- Venue
- Grundy Art Gallery
- Starts
- Saturday, May 25, 2013
- Ends
- Saturday, August 3, 2013
- Address
- Queen Street, Blackpool, FY1 1PU
- Location
- North West England
In Aping the Beast London-based British artist Serena Korda uses the staging of animal symbolism and folklore to explore questions of mimicry, spectacle, ritual and humour. The central work in the exhibition is a giant 15ft tall latex puppet dinosaur, created by Korda, recalling early B-movie horror films such as Godzilla or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The artist will also be premiering a new film, featuring the monster, shot on location in Blackpool’s historic Tower Circus. The Beast will for the most part remain dormant as a sculptural presence within the gallery, but at certain moments will become ‘awakened’ as a puppet for performance events, culminating in an outdoor procession along Blackpool’s Golden Mile on Fri 19 July, recalling the history of carnival in the town. Alongside these works Korda will be showing two further videos, both incorporating animals with symbolic resonance; The Prognosticator which depicts a feline psychic at work on a black cat, and The Transmitters which incorporates the tarantula spider, which Korda uses to explore ideas of expression, female hysteria and subjugation. The Transmitters references the Tarantella, a ritual dance in which women are bitten by the spider rendering them paralysed until coaxed out of paralysis by a lengthy dance that might continue for days.
