Simon Bedwell was commissioned to make a new installation in the Picture Gallery for the Hospitalfield House Summer Festival 2017.

Inspired by Brian Yuzna’s 1989 film, in which the poor are ingested by the rich at ceremonial soirees, Bedwell’s installation, ‘SOCIETY’ featured portrait heads of the current Cabinet, laughing at an amorphous, orgiastic mass of interlinking, organic, crafted pot-bodies.

Simon Bedwell’s work has generally been characterised by a sprawling, mouthy, sensuous version of institutional critique which deliberately eschews the genre’s usual Calvinist mode. Institutional critique is a term given to the systematic investigation, reflection on and acting against the structures inherent in institutions. Art galleries and museums are the most usual focus of institutional critique by artists but with this project, there is a chance to think about the process of institutional critique in terms of everyone’s reflection on society’s political institutions in relation to democracy, press and government.

Alongside Bedwell’s installation, two sets of printed material collected by the artist were on display: etchings by caricaturist John Kay and Faceache comic strips; and a display of protest materials collected by Aberdeen based archivist Andrew MacGregor.

This work was supported by The Elephant Trust.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/21331