Very excited to announce my latest curatorial project...
Kunstihoone
Tallinn presents young British artist Sarah Maple
Sarah
Maple
1
to 24 February 2012
Kunstihoone
Tallinn
Vabaduse
väljak 6
Tallinn
10146, Estonia
At
twenty-eight Maple has already had solo shows in Munich, Amsterdam,
Paris and London, as well as exhibiting in group shows alongside the
likes of Martin Creed and David Hockney. She now brings her very
individual brand of anarchic humour to Estonia.
Described
by Alice Jones in the Independent as “a brilliant self-publicist
and an incendiary feminist,” Maple uses her art work to challenge
traditional notions of religion, identity and the societal role of
women in multi-cultural twenty-first century Britain.
Maple's
fifth solo show in as many years will present an overview of her work
since she emerged from art college and won the Saatchi New Sensations
prize in 2007. Alongside early works including Vote for me, Salat and Haram - the portrait of herself in Muslim dress holding a piglet
that caused controversy and even death threats when it was first
shown in 2008 - will be her more recent feminist informed works. The
large scale triptych canvas Menstruate
with Pride
that received its own blog post in the Independent last year, a close
up photograph of the artist sporting a green and purple vajazzle
reading Votes
for Women,
inspired by the Suffragette movement and the Newsnight vajazzle
debate, as well the Disney lightbox series in which Maple dresses up as each of the six fairy princesses,
recontextualising them into an equal opportunities narrative:
Cinderella winning a seat in Parliament, Sleeping Beauty performing
open heart surgery and Belle managing a football team, yelling at the
players from the dugout. In these powerful works Maple tackles
taboos, wrestles them to the ground and guffawes in their face. Or,
as Antony Gormley put it: “It's
very emotive stuff. She is using the female notion of appropriateness
to explain political and personal realism.”
Maple's
approach comes out of a long feminist art historical trajectory of
using humour and herself as protagonist, becoming a warts and all
mirror to contemporary society and pop culture through the device of
self-portraiture. Her work is influenced by Sarah Lucas, Frida
Kahlo, Gillian Wearing and the timeless social commentary of William
Hogarth.
The
show was conceived by Anne Maisvee and will be co-curated by Rebeka
Poldsam and Beverley Knowles. It will be hosted with the support of
the British Council and Anne Maisvee.
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