Superior Goods and Household Gods

About

Responding to the pervasive nature of dominant ideologies and their effects on our desire, the work in the exhibition is at once seductive and unnerving. Including new collage pieces by Sarah Hardacre alongside video works by Suzanne Posthumus and Adham Faramawy that slip in and out of the fantastical and mundane, through retro pornography, hypnotic censorship and screen based technology.

Margaret Harrison’s reproduction of a painting, which disappeared during her 1971 solo exhibition in London, depicts Hugh Hefner in a bunny girl costume. The same exhibition was also closed down by the police after just one day, on the grounds of indecency. An act that exposed the hypocrisy of an establishment comfortable with Hefner but not a man in drag, desperate to dictate what is acceptable for us to see and desire and what is not.

A new commission from Arnold Pollock will feature a live performance, filmed during the exhibition’s opening night, of a ‘Posedown’ between Pollock and international female bodybuilding competitor Karolina Botkova. There will also be a new site-specific work by Hannah Farrell which will dominate the gallery’s double height space with an enticing but intimidating installation.

Superior Goods and Household Gods is part of Wonder Women, Manchester’s feminist festival. From 1-31 March, almost all of the city’s museums and galleries, as well as other public institutions, will be staging events that celebrate female creativity and ingenuity, commemorate the suffragette movement – and ask just how far feminism has come since women first began campaigning for the right to vote 100 years ago. creativetourist.com/wonderwomen.