50 robots at Exhibit

50 robots at Exhibit

19 November, 2008
by: Katuschka

From Futurama's Bender to Transformers, Cybermen and Wall-E, robots are right up there with zombies, ninjas and pirates as retro memes that are regurgitated by gen-X culture mongers, looking to connect with the ironic youth and placate their rabid nostalgia, until they over-saturate the zeitgeist and aren't fun anymore.  Still, in spite of this, robots kick ass, and until they become super intelligent and enslave us all, their diverse stylistics make them great subjects for artists; providing an aesthetic that is both modern and retro, clunky and sleek and a nifty metaphor for societal downfall, as demonstrated by H. R. Giger's sophisticated robos and Eric Joyner's adorable,'Rock em' Sock em' creatures.  Hell, robots can even produce paintings of their own, so their link with fine art is well established (even if their paintings suck...) and thus they now have an exhibition dedicated entirely to them.

Much like Daft Punk and the Beastie Boys, James Johnson Perkins has hit upon the winning formula for 'awesome', taking robots and 80s music and mashing them together with the glue of childhood memories – Megablox (Lego's less cool cousin) - to form 50 Robots at Exhibit.  The exhibition is on two floors and features a collection of various small robots sculpted out of the eponymous blocky stuff.  Each critter is a different colour and style, hanging out of custom-made mega blocks display cases, strewn across the floor and even hiding in Exhibit's ancient (and extremely narrow), 1950's spiral staircase.  They are cute, colourful and cartoony, each one a little character in itself.  The exhibition is whimsical and naive, yet trendy enough to appeal to Japanese vinyl toy collectors and hipsters alike.  Perkin's has also provided some Megablox tables (perhaps he had some blox left over) to further investigate the spatial connections between objects.  

Downstairs, is Perkin's video work, which is 'a visual representation of his favourite 80's music' (read self-indulgent Kraftwerk fan) and one of Perkin's trademark wall structures, which to be fair is more deserving of its fine art tag, retaining more theoretical credence than his little friends; although I have to say I was thoroughly disappointed by the complete lack of robots on this floor.

The exhibition draws from the populist stylings of artists such as Paul Klee and Gerhard Richter, using pixellated and digitalized, super 8 bit imagery to create organized and systemic structures, similar to the free-flowing streams of complex data in a computer or on a television screen.  Robots can organize and transform this information into a form of useful energy, a way of putting a human face and an empathetic relation onto an overwhelming abundance of knowledge and the relentless onslaught of technology.  Perkin's refers to both the post-modern nostalgia of his 80's coming of age and the nostalgia borne out of Cold War paranoia, layering the meanings like a lasagna of intertextuality.  Perkin's work also investigates the psychological effect of colour and spatial relations; some impressive names are dropped in the press release, including Futuro-cubist Kasimir Malevich, Warhol and epic sculptor Sarah Sze, and whilst Perkin's art is most definitely populist, it seems a little too easy to stick a few blocks together in pretty colours and slap some pop-artist connotations on to it; especially when under 10's are building far more complex structures.

This is what makes the exhibition something of a disappointment, it is almost as if you are in the middle of a robot building competition in Legoland, but instead of being surrounded by hyperactive children, you're surrounded by grown men in graphic t-shirts, proudly showing off their entries and slapping high price tags on them.  If Perkin's is hoping to tap into some hidden reservoir of childish delight, it is dampened by attempts to make this into more than it is.  A male friend I visited the exhibition with hit the nail on the hand as to what was wrong when he sullenly commented 'He should have given them laser eyes or something'; which goes to show, that if Perkins wants to make a real impression, he'll need to crank up the fun, or continue with the larger Lego sculptures in his previous shows.  In the meantime, if you're heading down Islington way and fancy a trip down someone's memory lane, 50 Robots will more than satisfy your needs. 

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