Mark Leckey
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Mark Leckey (born 1964) is a British contemporary artist. His found object art and video pieces, which incorporate themes of nostalgia and
anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
, and draw on elements of pop culture, span several works and exhibitions. In particular, he is known for '' Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore'' (1999) and ''Industrial Light and Magic'' (2008), for which he won the 2008
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
. His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at
Kölnischer Kunstverein The Kölnischer Kunstverein is an art museum in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany. It is named after the historical art society of the same name. The ''Kölnischer Kunstverein'' was a " Kunstverein" established in Cologne in 1839. ...
, Cologne, in 2008 and at Le Consortium, Dijon, in 2007. His performances have been presented in New York City at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
,
Abrons Arts Center The Henry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founde ...
; at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
, London, both in 2009; and at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York City, in 2008. His works are held in the collections of the
Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
and the
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
.


Life and career

Leckey was born in Birkenhead, Wirral, near
Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, in 1964. In a 2008 interview in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', he described how he grew up in a
working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
family and became a ‘casual’ in his youth. His parents both worked for Littlewoods, the clothes store and betting company based in Liverpool. School, at a comprehensive in
Ellesmere Port Ellesmere Port ( ) is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, south of Birkenhead, southwest of Runcorn and south of ...
in Cheshire, was not a happy experience for Leckey. He left school at 15 with one
O Level The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...
, in art, and at 19 became obsessed with learning about ancient civilizations. He has described himself as an autodidact, "That's why I use bigger words than I should. It's a classic sign." Following a conversation with his stepfather he took his A Levels and went to an
art college An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-second ...
in
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
from 1987 to 1990, but didn't enjoy it. Leckey moved to New York in late 1995 and first returned to London in 1997, where he worked for web design agency Online Magic. When he made the video ''Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore'' in 1999, he was living in a tiny flat in Windmill Street, in Fitzrovia. He formed the band donAteller with Ed Laliq, and had the first gig at the 414 Club in Brixton. Later band members include Enrico David and Bonnie Camplin. He served as professor of film studies at the
Städelschule The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...
, Frankfurt-am-Main,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
from 2005 to 2009. He lives in
north London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire. The term ''nor ...
with his wife, Lizzie Carey-Thomas, a curator of contemporary art at the Serpentine Gallery, and their daughter.


Art career

Leckey's video work has as its subject the "tawdry but somehow romantic elegance of certain aspects of British culture," He likes the idea of letting "culture use you as an instrument." but adds that the pretentiousness that artists sometimes fall into is destructive to the artistic process: "What gets in the way is being too clever, or worrying about how something is going to function, or where it's going to be. When you start thinking of something as art, you're fucked: you're never going to advance."
Matthew Higgs Matthew Higgs (born 1964) is an English artist, curator, writer and publisher. His contribution to UK contemporary art has included the creation of ''Imprint 93'', a series of artists’ editions featuring the work of artists such as Martin Creed ...
has described his work as “possess nga strange nonartlike quality, operating, as it does, on the knife's edge where art and life meet." Leckey cited
Erik Davis Erik Davis (born June 12, 1967) is an American writer, scholar, journalist and public speaker whose writings have ranged from rock criticism to cultural analysis to creative explorations of esoteric mysticism. He is perhaps best known for his b ...
, the Californian cultural critic as a big influence. He classified himself as a pop artist. He exhibited alongside
Damien Hirst Damien Steven Hirst (; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
in the 1990 ''
New Contemporaries New Contemporaries is an organisation in the UK that works to support emerging artists at the beginning of their careers by introducing them to the visual arts sector and to the public through a variety of platforms, including an annual exhibition ...
'' exhibition at the ICA but afterwards dropped from view, before making a "comeback" with ''Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore'' in 1999.Matthew Higgs, ''ArtForum'', April 2002.
/ref> In 2004, he participated in
Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of t ...
5, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In 2006 he participated in the
Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
Triennial. In 2013, Leckey toured the UK for his curatorial project, ''The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things,'' commissioned by the
Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...
.J.J.Charlesworth, ''ArtReview'', Summer 2014.
In the autumn of 2014, the Wiels contemporary art centre in Brussels staged a mid-career retrospective devoted to Leckey. The exhibition, named ''Lending Enchantment to Vulgar Materials'', is Leckey’s largest exhibition to date. The title comes from a letter by
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of t ...
, in which he claims that what he and filmmaker Georges Méliès do is "lend enchantment to vulgar materials". In 2019 Lecky exhibited ''O' Magic Power of Bleakness'' at
Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, London.


Notable works


''Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore'' (1999)

One evening in 1999, Gavin Brown, Martin McGeown and Leckey were at a gallery private view in London. Emma Dexter, then a curator at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
(ICA), talked to Leckey, who argued that the most exciting art form of the time was music video. Intrigued, Dexter invited him to make a work. Leckey produced a 15-minute film that he called ''Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore''. The work was first screened at the ICA.Mark Beasly, ''Frieze'', Issue 136, January 2011.
The work is a compilation of found footage from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s underground music and dance scene in the UK. It starts with the disco scene of the 1970s, touches upon the Northern soul of the late 1970s and early 1980s and climaxes with the rave scene of the 1990s. Mash-ups of a single soundtrack play during the whole video, giving a sense of unity and narrative to the video. However, there are moments of spoken text. At one point an animated element - a bird tattoo image - appears as if released from the hand of a dancer, then carried into the next shot finds its place on the arm of another of the film's nightclubbing subjects. Some dance moves are played on loop for a few seconds, some are played in slow motion. A significant portion of the footage is taken from the 1977
Tony Palmer Tony Palmer (born 29 August 1941)IMDb: Tony Palmer
Retrieved 24 September 2011
is a British film direc ...
film ''The Wigan Casino'' made for
Granada TV ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was its ...
. It follows on the path of several previous appropriative art video artists and critics have remarked on its similarities with
William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
' technique of cut-ups, a literary technique whereupon a text’s sentences or words are cut up and later randomly re-hashed into a new text. Writing about Leckey’s first few video pieces, which in addition to ''Fiorucci…'' include ''We Are (Untitled)'' (2000) and ''Parade'' (2003), the art critic Catherine Wood said that they "represent the human subject striving to spread itself out into a reduced dimensionality. His subjects dance, take drugs and dress up in their attempts to transcend the obstinate physicality of the body and disappear in abstract identification with the ecstasy of music, or the seamlessness of the image." The title, Leckey said, was about the notion that "something as trite and throwaway and exploitative as a jeans manufacturer can be taken by a group of people and made into something totemic, and powerful, and life-affirming." Leckey admitted that he cried during the making of the video.


''Sound System'' (2002)

Leckey has made ‘immersion’ pieces that offer aural and visual stimuli to the audience, such as ''Sound System'' (2002).


''Made in 'Eaven'' (2004)

This video takes place in Leckey’s empty London studio. The camera rotates around
Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-Surface fi ...
’ ''Rabbit'' (1986), which is placed in the center of the empty room, Leckey's London flat. The video was transferred to
16 mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...
and "is presented on a pedestal, like a sculpture." The shiny surface of the sculpture reflects the room clearly, but there is no reflection of the camera, after a while the viewer realizes that there was never a bunny in the studio; it was a computer-generated image of Koons' work. Leckey is an admirer of Koons and has talked about what it is that attracts him to his work: "I like the idea of something that's almost inhuman in its perfection, like Bunny. It's as if it just appeared in the world, as if Koons just imagined it and it appeared. I always get too involved in the work."


''Drunken Bakers'' (2006)

In this video Leckey appropriates the Drunken Bakers comic strip from '' Viz,'' written by Barney Farmer and illustrated by Lee Healey. Leckey filmed the comic strip, added close-ups and jump-cuts reworked into a stop-motion like video. Leckey has removed all the speech bubbles and replaced them with a dialogue read verbatim from the comic by himself and Steven Claydon, a member of his band JackTooJack. He also added aural effects with burping, vomiting, slurping, among others and fades to black between episodes. The piece is projected on a white wall in a completely white room, a clock projected in the outside of the room moves between from three to four, before returning to three and repeating the cycle. The comic and video itself lack color, so the only two colors in the room are black and white. As with some of his previous work, it deals "with hedonistic time-wasting as a means of (temporary) escape from the strictures of capitalism and adult responsibility."Emily Speers Mears, ''Mark Leckey: Portikus im Leinwandhaus'', ArtForum, April 2006
/ref>
Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied a ...
noted "Mr. Leckey conveys an oppressive sense of the drinker's irresistible drive for oblivion, excavating the painful realities that often spur comedy." In this act of appropriation, Leckey did not get official permission to use the material from ''Viz,'' "which, in a rare instance of corporate enlightenment, granted him permission retroactively."


''Felix Gets Broadcast'' (2007)

In ''Felix Gets Broadcast'' (2007), Leckey features one of the earlier figures of
Felix The Cat Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in 1919 by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer during the silent film era. An anthropomorphic black cat with white eyes, a black body, and a giant grin, he was one of the most recognized cartoon characte ...
.


''Industrial Light and Magic'' (2008)

He won the 2008
Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award) ...
for his exhibition ''Industrial Light and Magic''. It included the piece ''Cinema-in-the-Round'' a video lecture where "the artist offers a compilation of his talks on film, television and video about the relationship between object and image."Farah Nayeri, Bloomberg.com, ''Leckey Wins Turner Prize, Aided by Felix the Cat, Homer Simpson'', 2 Dec. 2008
/ref>


''GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction'' (2010)

This performance work began with his inhaling the gases used as coolant for a
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
fridge. Leckey voices, through digital modulation, the inner monologue of a black Samsung fridge-freezer, as it tries to explain itself to itself and the world around it. The work, Leckey said, is a kind of fantasy: that he could bring himself into "a state outside of myself, fridge-like, less-human, feeling like an image".


''BigBoxStatueAction'' (2003–2011)

For ''BigBoxStatueAction,'' Leckey places one of his sound systems 'in conversation' with icons of British modernist sculptures, such as
Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produce ...
's ''Jacob and the Angel'' and Henry Moore's sculpture. In order to elicit a response from the sculpture, he serenades it with a sound piece created from sampled music and archive material.


''The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things / UniAddDumThs'' (2013–2015)

''The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things'' was a curated exhibition held at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, then at Nottingham Contemporary. It took its title from a supposed concept in computing that refers to 'the possibility of a network of objects communicating with each other like sentient agents', and featured three galleries presenting different collections of artifacts and art pieces from a wide range of history. Leckey imagined it as a work of fiction, in his own words a 'non-realist, anti-realist, magic-realist,
speculative Speculative may refer to: In arts and entertainment *Speculative art (disambiguation) *Speculative fiction, which includes elements created out of human imagination, such as the science fiction and fantasy genres **Speculative Fiction Group, a Per ...
, slipstream fiction, a sort of sci-fi show'. He also sought to evoke techno-animism. In 2015, Leckey exhibited ''UniAddDumThs'', a 'replication' of The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, at
Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre and is located next to the city's ...
. It featured entirely reproduced versions of the objects in the original exhibition via
3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...
and cardboard cutouts.


''Dream English Kid, 1964 - 1999 AD'' (2015)

Leckey created ''Dream English Kid, 1964 - 1999 AD'', a collage film with a
coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...
theme created as an attempt to capture 'found memories' of his life from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, which gradually builds up in
anxiety Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
and suspension. Harry Thorne, writing for Frieze, commented that elements of the film, such as recurring references to solar and lunar eclipses (which Leckey has attributed to himself astrologically being a Cancerian or a 'moonchild'), and
countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...
s, 'communicate a desire to comprehend the greater universe that is specific to both a particular era and to the artist himself.'


Collections

Leckey's work is held in the following permanent collections: *
Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
, London * Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris


References


External links


Leckey's YouTube channelMark Leckey's selected works, Gavin Brown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leckey, Mark 1964 births Living people People from Birkenhead People from Ellesmere Port British video artists Turner Prize winners English contemporary artists