Statue Blessed by Pope John Paul II and Drive-by Yassir Arafat 2006
19th November -19th December 2011
Jeffrey Vallance’s reliquaries don’t contain the remains of the saints canonised by the church. They are not relics by any consensus shared by a group of believers or cult members. Instead, they are propositions, offering the suggestion that a secular culture much more focused on the individual might still have a place for ritual and even faith. Perhaps all we lack is the physical organization of our historical, political and cultural landscape, our modern day mythology even, into agreed forms like these. Bringing together a dead president, memorabilia from an audience with a pope and a king and the remains of a frozen chicken laid to rest, these carefully crafted objects go beyond the role of the performance prop as an art commodity, juxtaposing the banal, the personal and the political to form a hagiography for the present day.
Jeffrey Vallance is an artist, writer, curator, explorer, Visiting Assistant Professor in new genres at UCLA and simulacrum hunter.
xero, kline & coma 258 Hackney Road London E2 7SJ
www.xero-kline-coma.com
www.65media.com/jeffreyvallance/
