Exhibition

Cajsa von Zeipel. Insulting the archive

4 Jun 2017 – 29 Jul 2017

Regular hours

Sunday
10:00 – 18:00
Tuesday
10:00 – 18:00
Wednesday
10:00 – 18:00
Thursday
10:00 – 18:00
Friday
10:00 – 18:00
Saturday
10:00 – 18:00

Save Event: Cajsa von Zeipel. Insulting the archive4

I've seen this1

People who have saved this event:

close

Arcadia Missa

London, United Kingdom

Event map

Larger-than-life figures tower in a cramped room. Indignant women dominate a crowded space. Androgynous girls intimidate, in imitation of traditional sculpture.

About

Smoking, fucking, hair-pulling, von Zeipel’s figures are narcissistic youths, long-legged depictions of subcultural vitality. Challenging and exaggerating classical sculptural tropes, their features evoke images of museum collections and historical archives but these girls are no statues. Obstinately, they return the viewer's gaze, refusing to take the historical role of women in sculpture; passive, dull, plump lips slightly parted.


For Arcadia Missa, in her first UK exhibition, von Zeipel creates a group of sculptures, each one a character, but unlike her previous girl-gangs, this is a group breaking apart. Schisms form, group identities split, tribes become divided. Individuals come into focus and simultaneously fade into the background, personalities shifting away from one another. Whereas once von Zeipel’s figures formed a united front in fierce defiance, here this same antipathy turns to isolation.


If von Zeipel’s work is about group identity and forming a sense of self through a subculture, Insulting the archive reflects a shift in this paradigm. Von Zeipel’s sculptures are becoming divided and isolated as gaybars, strip joints and cheap boozers shut down and the subcultures born in them start to dwindle and a group identity dissolves. As social provisions for historically marginalised groups are stripped away, von Zeipel’s sculptures, and the people they embody, are forced turn in on themselves and against one another.

What to expect? Toggle

Exhibiting artistsToggle

Cajsa von Zeipel

Comments

Have you been to this event? Share your insights and give it a review below.