Josefin Arnell and Margaret Haines are presenting a collaborative exhibition Sister said to Satan: my diary is too hot for you at London’s Auto Italia, opening July 15 and running to September 9.
A first-time show in the UK for both artists, Sister said to Satan will gather together a number of moving image works by Haines and Arnell alongside texts and posters to explore their shared interests in ‘ideas of destiny, collective experience and mysticism’.
In the press release, the curators tackle the common philosophical nature of the works on display, hinting that through a complex layering the exhibition will configure the ripple effect of myth and legend across time. We will be presented with characters – such as Apollo or Cassandra in Haines’ ‘The Stars Down to Earth’ or the hyped up puking teenagers in Arnell’s ‘Gag reflex’ – that ‘occupy the position of actors in a wider plan’, one that they seem almost incapable of working against. They will appear as intermittent images that ‘slip between screens and display systems scattered across the exhibition space’ evoking the sense of the characters’ continual drift on the ‘peripheries of reality’. However, in presenting these perverted prophecies, these fatalities, it comes across like the intentions of collective perception are being questioned, in some ways lamented through tragedy and we’re left wondering where we stand and what for.
You can watch the trailer for Haines’ The Stars Down to Earth below or read more about the piece in an interview with AQNB’s Editor, Jean Kay.
To formally launch the exhibition, Arnell and Haines will give a public reading at the gallery on July 15 and there will be a number of other public events over the coming months. See Auto Italia’s website for forthcoming announcements**
