GREG ROOK – SURVIVORS
2012-10-29In 1975, when Britain was seemingly grinding to a halt, with political upheaval and economic gloom threatening financial and social collapse, the BBC broadcast the incredibly successful series ‘Survivors’ (1975 -77). Based on the premise that a global pandemic could leave only a few thousand survivors in the UK, it explored the practical and political implications for a group of individuals attempting to survive and ultimately rebuild society. The concepts of self-sufficiency and commune living were extremely current both in the UK and in the US, where there are still survivalist groups and families who choose to disengage with contemporary aspiration and act ‘as if’, culture-crafting and story telling – anticipating an imminent collapse of society and constructing their lives according to this premonition.
New paintings by the artist Greg Rook explore the historical stasis brought on by the post-apocalyptic scenario depicted in the TV series ‘Survivors’, and the chasm left by potential futures once imagined. In his work, the English landscapes depicted are corrupted by the post-apocalyptic imagery rooted in us by twentieth century history, and the literature, television and cinema influenced by this two-way slipstream of history and fiction. His practice explores the politics of apocalypse: the right focuses on the battle and the final show down that will, in the final triumph of the conservative impulse, return the earth to the state it occupied at the beginning; the left focuses on a New Age, where there will be no final battle, only a glorious transition to a future of sheer bliss. In this system there is no evil, only the perception of evil and therefore perception is all that there is to change. The right wing imagines perfection only in the past, the left in what’s to come.
Exhibition runs through to November 10th, 2012
Occupy My Time Gallery
Enclave 9
Resolution Way
Deptford
London
SE8 4NT
