Syndrome
A two-man show featuring Charles Maggs and Robert Sloon
01 - 25 July 2009
Vernissage Wednesday 01 July 18h30 - 21h00
walk-about saturday 18 july 11h00
A syndrome is a pattern of several recognizable features, signs, symptoms, phenomena or characteristics that often occur together, so that the presence of one feature suggests the presence of the others.
The title points to a nexus of related concerns for both Maggs and Sloon: conspiracism, terror, the projection of identity, iconography of power and acceleration manifest in popular, media and Internet culture. Rather than being a mere reflection of these concerns, Syndrome is instead fueled by their materialisations in everyday life, in history and in media narratives.
While there exists a commonality of concerns, both Maggs and Sloon employ different strategies, means and modes of production. The bodies of work are connected by the dialogues they suggest more than they are by their relative aspects.
While there exists a commonality of concerns, both Maggs and Sloon employ different strategies, means and modes of production. The bodies of work are connected by the dialogues they suggest more than they are by their relative aspects. Working in a range of media, Maggs and Sloon embrace dry humour, slick production and complex imagery to present a show where the paranoias of contemporary culture are both subject and object. The exhibition will be accompanied by a limited edition catalogue featuring essays by Kathryn Smith, Bettina Malcomess, and Linda Stupart.
“My current work explores multi-polar space; physical, theoretical and virtual. In the increasingly digitally networked societies we inhabit, the western democratic-capitalist mode that has evolved through the past thousand years of human history or so has few answers to the accelerative pace of an amnesiac super-modernism. While the democratic-capitalist mode is held up as the model globalised nations should emulate to operate on the world stage, a ‘post-historic’ mode appears to be an unintended yet dominant doctrine.” – Charles Maggs
“I’m particularly interested in looking at various forms of paranoia, horror, banality, conspiracy and fear and watching how they tie in to my life as a South African.” – Robert Sloon
Click here to view the artists’ website for the exhibition
Click here to read Syndrome: A short story before an exhibition by Kathryn Smith
