Flaming July

 

24 July 2010 to 15 August 2010
Leighton House, Kensington

An exhibition curated by Brooke Lynn McGowan and Liane Lang, part of the Cultural Olympiad Project Once Upon a Time in the West, supported by the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Alice Anderson
Paul Buck
Ana Cavic
Justin Coombes
Elosie Fournieles
Anouchka Grose
Nick Hornby
Liane Lang
Brooke Lynn McGowan
Annabelle Moreau
Kate Williams
Julian Wild

This site-specific exhibition takes place as part of a larger project, Once Upon a Time in the West, as part of West London’s contribution to the 2009-2012 Cultural Olympiad. Flaming July refers not only to Leighton’s opus magnum, Flaming June (1895), but also elicits a more nefarious and questionable legacy. Following upon the aim of Once Upon a Time in the West, to investigate the ‘story’ and ‘history’ of studios and artistic practice in West London, the aim of Flaming July, through a series of creative interventions, is to consider the subliminal, suppressed, and often Orientalist legacy of Leighton in light of a greater, more conflicted, and more international London.

Every archive incites the urge to burn.

With live peformances and readings by Paul Buck, Kate Williams, Ana Cavic, Eloise Fornieles and Hilary Koob-Sassen.
All the works in the show have been created in or in response to Leighton House.