Hierarchies of Allegiance
17 September – 17 October 2010
The Royal Standard is pleased to present Hierarchies of Allegiance, one of two exhibitions during the Liverpool Biennial. This group exhibition brings together U.K based artists whose work encompasses film, performance, drawing and installation. Artists: Christian Newby | Jonathan Baldock | Pil and Galia Kollectiv.
Linked as much by the artists’ interests in examining art historical figures as by their sensitivity to myth, custom and symbolism, the works in Hierarchies of Allegianceshare a rich aesthetic that references the uncanny, the darkly humourous and the melancholic. Each artist engages with a particular socio-cultural subject with which they have strongly identified, reconfiguring it in unique ways, to parody social traditions and mediate on the relationships between ceremony, theatre and arcane ritual.
TALK AND EVENTS:
Thursday 16 September 2010, at 7.30pm
Performance. Pil and Galia Kollectiv will perform their most recent commissioned performance, WE, with Victor Jakeman and Ruth Angel Edwards. Challenging the individualism of the Western pop song, WE reveals the latent politics of the love song and transforms chart hits by annihilating their liberal subject and replacing it with a collective consciousness. Through the simple substitution of the plural for the singular, intimacy becomes a form of collective action and the unique the universal. Inspired by the dystopian fiction of Yevgeny Zamyatin and the minimal synth covers of pop classics made by obscure DiY groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s, WE follows in the footsteps of bands like The Better Beatles, who sought to improve on the canon of popular music by stripping it bare.
Saturday 2 October 6pm
A screening. Pil and Galia Kollectiv’s films including ‘The Future Trilogy’ series (2006-2009), ‘Conflict Within the Organization’ (2010) and ‘Co-Operative Explanatory Capabilities in Organizational Design and Personnel Management’ (2010).
Saturday 16 October 2pm
Artist talk. Jonathan Baldock in conversation with curators Lucy MacDonald and Laura Robertson.
Venue details
Pil and Galia Kollectiv ‘WE’