make sense of the complexities of mass culture. The private view will also be feature a live performance and interactive music video shoot by top 20 band Subliminal Girls.

"Any elements, no matter where they are taken from, can be used to make new combinations"

- Guy Debord, Gil J Wolman

'A users guide to Detournement'

This generation is unique in as much as it's the last generation that will remember life before the home computer, mobile phone, music video, mass marketing and instant archive that is the Internet. The last generation that could recall such dramatic changes was that of their great grandparents who remembered life before the airplane, telephone and space travel.

'Mash-Ups' will be held at the Design and Artists Copyright Society's Kowalsky Gallery. Each year DACS collects and pays millions of pounds worth of royalties to artists. They represent over 52,000 UK and international artists including some of the biggest names in contemporary visual arts.

Featuring works by:

Nicky Carvell

Piers Secunda

Nathan James

Stuart Semple

Adham Faramawy

Subliminal Girls

Curated by Stuart Semple

Kowalsky Gallery at DACS

16th July- 19th September 2008

Private View : 15th July

Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm by appointment

33 Great Sutton St, London EC1V 0DX

020 7336 8811

http://www.kowalskygallery.co.uk

From Stuart Semple:

"In a way we are a generation of mutants, the flower power world of our parents with a new technology tacked on for a new world. The first wave of lab rats scavenging a landfill of cultural detritus. Far from feel-good nostalgia I believe the artists in this show are creating Mash-ups from these found elements that result in works that tell us where we are in art, community and society.

They show us that far from being victim to the process we can use it to make our own narratives. This is increasingly important when global warming, terrorism and war proliferate the media, when we are lost between the graphic perfection of popular culture, fashion and fin de siecle anxieties.

Culturally I believe our ties have become electronic and the individual everything. Our experience can be personalized under a cloud of false choice. Community is replaced with MySpace, Facebook and what we watched last on youtube.com. Even the results of the football game or catchphrase from the latest comedy sketch show, which used to create a bond, are decaying faster and faster.

We are so bombarded and atomized that we no longer have the ability to navigate. When cultural product becomes waste almost at conception do we remember how to decode popular culture

The brands, logos, pop songs, celebrities and popular imagery that engulf us are corporately owned memes that can be changed within minutes of a boardroom finger snap."

"The most beautiful thing in Tokyo is McDonald's

The most beautiful thing in Stockholm is McDonald's. The most beautiful thing in Florence is McDonald's. Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet."

- Andy Warhol, (The Philosophy of Andy Warhol)

After the Second World War 'Pop artists' celebrated the blissful promise of the neon supermarket, shiny metal toasters, fast food and automobiles of the future. Since then the pace of consumer culture has gone into overdrive. Fluent with its elements, the artists in this exhibition understand how to re-mix them to create new meanings, navigate their atomized environments and define themselves.

"OUT OF THE RUINS

OUT FROM THE WRECKAGE

CANT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE THIS TIME

WE ARE THE CHILDREN

THE LAST GENERATION

WE ARE THE ONES THEY LEFT BEHIND

AND I WONDER WHEN WE ARE EVER GONNA CHANGE

LIVING UNDER THE FEAR, TILL NOTHING ELSE REMAINS

WE DONT NEED ANOTHER HERO

WE DONT NEED TO KNOW THE WAY HOME"

-    Tina Turner, 'We don't need another hero'

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