M is presenting the first Belgian overview of the varied works of British artist Angus Fairhurst (1966-2008). Fairhurst was one of the most influential members of the group of artists who became known as the ‘Young British Artists’ (YBA) in the late ‘80s. They were associated with London’s Goldsmiths College and set the tone for contemporary art in the United Kingdom for two decades.
The exhibition at M presents examples from his entire oeuvre, which encompasses various media. Paintings, performance, animation, photography, video, sculpture, music, prints, drawings and collages demonstrate the versatility of an artist who transcends any particular category. His works touch on subjects such as desire, sex, death, the emptiness of gestures or the power of advertising.
A careful examination of the society of the spectacle
Repetition and opposition form the core of his artistic approach. Just as monumental figures such as Samuel Beckett and Bruce Nauman did, Fairhurst discusses the absurdity of life: we are born, we wake up, we sleep and we are destined to die. Any possible meaning is confronted with its own caricature, its own comedy.
His work deals with a number of themes; Fairhurst makes us reflect on our current society of the spectacle with a consistently distinctive, absurd sense of humour. He extracts images and text from both colourful, seductive advertisements and fashion magazines, which he then combines into unique collages, so that only conceptual apparitions remain.
The comic icon of the ‘gorilla’
Fairhurst was a great lover of nature and the interplay between nature and art is a recurring theme throughout his oeuvre. He was fascinated by the ‘gorilla’ as a comic icon. His early cartoons depict humans and animals engaged in unlikely household or comic situations.
The 1995 video A Cheap and Ill-Fitting Gorilla Suit will be shown in the M auditorium. In the video, a figure jumps up and down in a gorilla suit. The stuffing begins to fall out, until the suit eventually falls apart and the artist himself is revealed, naked. Fairhurst also created various monumental bronze gorillas, such as A Couple of Differences Between Thinking and Feeling II (2003).