The Empire Never Ended
Mon 8 Mar 2010 – Sat 17 Apr 2010
March 8th – April 17th 2010
An exhibition of new work by Jack Brindley
The Pruit Igoe housing estate is the focus of this exhibition of new work by London based artist Jack Brindley. On 16th March 1972 the world witnessed its demolition only 5 years after the project was completed, an action that heralded for many the death of Modernism. Comprised of 32 towers it was a spectacular failure of this strand of 20th Century utopian ideology.
The scenario is explored within the exhibition through a series of new works that unpack the failings within post war urban planning and the troubled relationship between architecture and social reform. The project exposes the chasm between vision and habitation, and the realities and responsibilities inherent in designing a truly progressive future.
Through processes that include lighting, drawing, sculpture and print-making these new works critique the core ethics of extreme rationalism, the monolithic and the underlying rhetoric of the Modernist ideal, with a particular interest in the post war romanticisation of proletariat life. In turn certain aesthetics of the Modernist movement are folded back further to reflect upon contemporary values of the gallery space itself as a site of artistic happening.
Jack Brindley is a London based artist and currently runs the Waterside Project Space in Angel.