Toni Gallagher will exhibit in The Fall of the Rebel Angels, an international contemporary art group show curated by Vanya Balogh. An artist-led satellite exhibition, the show will take place concurrently with the 56th Venice Biennale. Other featured artists include; Cedric Christie, Gavin Turk, Lorenzo Belenguer, Martin Sexton, Susan Schulman and William Angus-Hughes.
Balogh comments on the site-specificity of the exhibition, located in a small historic Venetian Palazzo between the Arsenale and Giardini: “The Fall of the Rebel Angels does not explore, follow or define any particular topic or theme; neither does it enforce any standpoint or high-minded idea. It is rather one solution, for a particular time and particular place.”
Gallagher’s bespoke piece for this exhibition is a sculptural tapestry version of a full size boxing ring she exhibited in 2014. More “cathartic” than her signature X-ray lightboxes, Gallagher uses the boxing ring as a symbol of a personal fight, which she overcomes by rendering the power of the fighter useless with inanimate materials. She comments, “If I feel something then I have to make work about it, in an effort to liberate myself from the past. This piece is sinking, stretching, redundant … the power cable has been unplugged and the object is rendered useless.”
Boxing ring exhibited in London, 2014
Toni Gallagher, Boxing ring in The Fall of the Rebel Angels (2015)
Toni Gallagher, Boxing ring in The Fall of the Rebel Angels (2015)
by Louise Lui
The Fall of the Rebel Angels will run from 9 May through 23 June 2015 at Castello 1610/A, Riva dei Sette Martiri, Venezia 30122
All images ©Toni Gallagher