Maquette soundtrack3/16/2024 ![]() As the piece progresses the spiral spins increasingly fast accompanied by the pulsing soundtrack of a man repeatedly singing “I can’t see the things that make true happiness I must be blind”. On either side a mirrored and doubled black & white image of a woman wearing a vintage motorcycle helmet that echoes the central image lies on the ground, but the image has been inverted so she appears crucified on an impossible slope. I Can’t See (Twisted) 1999/2004 features a black and white graphic like a spiraling tunnel rotating against a black background at the centre of the triptych. It is a gesture that seems to amplify the suspect atmosphere that permeates the looped triumvirate of triptychs Dean has constructed from Heavy Metal and Punk songs, B movies, Hollywood classics and German cinema. But rather than utilizing the wide-screen format that is integrated into Sketch’s Kubrick-esque interior, Dean has chosen to trade its inherent polish for a more intrusive idea of scale, showing the works in 4:3 academy ratio so that they spill untidily out of their expected frame to encroach on the high-backed benches, the top of doors and other architectural details. The exhibition comprises three new works – some of which remix material that previously existed as single screen videos – especially constructed by Dean to respond to the specificity of the projection configuration at Sketch. Disco Maquette conjures up the idea of both remixes and sculptural models. He frequently references heightened states – fear, powerlessness, revulsion, ecstasy – but distends them, at once negating their sense of narrative agency whilst multiplying their temporal potency to present the viewer with hypnotic continuums that tap directly into our emotional and psychological landscapes. Dean uses an explicitly mechanical vocabulary to create his work, but the results are as strangely affecting as they are mathematical in construction. He samples tiny moments of information and weaves them together, mutating and interrelating disparate sources using coincidental linkages and similarities to generate new structures. Instead he treats them like raw material. Some viewers will recognise the fragments of songs, the faces of actors or culled quotes and some will not. To Dean the original form and narrative of these sources is not something that determines his work. ![]() Mark Dean predominantly works by culling information from previously existing cultural material – films, literature and popular music – to create his work. Go Together (The Wild One x 2 – 17) + Untitled (Grace) I Can’t See (Vertigo) + Untitled (Twisted Motorcycle Gang) Joel Robinson, ‘London: Disco Maquette’, Art Papers, January/February 2005 Ian Hunt, ‘Mark Dean’, Art Monthly no.279, September 2004 ‘Pick of the Week: Mark Dean: Disco Maquette’ Guardian Guide, 28 August 2004 Martin Coomer, ‘Mark Dean: Disco Maquette’, Time Out No.1774 July 2004
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |