20/10/15
Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-Entry
Flowers Gallery, Cork Street, London
7 October – 7 November 2015
Derek Boshier (b1937) came to
prominence as one of a generation of pop artists emerging from the Royal
College of Art in the early 70s. He left the UK soon after for Texas, initially
to teach for one semester, but ultimately remaining there for 13 years, before
moving to Los Angeles, where he now resides. Boshier has embraced a variety of
media, most recently adopting the iPad as his at-the-ready tool for capturing
images and ideas, which go on to become parts of his films and works on paper –
all of which the artist describes as “collages”.
Boshier is associated with a number
of great musicians and has produced imagery for, among others, the Clash and
David Bowie. His falling man motif used in the design for Bowie’s 1979 LP Lodger
has become iconic, as have many of his other images.
The current exhibition at Flowers
Gallery shows sketches for much of Boshier’s songbook and LP graphic design
work, as well as some of his early photographic series and spoofs of right-wing
national newspapers. Recent collages, with thick black outlines, contrast with
earlier ones, confronting consumerism and the dehumanising effect of mass
culture. A film from 1973 plays on a loop with three films from 2014, made
after he rediscovered the earlier work and decided to retry his hand at that
medium.
Rethink/Re-Entry is co-curated by
Paul Gorman, who is also the editor of a new publication of the same name,
presenting an overview of Boshier’s work, accompanied by essays by leading
academics, critics and curators, as well as a foreword by David Hockney.
Watch the interview here