The Nasty Book (or ÉL)
ELI CRAVEN, LYDIA MCCAIG
An off-site THE SECOND ACT exhibition hosted and curated by Division of Labour.
‘The Nasty Book’ is the second interpretation of the exhibition ‘The Tempation of..’ which took place between August and September 2024 at THE SECOND ACT in London. Hosted and curated by Division of Labour, curator Nat Pitt looks at the commonalities in the work of Eli Craven and Lydia McCaig using the idea of libidinal economy by which the libido is a form of flowing energy through a system of drives; desire, erotism, sexuality, and death that are interlinked and intrinsic to neo-liberalism.
ELI CRAVEN
The term Soap Opera was coined in the US as early as 1934 where the main sponsors for
daily serial melodramas on radio and TV were cleaning product and soap companies who
identified ‘housewives’ as their biggest audiences.
Soap Opera is an ongoing series by the artist Eli Craven, photographs are composed of still images from daytime soap operas transformed through the artist’s sculptural frames. The frames are painted with sensual soft colours or rendered in seductive hardwoods, they pull the viewer in with selective peepholes and mirrored metal panels that conceal and fragment situations between character actors, they intensify the spectacle and frustrate the drama of the scene.
There is an undeniable relationship between the subconscious choices in his artwork and the environment in which he was raised. In his childhood home, magazines and movies were censored, select films and TV shows were forbidden, sexuality and death were seldom discussed. The power images held were discovered through scrutinizing forbidden magazine collections, daytime soap operas, and movies. The impetus of his practice resides in the desire to see, only to discover nothing shocking. Instead, seemingly mundane imagery is isolated and fragmented, presenting a narrative exploring the inevitable, bizarre, and erotic nature of images.
“Ultimately the Soap Opera works manifest television fantasy into physical object in order to explore the act of looking and the desire to see what is hidden.” Eli Craven
LYDIA MCCAIG
'Indulgence was a Papal remission for the temporal punishment in purgatory, a payment in exchange for less time spent between heaven and earth. And where no indulgences were afforded the most committed dutiful slaves and surfs would exchange their labours, submission, and devotion in a long search for absolution. Later Chaucer wrote the Tale of the Pardoner about the swindle and unrestricted sales of indulgences as a widespread abuse during the later Middle Ages.'
McCaig returns to her formative years of exposure to the values of the Church, reflecting on how religious teachings on sex at an early age, ignited a personal tension between the indoctrination to resist temptation; and a natural curiosity to explore ‘sin.’ These lessons in morality created both a ‘Catholic Guilt’ and an obsessive interest in the hidden, the secret pursuits of desire and the body ultimately manifesting as a clandestine immersion into erotica and sex. In this work she uses found images of religious iconography and ecclesiastical spaces, as a device, representing this personal conflict. McCaig isolates her own sexualised gaze on the religious composition of these found images, seeking out the shrouded salacious acts hidden in plain sight.
The title of this exhibition is derived from the philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard 1974 release of the book; Libidinal Economy, (Économie Libidinale’) In the text Lyotard distances himself from critical theory and to some degree Marxism to re-examine Freud’s earlier work on desire. Then, 14 years later he renounced this essay calling it the 'livre méchant' or literally; 'the nasty book'
Eli Craven (b. 1979) is an artist based in Lafayette, Indiana where he is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Purdue University. Craven’s research resides in the critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at KlompChing Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, at the South Bend Museum of Art's 31st Biennial, and at Feinkunst Krüger Gallery in Hamburg, Germany. His work has also been widely published. Select publications and clients include Philosophie Magazine, The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Gestalten Publishing Berlin, Penguin Random House Barcelona, and The Paris National Opera.
Lydia McCaig (1997), graduated Lancaster University 2019.
Lydia McCaig’s practice is multidisciplinary, exploring the interplay between female sexuality/feminism, seduction/male gaze and erotica/objectification. She navigates these topics, primarily through performative photographic works, audio, video, installation and narrative texts. McCaig locates her own body as a site from which to make performative gestures that propose the personal as political, the unsaid as universal and desire in all its forms as an imagined space we occasionally share.
Division of Labour (est. 2014)
Division of Labour is a contemporary art gallery representing fourteen artists interested in work, labour and leisure.
THE SECOND ACT (est. 2020)
THE SECOND ACT is a young contemporary gallery with roots in the North of England born. out of a frustration in the lack of opportunities for Northern and working-class artists, and for artists living outside major cities. We are addressing the disparity in the representation of artists, by supporting marginalised artists and challenging the status quo that has become the accepted standard in artist- gallery relationships, through a value-led approach.