Exhibition
Gail Olding and Joanna Ciechanowska
1 Feb 2015 – 13 Feb 2015
Regular hours
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Wednesday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 22:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 21:00
Cost of entry
free
Address
- 238 - 246 King Street,
- Hammersmith
- London
- W6 0RF
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Bus 391 190 267 H91
- Tube Ravenscourt Park
- District Linę
Gail Olding and Joanna Ciechanowska - 'All Men Aren't Experts'
About
Gail Olding
All Men Aren’t Experts
2015
Gail Olding
'All Men Aren’t Experts' is an installation of objects which are made from recycled metals. They are roughly formed and put together to evoke a sense of past. They contain chemical elements and a branding Iron. Referring to Bible stories and the role of Nazi fanaticism during the Second World War. The works challenge the viewer to question our historic past, the complexities of power and control through politics and religion.
The Swastika branding Iron symbolises the Fanaticism of Hitler’s desire to brand the world with Aryan ideals for a purified super race . In contemporary society, Iconic symbolism is branded, labelled and sold via mass marketing, branding is the tool used to sell everything. We live in the world of Global branding, even wars are branded trading on the belief of Belonging to a tribe, other tribes threaten survival and must therefore destroyed.
The branding Iron is locked away in a bullet proof glass and steel cabinet, however, the key to unlock it hangs on the wall. The large chrome bullet sheds a tear of blood, in regret of war and killing.
The barrow of salt pays homage to Lots wife, who in the bible, turns to glance back at Sodom and Gomorrah which burns with fire and brimstone, symbolised with rock sulphur and ash in the next trolley. As Lots wife looks back for a moment of nostalgia for the past she pays with her life as she is turned by God, to a pillar of salt.
This collection of objects through The Bible and the Holocaust reflect on the title All Men Aren’t Experts, raising the question of Male power throughout history.
Joanna Ciechanowska
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is inspired by Henryk Górecki' music of the same title. He wrote this now famous piece after reading about the discovery of a message 'Mother, don't cry' scratched on the wall of a Gestapo cell in Cracow, by an 18 years old girl, who was tortured and died there during the war.
The image is a photo of a torn poster, to which the writing has been added.
Confrontation Is a photograph taken of a poster torn of the wall in an underground station. The silhouette of a bird was accidental of what was left on the wall. Later a digitally created multiplied pattern arrived as a natural progression of what I saw as a war-like bird.