In a world that prizes order, Gary Card embraces mess with open arms. The British artist is the latest name to take over Plaster Magazine’s London HQ, transforming the two-floor retail space into a surreal sculptural fever dream. The junk shop-cum-exhibition brings life to Card’s inner world and unrealized projects, rendered through his acclaimed brand of grotesque charm, unapologetic excess and theatrical fantasy. “It’s chaos,” he told Hypeart. “That’s why I like it.”
Titled Gathering Dust, the exhibition is a love letter to ’90s London, in all of its eccentricities and oddball arcades. The artist recalls his arrival in the city and the “dilapidated, chockablocks full of stuff” that once ruled Camden — storefronts overflowing with niche splendors of every variety: MAD comics, vintage Japanese toys, sex paraphernalia.“This is harking back to those hectic spaces that I used to love, the idea of just surrounding yourself with all your favorite stuff. You’d just get lost in it entirely.”
It’s a spirit that spills onto the ground floor installation, something Card describes as “wall-to-wall claustrophobic fun.” Personal ephemera, artifacts collectibles pulled from his decades-long career as an artist and set designer envelope the entirety of the space, with no inch left empty. “Imagine this heightened version of me inhabiting the space, hanging out and making strange stuff,” he explains, drawing parallels between the immersive installation and a fantasy workshop. Peppered amongst the hoards of masks, paintings, figurines and books are Card’s “Trinkets,” an ongoing series of object-portraits, shown for the first time.
Gears shift upstairs into a more traditional art show, as Card debuts a new series of busts. Sculpted in his signature masking-tape method, a technique he’s been perfecting since he was 12-years old, the resin-dipped rainbow of characters bring us further into the depths of Card’s psychedelic universe. Unsettling and funny at once, these figures revel in the cross-sections of cute, dark and surreal, with teeth-baring grins that pull you in and hold you tight.
“I love people and faces — all my personal artwork is figurative. My set career is about making things around people and my art surrounds people themselves. They compliment each other in that regard.” For Card, whose credits as a set designer include the likes of JW Anderson, Jean Paul Gaultier, Lady Gaga and FKA Twigs, Gathering Dust builds on a long-held desire to marry his two creative careers. “It just feels right and makes sense for me to bring in some of those immersive, enveloping worlds into my art.”
In addition to the artist’s own contributions, the show stays true to its retail-inspired roots, featuring a host of prints, zines, garments and goods by vintage collective Unified Goods, Breakdown Press and artists 4FSB (Jamie Bull), Danny Taylor and Ferry Gouw for sale.
More than an exhibition, Gathering Dust stands as a maximalist, lived-in tribute to memory, identity and the sheer joy of surrendering yourself to the chaos. The takeover marks the first installment of an ongoing curatorial series from the London-based publication, inviting artists to reimagine its Soho storefront in their unique creative visions.
Since opening the store earlier this year, Plaster founders Milo Astaire and Finn Constantine have envisioned the space as a platform “where artists can do what they do best: make it feel alive and ever-changing,” they noted. “Gary has done just that and some. He has created a world you won’t want to leave. A space that you could be lost in for days.”
Gathering Dust is now on view in London through August 9.
Plaster Store
20 Great Chapel St,
London W1F 8FW,
United Kingdom
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