MASTERDRIVE: 25th – 29th APRIL 2007
“It’s not the getting there that counts it’s the drive, the radio on full and the wind running through your hair”
Masterdrive is not only about being driven, in the sense of a manifest purposefulness. Nor is it only concerned with having an ideology or a paradigm in life as one might find in art.
Rather, it is about deploying one single drive that sits atop a hierarchy of other impulses. It is in the service of this ‘Masterdrive’ that we find all other human drives.
The ‘Masterdrive’ show is a group exhibition in which the work of 12 young artists will be exhibited in a warehouse in Hackney Wick. For many of these artists the space is also home, but this buzzing art factory has an imminent expiry date. It is due to be demolished to make way for the media centre for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Masterdrive show encompasses painting, sculpture, film, installation and photography. These different media come together in a unique space. They present a glimpse of a shared a moment in the careers of the artists and, most importantly, of their Masterdrive. This is their coherent driving force, a route towards fulfilment and the future.
The artists all confront their own experience of urban life, and share an urge to transcend it through their work. Some chose to echo the industrial setting, embracing a rough and ready aesthetic, while others seduce the viewer with glossy surfaces and carefully rendered work. Results range from an interactive piece that includes two live prostitutes, to a sweat-collecting machine, to some audacious approaches to painting, photography and sculpture.
Themes of the passing of time recur alongside work that aspires to a higher state of consciousness, creating a meditative space in which all can be seen, but which can never be fully entered. There is an overarching primacy given to attempts at reconciling the passage of time with the future. To reconcile their lives with the Masterdrive.