Dimensions: support: 710 x 508 mm
Copyright: © Jamie Reid, courtesy Isis Gallery, London | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: Jamie Reid's collage, *Work and Play*, is a riot of images. There are planes, houses, cars, food...it feels overwhelming, like a visual overload. What's your read on it? Curator: It's an astute observation. Reid, known for his Sex Pistols album art, often critiqued consumer culture. The juxtaposition of aspirational imagery—planes, suburban homes, luxury cars—with the mundane, like TVs and processed food, highlights the societal pressures of work and consumption. The "work" labels seem to be trying to cover up and repress. Editor: So, it's less about the things themselves and more about what they represent in society? Curator: Precisely. The piece questions the promises made by capitalist structures. Does this vision of "work and play" truly deliver happiness, or does it perpetuate a cycle of desire and dissatisfaction? Editor: That makes me see the chaos differently, more intentional, almost like a protest. Curator: Exactly. Art's power lies in its ability to challenge societal norms and provoke such questions.
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This work is one of a number made by Reid that present a satirical narrative of a middle-class couple, the ‘young executive’ Nigel, his wife Cecilia and their cat Poot. Reid examines the success, affluence, leisure and the aspirational conformity of suburban life and Poot’s desire for ‘a more engaging reality’. Here, the nature of Nigel and Cecilia’s lifestyle and their ‘keeping up of appearances’ is evident in the niceness of their home, the abundance in their kitchen, the connection between suburbia and the enslavement of work, and the utopian hope for leisure in the face of the revolution. Gallery label, September 2018
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