GALLERY EVENTS
Bruce Asbestos: Cruise Collection 2021
26.08.21
The Holden Gallery & Microneme, Wuhan have come together to present a digital catwalk from Bruce Asbestos, featuring his new Cruise Collection, mixing real footage and digitally rendered clothes. As this is a digital event, all attendees can enjoy front row seats.
Join us at 7:30pm to watch the live broadcast on Facebook or via the Manchester School of Art Youtube Channel.
Informed by a research trip through the UK, US and China the work muses on the power of cultural identity within a globalised visual culture and will feature wild interpretations of pop cultural icons, often from the perspective as an outsider. Expect references from anything from Sci-fi films to Shakespeare’s Macbeth including Bruce's recurring motif of the ‘Eye of Newt’.
Bruce Asbestos Cruise Collection is made possible by the support of UK-China Connections through Culture 2020-21.
About Bruce Asbestos
Drawing from a rich history of painting, sculpture, popular culture, folklore and fairy tales, the artwork mixes everyday objects with high art, fashion, and aspects of popular culture from Japan, Europe, and the US.
Combinations of objects and images manifest in absurd, idiosyncratic ways, setting up problematic relationships between disparate elements of pop and folk culture.
These artworks host complex themes of personal, cultural identity, fantasy and our collective relationship with commerce. Particularly, the work looks to make a sense of the idea of national and regional identity, given we are increasingly exposed to a shared global pop culture, and prompts audiences to reflect on their own cultural experience.
His interdisciplinary practice combines performance, painting, clothing, social media, video games, curating and a multitude of collaborations.
Bruce Asbestos earned a degree in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University, winning a scholarship at Musashino University, Tokyo, and went on to the Hive business school. He obtained a Master’s Degree at Nottingham Trent, during which he was awarded a scholarship at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Recent projects and exhibitions include, S/S 2021, Power, National Justice Museum, S/S 2020 Bonington Gallery, Bruce Asbestos X Juliana Sissons, Primary, A/W Collection, Kunstraum, London, A/W 2018 Nottingham Contemporary, Arts Council International Fund project to NYC and Philadelphia, Bruce Asbestos A-B Testing, Concrete, Hayward Gallery, London. MTN DEW, Commission by EM15 for ‘Sunscreen’, Venice Biennale. Ivan Poe / Reactor, Plymouth Art Weekender. He was nominated for the £300,000 Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Fund 2013/4.
Bruce's digital catwalk S/S 2020 is now part of the Government Art Collection.
"Through his shrewd use of social media, personal re-hashing of global pop culture and use of new digital technologies, he has established an unmistakable visual identity and unique brand (complete with logos) to almost become a ‘living artwork’." – Art Review
"This is Art for the social media age" – The Stylist
"Maybe Asbestos is playing the role of spectator and is waiting to see what the Internet will make of the extreme quantity of work" – VICE
About Microneme
Microneme Space was founded in 2008 and is located at the Wuhan Institute of Design and Sciences; it is run by Wei Yuan who is a performance artist and Lecturer at the Jackie Chan School of Film and TV at Wuhan Institute of Design and Sciences. Microneme is dedicated to creating an open, free, experimental space for presenting contemporary art.
Find out more about previous collaborations between the Holden Gallery and Microneme.
