Play Yourself

Gimpel Fils, London
12 Jul – 1 Sep 2007

Mark Dean, Graham Dolphin, Seamus Harahan, Stefan Hirsig, Juneau Projects, David Moreno, Muzi Quawson, Lucy Stein


bibliography:
JJ Charlesworth, ‘Play Yourself’, Time Out no 1928, 2007
Susanna Haddon, ‘Play Yourself at Gimpel Fils’, Artvehicle no 22, July 2007

exhibited works:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Band

 

gallery information:

Play Yourself was the mantra of jazz musician Charles Mingus who encouraged improvisation and a style of playing that would best express the musician’s personality and mood. The works in this exhibition explore the ability of music to not only express our identities, but also how music is central to the formation and maintenance of those identities. Play Yourself is however an ambiguous phrase: at once encouraging, it is also challenging. Play yourself: express yourself. Play yourself: do it yourself. The variety of artworks included here encompass the multiplicities of the phrase with fascinating results.

Song samples are repeated, remixed and replayed, to create new forms of visual and aural representations in Mark Dean’s multiple screen DVD. The Band combines four unique performances and music genres to create a band that doesn’t exist in reality. Three musicians of varying degrees of fame accompany fragments of their own previously-released material while a group of school children sing a verse from A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The effect is magical and eerie as different generations use music as personal expression to different ends.’