Interregnum

Curators /
Morgan Cahn, Ben Robinson, and Alex Tobin of Yuck ‘n Yum

Darren Banks
Lizz Brady
O.B. De Alessi
Kirsty McKeown
Holger Mohaupt
Thomas Moore
Janie Nicoll
Val Norris
Greer Pester
Lada Wilson

May 03 – June 02, 2018
Reception / Thursday, May 03, 6–8pm

Yuck ‘n Yum is a seven-person art collective based in Scotland and the US. This year will see the group celebrate its 10th anniversary by publishing a compendium of all their zines and opening their new exhibition Interregnum. On May 3rd there will be a live stream of the launch between SOIL Gallery in Seattle, WA (11:00-13:00) and Generator Projects in Dundee, Scotland (19:00-21:00).

Interregnum was curated from an open call to previous contributors to the zine. They are in a transitionary period as a collective, and there is something very strange occurring in the places where they live. Brexit?! Trump?! Yuck ‘n Yum now looks to its network of artists as they explore these times when normal rules no longer apply. Can people come together in this chaotic time to upend the status quo? A multitude of realities are seething and churning across the Internet and into the streets.

10 artists are putting new work into the Interregnum exhibition:

Greer Pester is exploring how the roles of men and women are changing during this uncertain time. This period of political unrest is amplifying the voices of women all around, highlighting their powers, and lack thereof in everyday life.

O.B. De Alessi’s ‘Chaoskampf’, literally “struggle against chaos,” is a mythological motif depicting the fight of a hero against a chaos monster. The series of drawings show a group of children living in the wilderness and struggling to maintain order as they battle against a horde of monsters.

Thomas Moore’s ‘9 haikus’ are expansive and emotional, the poems acting as a temporary queer space in the gallery.

Valerie Norris and Lada Wilson are both looking at definitions of the word Interregnum. Norris will have a series of new drawings exploring in-betweeness and uncertainty. Words and titles hold great importance in Wilson’s practice and she is creating an assemblage of the word and its meaning.

Holger Mohaupt’s video loop ‘Room Service’ is a journey with no destination, a travelogue of the inner self, seen through the eyes of a robot vacuum cleaner in an Air Bnb. In Kafka’s short story ‘The Transformation,’ Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find his physical self irreversibly changed. When Mohaupt woke up to the news of the Brexit vote and the success of Trump he similarly hoped it was just a bad dream.

Janie Nicoll is interested in the way that newspapers tap into the collective psyche of their intended audience, forming a readymade narrative that mirrors their cultural and political environment. Her collages evoke today’s pressing issues.

Kirsty McKeown’s collages reflect upon the political climate of the past 21 months; the interregnum between the Leave result of the EU referendum and the forthcoming leap into a “Great” British Brexit.

Lizz Brady’s video ‘The destruction of words’ marks her creation of a ‘Cartesian Dualism’ challenging the links between physical ‘stuff’ and thinking ‘stuff.’

Darren Banks’ video ‘Limbo’ sparks an uncanny clash of terror and the mundane.