Dennis Hollingsworth

Simon Banks

One of the unique aspects of my studio location here in ChinaTown is that I am situated directly adjacent a gallery: "Rental Gallery", a creation of my friends Joel Mesler, Daniel Hug and another (a mysterious third partner who must remain nameless). This is an exhibition space that is for rent for galleries abroad, a great idea, a kind of super gallery... a gallery that shows not artists but galleries... sort-of.

This time, I get to meet the artist Simon Bedwell, a very genial fellow. Here is the press release sprinkled with fotos I shot here and there:

RITTER/ZAMET
presents

SIMON BEDWELL: the adverts

AT: RENTAL GALLERY, LOS ANGELES CA
NOVEMBER 12 ? DECEMBER 17, 2005

OPENING RECEPTION:
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 12, 2005 6 - 10 PM

For their guest appearance at Rental Gallery in Los Angeles,
Ritter/Zamet, London are pleased to present the first solo exhibition
in the United States of British artist, Simon Bedwell.

Since the demise of the infamous guerilla-artist collective BANK in
2003, Simon Bedwell has established himself as a renowned solo-artist.
He was short-listed for the esteemed Beck(c)?s Futures Art Prize 2004 at
London(c)?s ICA and his work has since been exhibited at the Saatchi
Gallery (Galleon and Other Stories, 2004), Laden F?r Nichts, Leipzig
(England Their England, 2005), and at White Columns, New York (Post No
Bills, 2005). He had his first solo exhibition at Ritter/Zamet in
April/May 2005 and is currently showing his latest project, GENTS: A
Melodrama in 2 Acts at Platform in London. Upcoming shows will include
The Triumph of Painting Part 6 at the Saatchi Gallery and a solo
exhibition at White Columns, New York later on next year.

Simon Bedwell is best known for his hand-manipulated trashed posters
and photographs, using text and spray-paint to generate esoteric,
strangely poignant or crass comedic fusions of word and image. The
work draws on the visual vernacular of the streets, employing the
cheap and throwaway nostalgia of posters scavenged from billboards,
bargain bins and thrift stores as raw materials to fragment, divert
and elaborate the original meaning into absurd compositions, poetic
narratives and sardonic allegories of power.

Some of the posters have had their transient commercial directives so
intertwined with the artist's fictional and material alterations that
it is impossible to tell where the original ends and the mutation
begins. But whilst destroying the quick-hit, constantly shifting
message of this ephemeral material, Bedwell also saves it, giving it
new weight and an object-quality that meanwhile retains an echo of the
familiar, like a nagging memory difficult to place.

(from left to right: Peter Frank, gallery owners Ritter and Zamet and Simon Banks)
For further information, please contact Ritter/Zamet, London at +44
(0)20 7261 9510 / +44 (0)7967 001 689 or via e-mail at
info@ritterzamet.com. From November 5 we can also be contacted at the
Rental Gallery at 213-617-0143.

The exhibition address:

RENTAL GALLERY
936 Mei Ling Way
Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA 90012
T 213-617-0143 E info@ritterzamet.com
Hours: Wednesday ? Saturday 12 ? 6 pm