Hyper-Deflation

Dean Kenning, Rosie McGinn

Thursday 21st Sept (Press Preview) 6-8pm DoL, Irwell House, East Philip St, Salford, M27LE

30/09/23 - 08/11/23 (Installation images to follow)

Division of Labour is proud to present Hyper-Deflation, featuring seminal works by Dean Kenning and Rosie McGinn.

Kenning shows blackboard diagrams Signs & Signals (2021) and Diagramming Politics (2017) and kinetic sculptures from his Untitled Rubber Plant series. McGinn shows her inflatable kinetic sculpture Howse (2018). Both artists deal with the deflationary: economic, political, emotional and literal.

Kenning’s chalkboard diagrams take on an autodidactic, systems based approach to the bio-semiotic and the socio-economic, combining allegorical and analogical modes of figuration. They are exploratory models of social, psychical, and physical reality where the working-out process is still apparent - for example Diagramming Politics (2017) constructs a relational map of alternative state models out of the so-called ’shocks’ of Trump, Brexit, Corbyn, etc. Kenning's Untitled Rubber Plants are silicon kinetic sculptures that wobble with nervous, perverse energy; pseudo-autonomous art objects on a plinth that deflate contemplative art world seriousness by conveying an idiotic and convulsive aesthetic.

McGinn's Howse is a giant, handmade, leopard-printed bingo woman, inflatable sculpture. As the air flows through the nylon structure the woman rises, her arms flinging out to each side, mimicking the frenzied moment of winning a full house. The image is of McGinn’s grandmother, who is now banned from her local bingo. Terrifying in scale and presence, while maintaining slapstick humour, Full Howse captures this moment of euphoria. The deflating of the body punctures the joy and the fleeting moment of escapism is gone.

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