Nathaniel Mellors: Giantbum (Installation)
Mellors makes installations “packed with ad hoc sculpture, psychedelic theatre and absurdist, satirical film”. Mellors’ output includes installation, sculpture, film and video, music, performance, collage, painting, prints and critical writing.
He was represented in the Tate Trienniel 2009, Altermodern, by a work Giantbum 2009, based on a story written by him about a party of medieval explorers who lose their way in the body of a giant. The work used film and animatronic heads.Adrian Searle in The Guardian said:
- There is a lot of bad acting and declaiming, a succession of dreadful puns, gags about a time-travelling Doctor Poo and Father Shit-mass, and some mock golden showers. Imagine the 120 Days of Sodom redone as panto…
In summer 2009, Mellors was commissioned by the BBC to make a short “work of modern art” to introduce the final episode of the cultural history series The Seven Ages of Britain, presented by David Dimbleby and directed by Jonty Claypole. The resultant work The Seven Ages of Britain Teaser featured Dimbleby voicing a silicon mask cast from his own face, alongside actors Gwendoline Christie (as ‘The Operator’) and Johnny Vivash (as ‘Kadmus’). The work was broadcast on BBC One on 21 March 2010 and can be viewed on the BBC Seven Ages of Britain website.
Mellors combines a number of approaches, including drama, sculpture, film-making and music, to formulate an individual language with which to address contemporary issues.
Mellors’ interest in linguistic manipulation and absurdism
Animated, moving sculptures
Revealing the mechanics of the work, it is interesting the way he does not attempt to hide the mechanics in his working. Working with silicone masks, it is an interesting route i could push my work towards in third year.