Inverleith House, Edinburgh
November 1 to January 13 2013
4 stars
Scary monsters and super-creeps abound in the Berlin-based artist
formerly known as Andreas Hofer's first UK museum exhibition, which
features five new works among an epic forty-one on show. Seen side by
side, there are moments when they resemble an outsize pulp fiction
collage of pop culture ephemera swirling around Hofer's brain,
over-lapping each other as they burst through the frame. Even the fact
that Andy Hope 1930 has a secret identity speaks volumes about where
he's coming from.
Because, drawing a line between Roy Lichtenstein and Daniel Johnston,
Andy Hope 1930 takes the trash aesthetic of golden age comic book
iconography and invests it with a subverted mythology born of the more
questioning, me-generation years. So, against a Zabriskie Point style
landscape in 'Impressions d'Amerique', Batman and Robin are dressed as
The Lone Ranger and Tonto, making the umbilical link between
existentialist outlaw (super)heroes of old and new America as he goes.
The nod to French proto-surrealist Raymond Roussel, who so influenced
a generation of New York poets, is as knowing as the wonkified
charity-shop Kurt Schwitters homage, the portrait of John Baldessari as
Marvel Comics super-villain Galactus, which comes complete with extra
added Jesus, and the strip cartoon take of Linda Lee as Supergirl.
Because, amongst the desolate landscapes that recall the early work of
Wim Wenders, another German fascinated with the Wild West reinvented as
post-war counter-culture, Andy Hope 1930 needs heroes to call his own.
Of course, there are dinosaurs, be they larger than life and hidden
behind wall-papered candy-stripes, or pocket-sized and contained, as
they are in 'The Education Dinosaur Movie Hall'. This earth's core
installation is a cardboard box peep-show into a Ray Harryhausen-style
parallel universe where dinosaurs watch science-fiction B-movies at the
local drive-in. As evolution goes, it's a spaced oddity, for sure.
The List, November 2012
ends
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