4 October 2013

Internationally renowned artist creates new world at Cooper Gallery

A specially created exhibition of work from Georgina Starr, who along with the likes of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin formed part of the Young British Artists movement, will open at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) next week.

'Before Le Cerveau Affame' opens at DJCAD's Cooper Gallery with a preview evening on Thursday, 10th October. Best known for her video, sound, performance and installation works, Starr's practice revolves around the amalgamation of dream, fiction, memory and re-enactment in creating complex and multi-layered art.

This is evident in the exhibition, which has been informed by the Cooper Gallery's unique architectural setting to create a space for metaphysical transformation. Le Cerveau Affame (The Hungry Brain) is both a place and a game that one may or may not be invited to play. It is entered by selecting a playing card, each of which proposes a different journey.

In the exhibition, Starr offers a glimpse into 'Le Cerveau' and introduces viewers to its main motifs, the four suits of 'The Brain', 'The Bubble', 'The Cat' and 'The Hand'.

'The Cooper Gallery is proud to present this exhibition by one of the most original and distinctive contemporary British artists,' said curator Sophia Hao. 'Georgina Starr has been celebrated internationally since the 1990s for her magically complex, layered works.

'An abiding preoccupation has been the conception of other possible worlds, but these worlds are more than just the creative imaginings of an artist. Her work is an intense and introspective cosmology and, by combining fiction, history, philosophy and spiritualism, she propels the self into an abyss held fast between what was, is and could be.'

Georgina Starr rose to prominence in the early 1990s and was included in many international exhibitions of the YBA era with works including Crying (1993), The Nine Collections of the 7th Museum (1994), Visit to a Small Planet (1995), Hypnodreamdruff (1996), The Bunny Lake Series (1999-2003) Theda (2007-10), and The Joyful Mysteries of Junior (2012).

Starr's work was once described by the Guardian critic Jonathan Jones as 'one of the most intense encounters we have with art', and by Artforum magazine as exploring 'the imaginative self's ability to make something magically complex, layered and densely referential out of virtually nothing but its own 'stuff''.

Georgina Starr originally studied Ceramics and Sculpture and went on to make large-scale installations incorporating video, sound and performance. Over the last 20 years her works have been shown at Tate, MOMA New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunsthalle Vienna, Venice Biennale and in many galleries and museums worldwide.

'Before Le Cerveau Affame' opens with a preview evening at the Cooper Gallery, DJCAD, from 5.30-8pm on Thursday, 10th October. It will remain on display until 13th December.

More information is available by contacting exhibitions@dundee.ac.uk or calling 01382 385330.

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