White Room: Simon Bedwell

White Columns is proud to present “The Furnishers” the first solo exhibition in New York by the London-based artist Simon Bedwell. Bedwell’s installation juxtaposes thrift store furniture and ornaments, an overhead-projected image, détourned posters, and monochromatic and abstract paintings (that often take the form of modular temporary screens.) In his works Bedwell often collides conflicting aesthetics and visual languages, which variously include soft-porn imagery, the popular gothic (often in the form of horror movie posters), institutional and bureaucratic architecture(s), advertising, modernist painting, and sardonic sloganeering. Seen together, Bedwell’s interventions establish a complex narrative that both engages with and confuses contemporary political and social mores. With a deft humor his work both conflates and disrupts issues of class, race, sexual politics and art.

Simon Bedwell lives and works in London, UK. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include: ‘Gents: A melodrama in two acts’, Platform, London; ‘The Adverts’, Ritter/Zamet at Rental Gallery, Los Angeles; Ritter/Zamet, London (All 2005). Recent group shows include: ‘Bring The War Home’, Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; (2006); ‘Post No Bills’, White Columns, New York (2005); ‘Becks Futures’, ICA, London; ‘Galleon and other stories’, Saatchi Gallery, London, (both 2004.) Bedwell was a founding member of the seminal – and sorely missed – London-based artists collective BANK, whose nefarious activities throughout the 1990s were brought together in the monograph ‘BANK’ (2000, Black Dog, London). Bedwell received an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London in 1993, and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Saint Martins School of Art, London in 1986.
Simon Bedwell’s ‘White Room’ exhibition has been generously supported by the British Council United States and Goldsmiths College, London.