In Edmund Burke's 1757 essay A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, the author stated that the sensation of the sublime is "not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror; a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror" and that terror, "the ruling principle of the sublime", has a strong affinity with astonishment.
Indeed there is something that undeniably attracts us to horror and terror; we desire that adrenaline jolt that fear can give us, but we also dread the consequences. That's why we swear we will never watch anything as gory and scary as yesterday night's horror film, only to find ourselves the day after almost in a trance maniacally flicking through a long list of horror movies on our favourite streaming media service.
But there are different ways to consider terror and it is even possible to analyse modern history through the horror lens, as the exhibition "The Horror Show!: A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain" (until 19th February), currently on at London's Somerset House, suggests.
Curated by BAFTA-nominated filmmakers and Somerset House resident artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard and by the venue's senior curator Claire Catteral, the event doesn't look at horror per se, but conceives it as an act of reaction, provocation and creative rebellion that marked half a century of British history.
Including over 200 artworks and objects, the event is divided in three sections or archetypes – "Monster", "Ghost" and "Witch" - and goes from the '70s to the present day.
Each section opens with a series of objects preserved in cabinets of curiosities and it is accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack. The sections are closed by neon text-works by Tim Etchells.
The Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead", linking punk with gothic nuances, introduces visitors to the first archetype, "Monster".
Set in the '70s, this part looks at disruptive figures - punks, glam rockers, club kids and misfits, beautiful outcasts symbolizing subversion and transgression that inspired generations to come.
Rather than including classic artworks for The Sex Pistols by Jamie Reid, curators featured in this section one of his paintings, entitled "Monster on a Nice Roof" (1972), showing an owl-like green monster standing on a house, almost an ominous prediction of Thatcher's term as the Prime Minister of the UK.
Social and political issues are tackled in Chila Burman's black, white and red monoprint "If There is No Struggle, There is no Progress - Uprising" (1981), marking the social unrest in England in the summer of 1981, in response to the politics of the Thatcher government (Thatcher is embodied in the exhibition by a puppet from the TV satire show "Spitting Image") and by Helen Chadwick's "Allegory of Misrule" (1986). The latter is Chadwick's personal reinterpretation of the eponymous historical painting by Johann Georg Platzer.
This section has got strong links with music and fashion as well: the cover for David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" (1974) by Belgian illustrator Guy Peellaert points at provocation and calls to mind Bowie singing "This ain't rock'n'roll – this is genocide" in the opening track "Future Legend", that introduced Bowie's new persona, Halloween Jack.
There is a wonderful sense of rebellion in the makeup and clothes of the punks portrayed by Derek Ridgers, raising two fingers to the establishment and embodying nonconformity, and in his photographs taken in clubs such as The Taboo or Kinky Gerlinky.
Body mutations (and here Burke's ponderings about beauty, proportions and deformity in his essay about the sublime come to mind...) are celebrated through Leigh Bowery's emerald green costume complete with leather gimp mask, fake breasts and cloak that he donned during a performance outside Anthony d'Offay gallery (the club room in this section of the exhibition features a documentary about it View this photo), Pam Hogg's "Exterminating Angel" (2021) ensemble and Gareth Pugh's geometrical costume.
Early '80s music by DJs Martin Green and Mark Moore set the scene for this section that also features videos featuring Trojan, Stephen Jones and The Slits' Ari Up.
The second section, "Ghost", looks at the period going from the '80s to the early 00s, passing through the vapid hedonism of the '90s. This era coincides with the early internet, cyberspace and the horror of the unseen, but also with disappearing urban spaces in gentrifying cities.
Derek Jarman's last film "Blue" (1993), with its hypnotic International Klein Blue screen, and audio narrating his final days before his death from an AIDS-related illness, perfectly embodies the concept of modern ghosts; Nick Ryan's sound installation looks at trance music, sampling machines and the role of the visitors as spectators and ghosts in the machine.
Jeremy Millar's "Self Portrait as a Drowned Man" (The Willows) (2011) is extremely horrifying: the artist is presented as a lifelike silicone and fibreglass corpse, apparently disfigured by a supernatural entity (the title refers to Hippolyte Bayard who took a picture of himself as a victim of an act of suicide, and to a spooky novella by Algernon Blackwood).
There's something for everyone in this section: film fans will discover Nic Roeg's copy of Daphne du Maurier's stories that inspired his film "Don't Look Now", but also black and white shots of the making of Robin Hardy's folk horror "The Wicker Man".
Fans of everything gory will enjoy Reece Shearsmith’s severed head, a prop from the "Inside No 9" Halloween special, that looks realistic and incredibly disturbing; those who prefer being scared in a more subtle way will go for Kerry Stewart's 1993 uncanny installation "The Boy From the Chemist Is Here to See You", a door with a frosted glass panel through which you see the refracted face of a puppet-like child, actually an old charity box figure in the form of a little boy in a leg brace.
The exhibition’s final part, "Witch", focuses on the period between 2008 and the present day, with hyper-connected communities, economic austerity and political instability with works going from Linder’s "The Goddess Who Has The Sky As Hair" (2019) depicting body autonomy to Leonora Carrington's surrealist visions and Juno Calypso's pictures from the series "The Honeymoon Suite" (2015), portraying the artist as her alter-ego, the frustrated housewife Joyce, looking like an alien with her body painted in green.
Feminine power and queer identity are explored in this section that opens with a textile work by Bert Gilbert, featuring disembodied eyes and vaginas that seem to cut slashes into the wall, letting visitors get a glimpse of what's beyond the installation.
This section also includes work by Turner Prize winning-artist Tai Shani shown for the first time in the UK - "The Neon Hieroglyph" (2021), inspired by the story of the Mahare Arcudare, flying witches, part of the folklore of the remote Alicudi, one of the Aeolian Islands off Sicily.
As a whole, this is a rich exhibition that supports the thesis of the curators of this playfully deviant show - in socially and politically complex times, horror always emerges. This statement is supported by the current obsession of fashion with horror as well (JW Anderson recently did a capsule inspired by 1976 cult horror classic "Carrie", based on Stephen King's first published novel, while Valentino launched a boxed set of three unpublished horror novels - Johnny Compton's "The Spite House," Lucy A. Snyder's "Sister, Maiden, Monster" and Leopoldo Gout's "Piñata" - if fashion and death are sisters, fashion and horror are indeed cousins…).
Rather than being an antidote to rebalance the excesses of the festive atmosphere of the holiday season, this exhibition has cathartic powers: with the anxiety caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and climate change, horror here is conceived not as something to be afraid of, but as an act of rebellion and a useful tool to elaborate fears, exorcise them and find new creative strengths.
Image credits for this post
1. The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain © Barnbrook/Somerset House
2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18. The Horror Show! A Twisted Tale of Modern Britain at Somerset House, London 2022. Image by Stephen Chung for Somerset House
5. Jamie Reid, Monster On a Nice Roof, 1972. © Jamie Reid. Courtesy of John Marchant Gallery.
6. Derek Ridgers, Martin at Billy's, London, 1978. © Derek Ridgers. Courtesy of Derek Ridgers Editions.
7. Derek Ridgers, Trojan & Mark at Taboo, London, 1986. © Derek Ridgers. Courtesy of Derek Ridgers Editions.
8. Derek Ridgers, Boy George outside St Moritz, London, 1981. © Derek Ridgers. Courtesy of Derek Ridgers Editions.
9. Ray Stevenson, The Bromley contingent, 1976 © Ray Stevenson.
13. Kerry Stewart, The Boy From the Chemist is Here to See You, 1993. © Kerry Stewart. Courtesy of the artist.
14. Juno Calypso, A Dream in Green, 2015. © Juno Calypso. Courtesy of the artist
16. Anna Bunting-Branch, W.I.T.C.H. (“We Invoke the Culture of Heretics”), 2015. © Anna Bunting-Branch.
17. Zadie Xa, Performance costume for ‘Basic Instructions B4 Leaving’, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
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