KUNST the CLOWN and FRIENDS

A group show of international artists with KUNST the CLOWN

Kunst Clown (Overpainting)' Acyl on Archival Gilé Print on fuji - Orig photo Discourse on

Paul_BW_NEW_Member F18, on the summit of Y-Llwedd, Snowdonia, with The Armchair Mountainee

DICK_2 Flag of the Absurd, digital print on double georgette, stainless steel pole, bullet

Vanya Balogh
Chris Bianchi
Giulia Biccario
Kate Bland
Orlando Campbell
Cedric Christie
Paul Davis
David Fryer
Neal Fox
Bert Gilbert
Julie Goldsmith
Charlotte Hopkins-Hall
Joe Hesketh
Jimp
Dick Jewell
Seulgi Kang
Bex Massey
Viktor Mattsson
NOKI
Philip Wilson-Perkin
Paul Renner
Martin Richman
Pascal Rousson
Paul Sakoilsky
Joseph Sakoilsky
Geraldine Swayne
Gavin Turk

DREAD AND CIRCUSES

Two cannibals are eating a clown – first one turns to the second and says, ‘Is it me or does this taste funny?’

Nowadays everything tastes ‘funny’ – maybe it’s the swabs and the masks that we wear? Or is it something that runs deeper than Covid, is some other malaise surfacing as the lights go down on this pandemic?

Certainly, something wicked this way comes...but what is that rough beast heaving into view? Is there a clown in charge? Come closer, look past the white hair and painted smile, the tinsel and prosecco: you must lean in a little further to clearly make ‘it’ out. Too late – now we’re caught up in it all, have walked out onto a tightrope hanging beyond right and wrong, while balancing the truth on our nose, too scared to look down, incapable of turning back. What must we do? There is no social safety-net below: so, on we must go. The show must always go on. So on with the show.

In the spotlight, beneath the Big-Top’s darkened cone, stands another joker, another trickster. The name of this clown is Kunst (which of course, is German for ‘art’) and as we know art is all about tricks; sleight-of-hand, subverting the established order of things in its attempts at getting under the skin of things, offering a trick-mirror to the ‘Dark Times’ we are in.

This Kunst the Clown – a grease-paint-tulpa, the reflection-in-a-tear of artist Paul Sakoilsky, first manifested at Liget Galéria, Budapest in 2007 and has since haunted the galleries of Europe (like the spectre of Marx once haunted Europe’s Stadia – though now we are in different times and far scarier ghosts haunt the terraces now). Knocking things over, pulling the rug and causing mayhem are of course what we expect from clowns and artists, and here offered up is a Wunderkammer, a veritable cornucopia of art, from an unimpeachable collection of internationally renowned artists. Drink deep of the truths they reveal, the mysteries dissected, and the beauty borne forth and remember, art’s job is not only clowning around: this is serious business we are dealing with today.

So roll up, roll up and ask yourself, who’s laughing now?