Splatter at The Aquarium L-13

Splatter at The Aquarium L-13

13 October, 2008
by: Katuschka

Produced by ex-KLF member James Cauty, (the nihilistic musician/artists who controversially burnt a million pounds) Splatter at Aquarium L-13 is not for an audience who view cartoons with childish wonder; in fact it even carries a parental advisory warning. Cauty and his fifteen year old son have dreamt up various different methods of fulfilling the darkest desires of favourites such as Tom and Jerry and Sylvester and Tweety Pie, ensuring lashings of gore and irreverent humour. 

As a champion of the adorable underdogs, and an avid Tweety Pie enthusiast, the child inside me is fairly traumatised, yet ghoulishly fascinated, by drawings such as Wathnt Me, featuring a blood-splattered Sylvester next to an empty, bloody cage; Vigilant Justice, a spectacular resin sculpture showing Daffy Duck several seconds after Bugs Bunny gets trigger happy on him; or Aim Point, a sculpture of Tom filleting Jerry into tiny mouse steaks.

Downstairs the exhibition looks like an apocalyptic animator's studio: either Aquarium L-13's stockroom wasn't cleared, or we are moving metaphorically into the basement of our minds where our childhood memories fester into monstrosities.  To view each exhibit you have to trample on sketches and manoeuvre around boxes. Meanwhile doctored clips of characters being tortured play on a loop to the jaunty Warner Bros. theme tune. 

This mixed media approach works well as a chaotic visual experience and there are some great witty touches: I like the mock-up poster with reviews from Mothers Against Violence giving the show two stars and Mothers For Violence giving it five. It's a sly, pre-emptive sideswipe at critics and PC naysayers alike (although I was slightly shocked to see two five year olds wandering around such a gory show).



JCauty&Son - Credit Card Required

As a comment on society (obligatory art interpretation coming up), Cauty has created an interesting frisson between the characters and their victims.  The victors are simultaneously at the end of their frayed tethers, teetering on madness and rapturously exultant in the almost post-coital glee of their murderous achievement; especially after years of frustrated attempts. 

The pictures inflict the honest yet cruel, natural reality on the immortal icons of our childhood and exploit the voyeuristic pleasure of childish bloodlust.  Perhaps most interesting are the rather poetic souvenir knives that bear the Hirst-referencing legend 'the plausible impossibility of death in the minds of cartoon characters'. A comment upon the all too tangible nature of violence in our society?

Sadly, Cauty doesn't cover much new ground; to use these characters in such a way seems like an obvious populist choice.  Artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons and (Turner Prize nominee) Mark Leckey have all appropriated cartoon imagery to pass comments on pop-culture.  Perhaps this is the most subversive (and copyright infringing) use of these characters in art, as the level of violence and gore surpasses the already fairly violent, original cartoons. However there is nothing here that hasn't been done better (or grislier) in cartoons like Itchy and Scratchy or the gruesome Happy Tree Friends. 

The exhibition would benefit from a wider cast of characters perhaps, whilst the extensive range of merchandise makes Aquarium L-13 look like an exhumed Warner Bros. store (although Amnesty International is aptly chosen charity to donate profits to).

Altogether the exhibition is entertaining with a guileless, juvenile sense of humour, and its anarchistic art tag means adults and intellectuals can indulge guilt-free.  The joke may start to wear a little thin, and your inner child may die a little inside; but there's still something strangely satisfying about seeing Mickey Mouse with his brains blown out.

Splatter is at The Aquarium L-13 until 08.11.08.

Click here to see what else is on at The Aquarium L-13.
Keen for more? See more about:

London Art
London Exhibitions
London Events

Katuschka