Gosha Ostretsov and Jean-Charles de Castlebajac at Paradise Row

Gosha Ostretsov and Jean-Charles de Castlebajac at Paradise Row

06 April, 2009
by: Katuschka

A chair is fingered by a mechanical arm, gas-masked figures lurk in industrial tubes, and old masters are vandalised with brash logos. Is this a glimpse into some apocalyptic future of unabashed furniture raping? No, it's just another bizarre day in the life of an art critic. I've been summoned to Paradise Row, a charming yet decrepit church in the wilds of Bethnal Green where strange bedfellows Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Russian artist Gosha Ostretsov are showing two new exhibitions (Triumph of the Sign and The Adventures of Robbing Good respectively,) which question the values of the bourgeoisie with a pop sensibility by way of Russian Constructivism and comic books.

Avant-garde fashion designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac (whose acronym is the potential Christian rock nom de guerre - JC/DC) is mostly known for producing Pac Man helmets and awesome muppet clothing. For this show he has had old masters from Da Vinci to Manet expertly copied by painters in China and then emblazoned with logos from Fendi to McDonald's. The appropriation of modern logos and reproduction of unique art pieces bears a resemblance to those McDonald's sculptures in the Chapman Family Collection; and the work expresses the accelerated throwaway nature of modern culture, cheapening symbols of cultural peaks and glorifying the emblems of society's troughs.

Whilst the images are striking, the problem with the work is that it is not self-parodying enough. You can well imagine Gucci snapping up a logo-emblazoned Odalisque as an ad campaign. Perhaps Castelbajac is the wrong spokesperson for this style of imagery, for a character he may be, but you do wonder exactly what business a Marquis and fashion designer has quoting Marx, trotting out Barthes, and denouncing the ways of the bourgeoisie.

Ostretsov's Capital City Favela installation is, frankly, terrifying. The way the exhibition is laid out means that you are left poking your head inquisitively around the corner only to view a nightmarish apocalypse. The set-up is like a school play at the London Dungeon. Eerie laughs are piped in and ramshackle houses surround the centrepiece portraying the hero Robbing Good, wearing a gas mask and boiler suit, a human remnant of the thinly disguised Soviet workforce.

Being a fan of dystopian fiction, the end of days theme sits well with me and I'm interested to see that Ostretsov takes it to its natural conclusion, portraying a future that literally cannot get any worse and therefore requires a hero or, at the very least, the myth of a hero. This leads him neatly into his love of American superheroes, and in a further room are prints such as Smash Capitalism which evoke Rodchenko's constructivism, and highly stylised cityscapes filled with monstrous mutant saviours.

It may be unfair to laud an artist's work due to their nationality, but Ostretsov's work has the edge over Castelbajac's, for the way he seamlessly injects a Soviet sensibility and political critique into an installation which is alternately fun, shocking and creepy; whilst still projecting his passions and personality. Whichever you find the more alluring, one thing's for sure, you'll never look at furniture the same way again.

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Katuschka