Sorry to disappoint, but this isn’t an exhibition about horror. That might be what it promises, but like a little girl possessed by the spirit of an ancient demon, appearances can be deceiving.
Instead, this is a slippery psychogeographical journey through 50 years of modern British history, all told through music memorabilia, contemporary art, occult ephemera, trip hop videos, disco costumes and literature. And all using the theme of horror as a framework for examining this chaotic, anxious, self-destructive mess of a nation. If that sounds like a chaotic, anxious, self-destructive mess of an exhibition, that’s because it is.
It starts in the 1970s, with punk and glam emerging out of the mire of post-war British misery. There’s David Bowie as a part-canine beast, Poly Styrene’s military helmet, flyers for ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, clothes from Vivienne Westwood’s SEX shop and the ‘Spitting Image’ puppet of Maggie Thatcher. The UK was a horror show, and all this creativity was the shocking response to it. That’s the idea.
I’m literally begging you, help me, tell me why these things are all being shown together
But then there’s some monster-tastic contemporary art: a great Tim Noble & Sue Webster silhouette sculpture, Chapman Brothers triplets conjoined by facial vaginas, monster masks by Jenkin Van Zyl and a truly terrible and upsettingly big Noel Fielding painting. By the time you get to a display of very glitzy Leigh Bowery and Pam Hogg outfits, it’s impossible to figure out how any of these works are related to each other, let alone the theme.
And this is only the first two rooms. But somehow, it only gets more confusing. Upstairs, past a breathtakingly crap Monster Chetwynd bat-human sculpture, the focus shifts to the 1980s and its nuclear anxieties. It’s so hard to figure out the links between photos of Rachel Whiteread’s ‘House’, Penny Rimbaud’s radio scanner and a copy of Roll Deep Crew’s first demo cassette. I’m literally begging you, help me, tell me why these things are all being shown together next to letters from The Fall’s Mark E Smith and the gorilla mask from ‘The Mighty Boosh’. Please.
I really want to stop listing all the crap they’ve shoved in here, but there’s literally a room of Portishead videos. Why is Derek Jarman’s ‘Blue’ here? What does Juno Calypso’s work have to do with any of this? Or David Shrigley’s? And then there’s a display of occult, witchy sculptures and costumes and I’m sorry but I just can’t. Is this a show of memorabilia, slightly spooky contemporary art, or a history of British societal turmoil? In trying to be all of those thing, it ends up being none of them, and gives you a migraine in the process. There are loads of great artworks on display and tons of fascinating ephemera, but it’s a brain melting mess, and the only real horror here is the curating.
