The artist
EDDIE PEAKE is – even amongst artists - without doubt a most unusual man, the
single item on his website a rather impressive photograph of his erect
penis. Not that extraordinary but
reasonably impressive I suppose in the circumstances. Just before Xmas 2015 I reviewed his latest
exhibition, held at the Barbican Centre in London and you can see below as a
part of this blog a resume of my subsequently published feature.
Unfortunately there was no opportunity to take any photographs during the event and the ones here were either supplied by the Barbican Press Office or I have taken them from Eddies own internet images. There were no images at all available of the female dancers, which was a great pity as in my opinion they formed the most inspiring and exciting part of the entire show.
The Barbican Centre in central London has been one of my favourite places to hang out for the last twenty odd years. The brutalist structure of this unusual building ( a deliberate decision by the architects for a site left devastated by the heavy bombing raids during the second world war ) is not in any way reflected in the interior of this incredible place , the largest multi-arts and conference venue in Europe, presenting a year-round programme of art, music, film and theatre.
The Forever Loop at The Barbican Centre:
The vast reception areas, warm in winter and cool in summer and luxuriously appointed are freely available to anyone , where also under one roof are a concert hall, two theatres, three cinemas, a library , various bars and eating places and a number of other function rooms and suites , including two art galleries .
The smaller of these, a 90-metre curved structure stretching from one side of the main building to the other aptly named The Curve, was my destination on an unusually warm autumn morning to review The Forever Loop, a multi media installation event designed and curated by the London based artist Eddie Peake.
Now I have heard of Eddie Peake but must confess that until recently have never actually seen any of his work, but it wasn’t very difficult to discover a little more about him before my visit.
From an artistic family, his mother the well known sculptor and artist Phyllida Barlow was a descendant of Charles Darwin and his father Fabian Peake is also an artist and writer of some repute. Barlow was also a professor of art and taught at the Slade School of Fine Art for many years, from where son Eddie graduated in 2006.
Now thirty five years old , he spent his early youth living in exotic places while working and continuing his studies before returning to his North London roots to take up an artistic lifestyle.
His large scale multi-media carefully choreographed events are unusual to say the least , the naked five-a-side football match at the Royal Academy where the two teams were differentiated only by their socks and trainers for example, creating small waves of media hype.
Reading between the lines of his own comments - “ How can an image be gay or straight, male or female “ he asks ? , it seems to me that Mr Peake may be having some kind of gender identity crisis - something that appears to be not uncommon in this day and age- however this does not appear to detract from the value of his work.
Sexuality, desire and nudity are constant themes in his large scale installation works , which as well as examples of his abstract artworks usually include elements of film , music, photography, and dance with a little drama thrown in for effect and this current exhibition - perhaps the finest of them all so far – is a perfect illustration.
The entire length of one wall of the gallery had been structured, plastered and decorated with various texts and illustrations, with walkways that pass through individual spaces and sets furnished with large numbers of surreal objects in various artistic modes. Visitors can wander from one end to the other– and back again if they wish – stopping to view past performances on the TV screens located along the way which are in half hour loops – hence the title of the exhibition.
No doubt impressive in its own right, the surreal is not really my cup of tea and although no doubt a great deal of skill goes into the production I don’t really understand it. Perhaps there is nothing to understand ? and so for me the most important part of this pretty unique show were the live performances
Here a team of eight totally naked male and female dancers take turns to perform two at a time in half hour sessions during the daily ten hour opening, while one of three naked roller skaters clad only in a completely see through onesie glides elegantly from one end of the structure, between them and the visitors.
As time was of the essence we were only able to see the female dancers, although some naked male dancers did appear in the video background scenes. Two naturally beautiful girls totally naked , their curvaceous athletic bodies displaying nicely trimmed pubic hair danced in concert as they passed from one section to another in a series of beautifully choreographed sequences. During each short set they might stop to pose for a while or perhaps lay down together in a sleeping position laughing pleasurably to themselves, seemingly totally oblivious to their public surroundings.
Visitors and dancers were just about as close up as you can get without actually touching and in fact as I turned to go back to another part of the exhibition I found them pirouetting only inches away from me. Afraid to spoil the moment I stood stock still until they had passed me by.
It was all incredibly and quite deliberately sensual and sexual without being at all crude - a truly exhilarating performance and for me personally an uplifting experience.
In conclusion, I have to say that over many years I have seen nakedness in its every form – and I do mean every– some of it in one or another regular ground breaking events held previously at The Barbican Centre, but this one came from a very different perspective and was in some ways very relevant to my own naturist lifestyle.
In spite of modern education there is still a deep seated attitude in the UK and many other places that exposure to the naked body is at best upsetting, harmful especially to children and young people and at worst likely to deprave and corrupt in some way.
In this excellent presentation where completely naked men and women performed sensual and erotic dance routines in close up proximity to the public and most importantly with no visitor restrictions even including children ( provided they were accompanied by an adult if under the age of 14 ) may hopefully serve to dispel this antiquated viewpoint.
