Every year students on the MA in Contemporary Art curate a show featuring work by students on the MA Fine Art program at Chelsea College of Art. This is a voluntary project and for those who take part, the culmination of year-long conversations with artists at Chelsea.
Curated by Saskia Dakin-Chery and Angel Song, Desire & Consumption at Peckham Levels brings together projects spanning photography, audio, film and collage. The exhibition features work by three Chelsea College of Art MA artists, Cheo Gonzalez, Dainius Trepekunas and Jon-Patrick Croskrey, who explore different, but potentially interconnecting, perspectives, including religion, queerness, social awareness, and consumerism.
An installation piece by Trepekunas welcomes visitors into the space. A small monitor sits atop a plinth, a camera positioned on the wall pointing towards it, and the demarcated space behind the plinth. The camera, and therefore the monitor, cannot pick up activity in the marked area. So, the monitor only shows itself on the plinth. This setup means that visitors are never able to see themselves.
Several pairs of polaroid photographs by Gonzalez line up on a ledge on the back wall. Each pair contains a religious image and a photograph by Gonzalez, mostly taken during sexual acts with his previous (male) partners. Here, Gonzalez plays with his realisation that erotic photographs can find a precedent in religious iconography. These are opposite another work by Gonzalez, three vandalised posters which demonstrate the reaction of the general public to sexualised images of Christ. Unlike how usual posters are displayed, these are shown on the floor, and viewers are encouraged to closely inspect the words graffitied over Christ’s body.
Photographs by Croskrey explore the theme from yet another perspective. The series combining plastic children’s toys and acts of desire and consumption, including dolls with a shopping bag or watching pornography.
The collaboration between Sotheby's Institute of Art MA Contemporary Art students and Chelsea MA Fine Art students was a great experience for both the artists and curators. It allowed them to gain not only classroom knowledge but also real-world, hands-on experience with the ins and outs of setting up an exhibition. Working with like-minded individuals from different parts of the art world, each bringing unique insights, will always be a highlight of these collaborations—ones that will hopefully continue even after their studies.
