The Playroom

cover: JOE TILSON, Taste from ‘Five Senses Series’ (detail), 1999

25 November 2015 - 23 January 2016

the playroom ONLINE EXHIBITION

PRINTS BY ALLEN JONES / R.B. KITAJ / JOE TILSON

Marlborough London 6 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BY T: +44 20 7629 5161 E: fdama@marlboroughfineart.com www.marlboroughlondon.com

introduction

FRANCESCO DAMA

In 1970 Allen Jones exhibited for the first time a group of three fibreglass sculptures: Hatstand, Table and Chair depicted young attractive women in the role of furniture. Almost immediately, the works attracted criticism from some of the public and the press, meeting strong protests from feminists.

As often happens with highlycriticized art works, Jones’ sculptures became not only notorious, but also iconic, so that the three pieces made their way into collective imagery, inspiring the film director Stanley Kubrick for a scene of his cult movie A Clockwork Orange (1971).

The three sculptures by Jones represented a highlight within the artist’s work drawing on the most disparate sources of ‘low’ culture: girlie and fetish magazines, film posters, advertisements, billboards, pin-up calendars, newspapers, cartoon strips, blue

movies, erotic ephemera, soft-porn novels, mail-order catalogues, material often promoting a highly idealised image of the female body through anatomical distortions and exaggerations.

This imagery and research on the female figure served as a common base for a group of artist and friends that had entered the Royal College in 1959. Aiming to revitalize post-war representational art otherwise swept away by Abstract Expressionism, they were soon to be associated with the British Pop Art movement. Amongst these students were the American R.B.

Kitaj, slightly older than Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Peter Phillips and David Hockney - Joe Tilson had been at the college just a few years earlier.

In different ways and following their own interests, these artists have explored the theme of the female figure as filtered by popular culture, mixing it with examples drawn from other sources, such as art history.

Kitaj, for instance, used more or less explicit images as the main source for some of his prints. Following a common practice for Kitaj (and for the other artists of the group too), some of the imagery he later employed drew on his earlier works, in an interesting game of selfquotation. For instance, in The Red Dancer of Moscow (cat. 02) Kitaj has reused the central figure from Cutie (cat. 01), and the female head from another print, Orgasm (cat.

04) which also appears in Addled Art Minor Works Volume VI (cat. 03).

Some other prints refer directly to the art works of others: as an example, the lithograph Barcelonetta (cat. 05) plays with the theme of the prostitute in art, paying homage to Toulouse-Lautrec.

A similar approach to low-culture images can be detected in Joe Tilson’s works from the series Pages, three-dimensional wooden grids that mimicked the layout of radical newspapers and magazines of the period. Page 19, He, She, & It (cat. 10) represent the newspapers International Times, featuring screenprints of articles and images of women printed on soft pillow-like fabric, sewn by Tilson’s wife Morton.

The online show ends with a group of works by Jones from the 2000s, depicting the artist’s unmistakable eroticism.

list of works R.B. KITAJ 01 Cutie, 1974 Screenprint and collage Edition of 70 61 x 46.5 cm 02 The Red Dancer of Moscow, 1975 Screenprint Edition of 70 101.3 x 75 cm 03 Addled Art Minor Works Volume VI, 1975 Screenprint Edition of 70 104.5 x 71 cm 04 Orgasm, 1975 Lithograph Edition of 30 44.2 x 55.2 cm 05 Barcelonetta, 1979 Lithograph Edition of 100 78.8 x 56.6 cm

06 Some Do Not…, 1975 Lithograph Edition of 75 55.2 x 73.7 cm JOE TILSON 07 N.Y. Decals 1 & 2, 1967 Screenprint on cartridge paper with Glassine envelopes Edition of 70 91 x 102 cm 08 Software Chart, 1967 Screenprint on acetate film with metallised film Edition of 150 61 x 130 cm 09 Taste from ‘Five Senses Series’, 1999 Screenprint Edition of 50 80.5 x 59 cm 10 He She and It II, 1970 Intaglio print on paper Edition of 30 78.3 x 51.2 cm

11 The Bela Lugosi Journal, 1969 Screenprint Edition of 70 102.3 x 69 cm ALLEN JONES 12 Yours, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm 13 Cue, 1981 Lithograph Edition of 10 105 x 70 cm 14 Slip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm 15 Trip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm

16 Move, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm 17 Intro, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm 18 Grip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph Edition of 50 82 x 65 cm

01 R.B. KITAJ Cutie, 1974 Screenprint and collage

02 R.B. KITAJ The Red Dancer of Moscow, 1975 Screenprint

03 R.B. KITAJ Addled Art Minor Works Volume VI, 1975 Screenprint

04 R.B. KITAJ Orgasm, 1975 Lithograph

05 R.B. KITAJ Barcelonetta, 1979 Lithograph

06 R.B. KITAJ Some Do Not…, 1975 Lithograph

07 JOE TILSON N.Y. Decals 1 & 2, 1967 Screenprint on cartridge paper with Glassine envelopes

08 JOE TILSON Software Chart, 1967 Screenprint on acetate film with metallised film

09 JOE TILSON Taste from ‘Five Senses Series’, 1999 Screenprint

10 JOE TILSON He She and It II, 1970 Intaglio print on paper

11 JOE TILSON The Bela Lugosi Journal, 1969 Screenprint

12 ALLEN JONES Yours, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

13 ALLEN JONES Cue, 1981 Lithograph

14 ALLEN JONES Slip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

15 ALLEN JONES Trip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

16 ALLEN JONES Move, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

17 ALLEN JONES Intro, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

18 ALLEN JONES Grip, From Between the Sheets, 2007 Lithograph

marlborough

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Design: Shine Design, London Photography: Francis Ware Š 2015 Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.

the playroom