Rachel Maclean has rapidly established herself as one of the most distinctive creative voices in the UK. Creating baroque, hyper-real worlds using green-screen video and computer animation, and playing many of the extravagantly costumed characters herself, Maclean spins razor-sharp fables that combine comedy and horror. Her work offers a powerful critique of contemporary society and its underlying fears and desires.
Maclean first exhibited at the Zabludowicz Collection in 2014 with a solo exhibition as part of our Invites programme, and now returns for the 2018 Annual Commission show. At its centre is I’m Terribly Sorry, a new Zabludowicz Collection commission in virtual reality, the artist’s first piece in the medium, made in collaboration with Werkflow. An interactive experience set in a dystopian urban British landscape of manic tourist merchandise, it reflects on societal unease and misunderstanding in a culture of voracious documentation, self-performance and voyeurism.
Spite Your Face, 2017, the film with which Maclean represented Scotland at the 57th Venice Biennale, will be presented in the Main Hall. Referencing the Italian folktale The Adventures of Pinocchio, it was made in the context of significant changes in the political climate in the UK and abroad, in particular the divisive campaigns in the lead up to the Brexit vote and the US Presidential election – events central to heralding a new post-truth era.
Presented in the Back Gallery is an exclusive gallery edition and installation of Make Me Up, 2018, Maclean’s major new film commission produced by Hopscotch Films with NVA for BBC and 14-18 NOW.† The central protagonist is Siri, who wakes to find herself trapped inside a brutalist dream house. Despite the cutesy décor, the place is far from benign, and she and her inmates are encouraged to compete for survival while being watched over by surveillance cameras. Presiding over the group is an authoritarian diva (played by Maclean) who speaks entirely with the voice of Kenneth Clark from the BBC series Civilisation (1969). Make Me Up takes darkly-satirical look at the contradictory pressures faced by women today and reflects on the multiple voices within contemporary feminism’s challenge to patriarchal abuses of power.
| Duration | 20 September 2018 - 16 December 2018 |
| Times | Thursday – Sunday 12–6pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Zabludowicz Collection |
| Address | 176 Prince of Wales Road, London, NW5 3PT |
| Contact | / info@zabludowiczcollection.com / www.zabludowiczcollection.com |