Dirty Kunst

Tom Gallant, Japanese Iris, 2010. Cut paper, glass, wood

“Dirty Kunst is a show with Tourette’s”, proclaims the gallery, before qualifying this with the explanation that the exhibition “lives and breathes according to the idea that there is no such thing as dirty art, just dirty minds.”

This show, curated by New York-based writer and curator Christian Viveros-Faune, certainly does its utmost to seek out extreme responses from viewers.

Here you will find filth, perversity, and black humour in the sundry works designed to turn your stomach and tempt you to avert your eyes. And disgusted you will quite possibly be.

The obvious question is, to what end? By pushing the boundaries of the acceptable, can art liberate the imagination? Perhaps. But what is beyond the pale for those likely to visit an art gallery on the Kingsland Road?

The less conventional forms of sexuality are what we are used to thinking ‘dirty’, but in this day and age, it is the hideous and the cruel that are more likely to shock.

The works that form part of Dirty Kunst have a good dose of all these things, with a creative twist. Some are in fact quite lovely; some less so, but all will provoke.

One senses that the show aims to appeal to misanthropes, in a suitably perverse reaction to traditional seasonal sentiments.

But not everyone likes Christmas, and for died-in-the-wool Scrooges, this exhibition provides an excellent opportunity to indulge your ill-will-towards-men and titillate your imagination.

Dirty Kunst is showing at Seventeen Gallery, 17 Kingsland Road E2 8AA.
Until 23 December 2010.

More information at Seventeen Gallery or phone 020 7729 5777 for details.