Steven Shearer and Cesare Pietroiusti at the Ikon

Canadian artist Steven Shearer is currently showing at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. His work involves collecting and piecing together an archive of visual material connected to Heavy Metal subcultures. Some of the pieces are found and some of them created by the artist.  It’s fantastic and reminds me very much of my younger days, rocking out to the likes of Obituary (above - pieced together from shots I took of the artists work at the show) Iron Maiden, Slayer, Sabbath etc…



The best thing about the show was a small green and grey locked shed that looked like a tiny warehouse style playroom for kids.. inside was a speaker system that would play at a massive volume electic guitar samples with feedback and distortion. Could say lots and lots about it but simply recomend you go see it and check out his work. Very cool indeed!



There is also work in the tower room that I edited for Italian artist Cesare Pietroiusti and his Eating Money Auction...







The video shows the auction, a performance piece in which bids are placed to on the value of money to be eaten by the artists and given back to the successful bidder once passed through the human body and cleaned up.



The work challenges our perceptions of money within our society, making us question the value of paper money as an object. It also makes paper money as an object into something of a relic. Which as we become more geared towards electronic transactions, is exaclty what paper money will become. A part of history… Thought provoking.....

Wednesday 30 May 2007

Inspiration

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