Author Description

"The heart of French artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz's glorious new show is an exploration of how we write our own narratives through the spaces and objects around us. Utilising old and new work, found objects and the work of others, Chaimowicz has transformed the Serpentine Gallery in London into an immersive interior, that acts as a self-portrait or memoir to his own life and career that challenges the conventions of a traditional linear narrative. Anchoring the show is an early and iconic installation Enough Tiranny, which was first shown at the Serpentine Gallery in 1972. In the current exhibition the work is dated 1972-2016, and this open-ended and ever-renewing understanding of time is a constant throughout. The work collapses the before, during and after of a party into a single space, comprising discarded jewellery, records, magazines and a water fountain replete with live fish, alongside Glam rock-era music and gaudy lighting. At its heart is a disco ball, hung just above the floor, which spins like the centre of a disco galaxy, creating a sense of the ongoing passage of time. The objects now hold a sense of kitsch and nostalgia - particularly to today's audience where the 1970's are the current go-to decade for retro chic. The work's title is scrawled along a wall of the gallery, originally a reference to the contemporary threat of the IRA, but again could refer to any number of current political tensions. Chaimowicz described the piece as a 'scatter environment', and its influence has been far-reaching - perhaps most famously on Tracey Emin's, whose My Bed echoes its use of everyday detritus to create a personal and political narrative"--Http://www.arteviste.com/arteviste/2016/10/24/a-review-of-marc-camille-chaimowicz-an-autumn-lexicon-at-the-serpentine-gallery-london