Patrick Goddard, Trip To Eclipse

About

The work centres around an audio piece which sees the artist narrating a tale of a man and his talking dog, Whoopsie, as they take a walk in a newly built imitation abandoned warehouse. As they walk and talk they encounter broken glass curated across the floor, an Arts Council funded climbing frame and a rave organised by the local MP.

Trip To Eclipse takes its title from a 1990s clothing label more popular in school playgrounds than in the actual rave culture that it so desperately gestured towards. The bomber jackets, ultra-baggy jeans and record bags featured the characters Spliffy (white guy with dreadlocks, smokes a spliff) or Eclipse (seems to be doing graffiti, also smokes a spliff).

For Goddard the Eclipse brand complicates notions of authenticity. Vended on markets rather than sold in shops, the merchandise at the time exemplified naff imitation goods crudely ripping off the tropes of a legitimate cultural movement. Today, the nostalgic urge revaluates (or is perhaps entirely ignorant of) this hierarchy. Spliffy jeans take on a retro caché as a genuine relic from a more authentic time; the type of misappraisal that late capitalism feeds on.

Goddard previously exhibited at Matt's Gallery as part of Revolver II in 2014. In 2016 he was one of 3 artists who completed the Blackrock Residency, a collaboration between Matt's Gallery and the Lydney Park Estate.

Trip To Eclipse will be accompanied by the third instalment in our ongoing series of artist interviews.

Patrick Goddard is represented by Seventeen Gallery.

For further information or visual material please contact us on 020 7237 0398 or email info@mattsgallery.org.

Matt’s Gallery thanks the Arts Council England and Ron Henocq Fine Art for their generous support.