The Eighteenth Emergency

Exhibition with Andrew Bryant, Frauke Dannert, Chas Higginbottom, Stefan Sulzer, Burcu Yagciogul and Daniel Lichtmann

Curated by Andrew Bryant

Links: Core gallery interview

“The exhibition takes as its prompt Betsy Byers’ short novel ‘The Eighteenth Emergency,’ a text which sees two boys create a series of action plans for unexpected events. However, the real emergency emerges as a crisis of masculinity, when the boys find themselves on the wrong side of Marv Hammerman, every eighth-grader’s worst nightmare. The text explores how in our sexist society gendered subjectivity is in fact foundational, and draws a telling conclusion: to some extent we are all on the ‘wrong’ side of masculinity.

“The Eighteenth Emergency exhibition interrogates the theme of masculinity through the work of innovative and exciting artists of the moment: Andrew Bryant, Frauke Dannert, Chas Higginbottom, Stefan Sulzer, Burcu Yagciogul and Daniel P. Lichtmann. Through their creative output an inherent violence and aggression is revealed when the artist adopts a stance within, or in relation to, the dialogue of masculinity. Brought together by curator Andrew Bryant in the Core Gallery space, the works individually explore and collectively challenge our society’s own gendered discourses, whether these are implicit or explicit.”

— Artlicks