Contact: Diana Arce
telephone: +49 30 22 48 79 22
SIMON ENGLISH Open Country followed by Home Truths
email: [email protected]
Sept. 5 - Oct. 11, 2005
Berlin, Germany – September 3, 2005 - Galerie Volker Diehl presents an exhibition of
Berlin born, British artist Simon English. In his first solo exhibition in Germany, on the
heels of the publication of his book „Simon English and the Army Pink Snowman“,
English presents a collection of new drawings.
The title of the exhibiton comes from two consecutive early morning Sunday broadcasts for
Radio 4. This is compulsive listening for many British artists and Sunday painters alike.
Simon’s work is OPEN, a space in which anyone can enter, spread out, unfolded, frank,
communicative, mischevious and confessional.
Simon English’s work resonates with doubt; it oscillates in the sphere of the not-any-longer
and not-yet, in that place uninhabited but endlessly criss-crossed where he may yet enact a
productive dialogue between the dimensions of abstraction and figuration. In this way he
presents a challenge that stands out from the current situation.
STELLA SANTACATTERINA, Writer, Curator &Lecturer in Art Theory.
Simon’s work is situated somewhere in the heart of the COUNTRY (Land consisting of fields
and woods with few houses or other buildings around).
English lets us consider magic, asthetics and the erotic simultaneously, managing that grand
slam of visual intoxicants, art, sex, and God. With that combination his works will trigger
complusive viewing in nearly everyone.
BILL ARNING, Writer & Curator, List Visual Arts Center, MIT.
Simon’s work is HOMEmade.
Once upon a time there was an English boy called Simon English... It is important to mention
that, apart from his name, Simon English is English, as in many ways it would simply not be
possible for him to make the work that he does if he were from anywhere else.
FRED MANN, Director, FRED (London) Ltd.
Simon’s work plays with notions of TRUTH, half-truths and little white lies.
But, despite the strong temptation to read English’s works through psychoanalytical notions...-, that approach would certainly miss their point. ... Sentences like "The first big lie" or "My
second big lie" already advise against it. They are just not supposed to be read.
PABLO LAFUENTE, „Just Look, don’t Read“, Art Monthly, May/June 2004.
„What does one do with an artist like Simon English? In his work he delivers images to our
eyes and brains in a blizzard like way. His images, dark, sexy and troubling, swirl around our
psyches like sparks, ready to immolate our sense of the real. For picture addicts like myself,
English is the equivalent of a crack dealer.“ BILL ARNING, Writer & Curator, List Visual Arts
Center, MIT.
(Arning, Mann and Santacatterina qoutes are from the book „Simon English and the Army Pink
Snowman“)