Exhibition
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow ' S Mark Gubb
15 Mar 2008 – 25 Apr 2008
Cost of entry
Free
About
S Mark Gubb explores idioms of popular culture, religion and history ranging from Scooby Doo and the Evil Dead to heavy metal and skateboarding.For his exhibition at The City Gallery Gubb has created two independent gallery spaces of only one of which any individual audience member is allowed access to.
The wall that creates this divide references the history of partition that has dominated the 20th century and continues into the 21st. In a recent performance work in London Gubb re-enacted the shocking death of Peter Fechter. He was a young dissident who died in the no man's land of the Berlin Wall between East and West in 1962.
The motif of the wall has become a preoccupation for Gubb and on either side of it sit two quite different exhibitions. The arbitrary nature of the process by which visitors are assigned to one or other exhibition suggests an absurdity to the process.
Gubb's two shows are both interesting insights into his practice, showcasing his pop cultural erudition through country music, Americana and Soviet history. One is not better than the other, just different. But by segregating the audience from something it creates a sense of injustice and a desire to experience what one has been barred from.
