Combining political comment with comical authority to poignant effect, Graham Hudson’s first London solo exhibition mixes sound, text and appropriation to explore issues of conflict in our modern world.
Crammed between the pillars in the front gallery, Hudson presented a lifesize replica of a Challenger tank. A familiar TV War image, closer inspection reveals that the tank’s United Nations white livery is constructed from a skin of discarded kitchen cabinets. Through his use of domestic debris Hudson brings an icon of military power and aggression into the home, fusing the domestic with the global.
The audiovisual installation ‘TV Musical Western War’ juxtaposed Geoff Love and his Orchestra’s classic vinyl ‘Greatest War Themes’, ‘Greatest TV Hits’, ‘Greatest Musical Memories’ and ‘Greatest Western Themes’ in a theatrical conflict. Played simultaneously on four record players the result is a series of sublime moments followed by audio hysteria, generating an ever-changing original score.
Continuing his interest in cultural critique, Crucifixion was exhibited for the first time as a typographic installation laid out full bleed across the back gallery wall. The work lists the medical conditions incurred on the body during the act of crucifixion, ordered anatomically and sized according to their prominence as a cause of death. Using the style of clubflyer-chic aesthetic, Hudson offers a re-evaluation of a religious icon that has long lost its potency.
