HERCULES : ROUGH CUT, David Blandy’s new commission for Bloomberg SPACE, explores empire, civilisation, London and language in a hypnotically rotating, mutating installation of video and voice. It is the latest work for The Homecoming, Bloomberg SPACE’s 2015 programme also featuring commissions by Adam Dant, Gayle Chong Kwan and Melanie Manchot responding to the history and architecture of the City of London.
HERCULES : ROUGH CUT refers to the Roman version of the Greek Heracles, which gave rise to a series of stories rife with internal contradictions gathered from multiple sources, that has inspired artists and writers through time. Drawing on Bloomberg’s vast archive of global financial news footage, Blandy layers and amalgamates images of the agricultural, the economic, the cultural, the political and the industrial on four screens that revolve and turn next to a large-scale projection. His pulsing poetic rap narrates an alternative history of the City of London (and the world) informed by mythology, war, disease, injustice, technology and development. He references the language, style and cadence of Roman declamations, Thomas More, Samuel Johnson, William Blake, 1950s Beat poets and contemporary street talk.
David Blandy, HERCULES : ROUGH CUT, 10th July – 19th September 2015: Private View, Thursday 9th July 2015, 6 – 8pm Bloomberg SPACE 50 Finsbury Square, London, EC2A1HD www.bloombergspace.com
About The Artist
David Blandy’s practice spans performance, video and installation to investigate popular culture and its relationship to the human experience. His work has featured in solo exhibitions and group shows including recently at BALTIC 39, Newcastle; INIVA, London; Centre d’art et photographie de Lectoure, France; ICI, Berlin; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai.
David Blandy is represented by Seventeen Gallery www.seventeengallery.com and his films are distributed through LUX www.lux.org.uk More information about David Blandy can be found at www.davidblandy.co.uk
About Bloomberg’s commissioning programme
The Bloomberg SPACE commissioning programme reflects Bloomberg’s philanthropic pass Hercules invented hip hop. Named on the basketball courts of crumbling civilisation, street lights powered block parties, merry go rounds broke the beat back to back, hop from track to track, each transition a labour, fruit from the quest for the funkadelic and the apache, the bongo beating out the beat, unique configurations induced visions from the oracle, it began.’
HERCULES : ROUGH CUT, David Blandy’s new commission for Bloomberg SPACE, explores empire, civilisation, London and language in a hypnotically rotating, mutating installation of video and voice. It is the latest work for The Homecoming, Bloomberg SPACE’s 2015 programme also featuring commissions by Adam Dant, Gayle Chong Kwan and Melanie Manchot responding to the history and architecture of the City of London.
HERCULES : ROUGH CUT refers to the Roman version of the Greek Heracles, which gave rise to a series of stories rife with internal contradictions gathered from multiple sources, that has inspired artists and writers through time. Drawing on Bloomberg’s vast archive of global financial news footage, Blandy layers and amalgamates images of the agricultural, the economic, the cultural, the political and the industrial on four screens that revolve and turn next to a large-scale projection. His pulsing poetic rap narrates an alternative history of the City of London (and the world) informed by mythology, war, disease, injustice, technology and development. He references the language, style and cadence of Roman declamations, Thomas More, Samuel Johnson, William Blake, 1950s Beat poets and contemporary street talk.
David Blandy, HERCULES : ROUGH CUT, 10th July – 19th September 2015
Bloomberg SPACE 50 Finsbury Square, London, EC2A1HD www.bloombergspace.com
About The Artist
David Blandy’s practice spans performance, video and installation to investigate popular culture and its relationship to the human experience. His work has featured in solo exhibitions and group shows including recently at BALTIC 39, Newcastle; INIVA, London; Centre d’art et photographie de Lectoure, France; ICI, Berlin; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai.
David Blandy is represented by Seventeen Gallery www.seventeengallery.com and his films are distributed through LUX www.lux.org.uk More information about David Blandy can be found at www.davidblandy.co.uk
About Bloomberg’s commissioning programme
The Bloomberg SPACE commissioning programme reflects Bloomberg’s philanthropic passion to support exciting talent and to commission new works. Since 2002, Bloomberg SPACE has worked with more than 470 artists and has commissioned over 120 new works. www.bloombergspace.com
