Peter Liversidge @ Kate McGarry

Our goodest friend, HP, has this wonderful way of summing up cultural appropriation in the arts. HP acts it out with a wonderful tableau; mimes picking something up (the hottttt topic), holding it in their hand, nose in the air —— ‘i think i’ll take this one’,-,-,-, n then casts it aside. HP calls the action: vvvvv colonial (it so is). And white artists think they are entitled to pick things up like this - pick any topic that’s HoT hOt HoTtT & use it {for soft capital: social, cultural, intellectual} regardless of agency, right to speak, who they’re talking over, who they’re robbing, and regardless of their own position REGaRding the questions that arise as a result of them using some hot stufffff in their art etcetcetc. Lessbe honest, minority culture has always been ~cool~ (i am v interested atm in the idea of ~coolness~ esp in relation to streetwear n creps, bc of these reasons) that whole thing about subculture leaking into the mainstream //// the mainstream robbing minority cultural creators oF thEiR CREATIONs. White artists ca$h in on this ! 👏🏾  every! 👏🏾  single! 👏🏾  god! 👏🏾  damn! 👏🏾   day 👏🏾👏🏾

In a darker twist; it can also be a performative vacant nod towards ur own white/cis/het/ male/whateva guilt without having to take responsibility for ur own complicity/position in any of ^^^ the above.

U perform ur self- deprecation to appear good instead of taking responsibility for ur privilege. But in picking these topics up like slippers: u literally just are exercising ur privilege. We have been thinking about this a lot this past month; and we have been thinking about HP’s re- enactment always always bc this process is pinching and violent.

Peter Liversidge’s show at Kate McGarry gallery did thissssssssurghhhh.

There is a letter on the wall as you first walk in like contextual small print that guides u and says this is an exhibition about the phenomena~ practice of looking for faces in everyday things, which is fine and funny because just the day before we had been driving on the motorway and there was a big van that looked like it was looking at us. Ye okay. Except 1. this wasn’t an exhibition of sculptures and images that had incidental faces in their spirit, that for the record would have been much more interesting tbh bc encounter in art is so nice to witness. well anyway, Instead, the artist had carved and poked and collaged his own emoticon eyes and mouths into objects. disappointing yeah - but the things the faces were on!!, that is what bothers us : : : There was a grid of A4 pages of ~exotic~ places and people on the wall ripped from a fucking Thomas Cooke brochure by the looks of things, images that included a mosque minaret, over which Liversidge had stuck two eyes and a mouth. He had done the same to ~exotic~ rugs, hanging them on the wall because the artist can pick things up, inscribe their YT signature TM on it, and turn an item into art through signature. they take it for their own. n no one questions what he’s done to the chosen canvas (but we doooooooo lol). like WHYYYYY COULDNT U HAVE JUST STAYED IN YOUR LANE ANd put some googly eyes on a shagggggy rug or a bath mat idk. Put some funny eyes over white people and bread.

o also, there was a bloody neon wasn’t there. of course there was.

Why hasn’t Peter Liversidge been asked about the colonial way he’s picked these things up and then not addressed them anywhere. is that silence privilege???? to be able to pick up topics that have the baggage of alterity, that brown artists are pigeon-holed with;;;;; and then, as a YT artist, to be able to speak about that thing neutrally =blase= =c=a=s=u=a=l….. fucks sake :)

Fam, how am I supposed to look at this without thinking about all of the above?

idk why i went lololololol.

! it’s a bloody epidemick.