Lazarides and The Vinyl Factory, joined their forces to bring an exceptional group show to art lovers at the peak of London art week. Brutal is an annual off-site exhibition set up in the abandoned office building the middle of Temple area in Central London. Private view of this large show was held on Monday, 14th of October, and the showcased works and installations impressed the crowd that came to witness a sensory feast only suitable for the brave and forward thinking. Spread in a large space where business offices used to be years ago, this show included some chilling artworks and installations of different mediums. The falling apart space that literally smells old and stale, was injected with a new life through these works that were exhibited there, showing the other, more creative way of using such spaces, and each visitor could experience that.
The show starts with two murals by DALeast at the entrance of the show, showing an antelope getting caught and ripped apart by a lion and a figurative bench on the opposite side of it, accented with strong bright red versus black contrast. He shows an excellent use of the architecture by “placing” the viewer on the bench to observe the carnage happening in front of them. With this piece Dal once again proved his spot on the list of promising emerging young artists, and got everyone even more interested in his upcoming solo show with Lazarides in Newcastle.
Once in the main area, visitors get literally lost between abandoned hallways and rooms. One thing that attracted everyone’s attention in this area is a massive Cleon Peterson black and white mural (seen above and similar to a recent piece in LA) showing another sort of art carnage. Next to it, there is a massive A Forest of Missing installation by Know Hope with big thick logs raising from the deep black waters, with squares cut out of the middle of them. Sort of continuing to his installation from The Weight show (covered) in LA last year, the Israeli artist once again shows his love for the use of natural materials with simple but effective concepts. Around the corner from this peaceful install, a Brutal Animation video installation by Todd James shows comic war machines fighting each other to death and taking over the world in a confusingly amusing and fun way.
The other part of the main area includes a Two Flat shed installation by POSE, and a massive canvas by Conor Harrington showing off his incredible talent for realistic painting, but also a need to experiment with the technique and mediums used by creating sort of a visual interference effect to his work. On the other side of the room, matching his color palette, are series of Estevan Oriol’s Street Life Photos giving us an inside look into life of gangs on the streets of LA. Just around the corner from these, a huge black & white canvas by Katrin Fridriks from her Stendahl Syndrome series mesmerized viewers with its incredible splatter effects. With the paint drying in a way so it creates patterns that look like woods or some other natural elements, the piece is looking both incredible seen from a distance or examined up close. Next to it there are 3 other large round canvases showing her more colorful work. Further down from there are Mark Jenkins tape sculptures, standing in frozen time, looking like they are about to start moving any moment. The next room houses a couple of recognizable Antony Micallef paintings are adjacent to a complex Lucy Mclauchlan room installation where wall paintings are connected with a net of thick ropes. A huge Moonland audio/video installation by Doug Foster in which loud deep noises perfectly accompany patterns that are flashing and moving around a huge wide screen is one of the last installs. The show ends with bright and light Brutal Canvases by the Miaz Brothers displayed at the very end of the venue.
Photos credit: saL.
