LONDON.- Pi Artworks London is presenting A Pony / A Bridge / Mountain / Rain, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by Golden Family (Natsue and Matt Golden). In 2008, Matt co-founded The Russian Club in Dalston; in varying degrees an exhibition space; fashion-photography studio; music and film-screening venue, it has provided both artists with a studio-space and a host of creative individuals coming-and-going over the past ten years. This has lead to the Club’s modus operandi providing Golden Family with a unique stimulus and collaborative platform and context for their expanding practice. A Pony / A Bridge / Mountain / Rain draws heavily on this, with processes and contributors sourced within The Russian Club or it’s vicinity.
How To Break A Horse (2018) utilises a previously unworn Alexander McQueen pony-skin jacket gifted to the artists in exchange for use of their studios. Matt, photographed by Yusaku Aoki, is shown in a series of nine prints “breaking-in” the animal by wearing its hide. By referencing this age-old custom (it is thought humans' interaction with horses goes back some 30,000 years and they have been domesticated for the last 3000), and staging it during the first London Fashion Week to completely ban the use of fur on it’s catwalks, the work engages with complex changing moral positions.
Nurturing values and passing on work ethics are demonstrated in a series of photographs depicting the artists’ young children play-acting a scenario of ‘climbing a snow mountain’ on their studio’s photographic infinity cove. Rise to Work, Work to Rise (2018), photographed by Bruno Baptista, calls to mind the two commonly accepted tenets of success-building: hard-graft (perspiration) and creativity (inspiration). Repainted before every use, the cove is now several centimetres thick with white paint and represents hundreds of hours of manual labour, off-set against the creative freedom of the scene acted upon it.
The central piece in the exhibition, Troubled Waters (2018), depicts a bridge fashioned from London bricks scavenged locally from broken walls. At one level it mimics the popular slogan ‘Build Bridges, Not Walls’, yet the apparent simplicity of that message (however well-intentioned) is tested here by the sculpture’s deliberate structural weaknesses.
Golden Family serves as a fundamental turning-point in the evolution of Matt Golden and Natsue Ikeda’s practices, having previously worked predominantly under their own names.
Golden Family
Major solo exhibitions include: The Rehearsal, Baltic 39 | FigureFour, Newcastle, UK (2017); Bisons, Limoncello Gallery, London (2017), An Economy of Means, SGFA Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2012);House of Nguyen, Limoncello Gallery, London (2012); More Bit Parts In Little Theatres, Bischoff/Weiss, London (2011); Sensitivity to the Impermanence of Being, Art House Foundation, London (2011); The New Bomonti Club, Wohnung Felix Rehfeld, Bremen, Germany (2008). Major group exhibitions include: Islands,Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2018); FFOAM , P/N Project Space, London and tour (2014); Wonderland, Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2013); Une Exposition Sans Texte, Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Paris, France (2013); A Spoken Word Exhibition, Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2013); Keeping Up appearances, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany (2012); Plus, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany (2007). Selected awards and art residencies include: Yoma Sasburg Award for Sculpture, The Arts Foundation, UK (2011); Vordemberge-Gildewart Scholarship, Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation, CH (2006); SGFA Gallery Residence, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2012); Ultra Factory, Kyoto Zokei University, Kyoto, Japan (2011).
