The Worst ****ing Show I've Ever Seen

Unabridged version

The worst ****ing show I’ve ever seen is Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me. Five ordinary members of the daytime TV watching public hold dinner parties for each other. A film crew records the process. Channel 4 apply a sarcastic voice over afterwards in the hope of distancing themselves from the shit that they end up with. The contestants compete against each other, scoring each other’s parties badly in the hope of winning the main prize at the end of the week. The whole purpose of sharing and breaking bread together is entirely dismissed by the lure of the £1000 prize and the producers’ need to make entertaining TV. Contestants are encouraged to criticize each other’s food and houses with pithy comments. Unfortunately, not ever having a particular flair for wit, these are generally along the lines of ‘Gosh, could you imagine having that ornament in your house? Hoo hoo hoo’. Not entertaining in themselves, the sole purpose of these remarks seem to be to place the contestants along a line of the class system. Demarcating the posh as not liking anything common, the common as not liking anything outrageous, and the nouveau riche as only liking their own white and black interior styling. The unspoken formula to win is traditionally British – be higher class and better bred.
The soul of my being is offended by the fact that food is still being used to uphold a centuries old feudal system. Of course, firmly committed to the class struggle I sky+ the 21/2 hour Sunday omnibus and watch it every week with relish, knowing that such a blatant display has got to defeat against itself eventually.

Edited Version:

The worst ****ing show I've ever seen is Channel 4's Come Dine With Me. It's shit.

Shelf Life

I think we all have spaces where we keep our special things and I would like to take you on a little journey amongst some of mine currently residing on six glass shelves in my sitting room. I have no window cills or mantlepiece, so this has become the repository of a hotch potch of stuff, old and new. The only common thread being that they have become a three dimensional biography of me. There have been some serious edits over the years, for many different reasons and are currently undergoing another review, this time through the eyes of an art student. What will remain at the end I wonder?

My first item is one of the most recent, a card from a friend. It is a black and white photograph neatly reversing the role of artist and model. It was sent to pull gentle fun at me in particular and art schools in general. It is a temporary resident on the third shelf, but not for binning quite yet.

PRIVATE VIEW

War Porn Series, As we forgive them, and no differently, 2008, Giclee Print

Preview 17 April 2008
18 April - 25 May 2008
Wednesday - Sunday 12.00 - 6.00

David Risley Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition by London born artist Charlie Woolley.

In this exhibition Woolley brings together a collection of images and objects with thematic connections. He asks the question 'what can be done with the images which we are confronted by everyday?' Sometimes this question is in response to simple desires: to chart the histories of the instruments and memorabilia of musicians ranging from bands such as Black Flag to convict blues musician Robert Pete Williams. At other times it is in response to the flickering screens of television sets. Here they are frozen into photographs, exposing moments of beauty and technological anomaly as colour explodes through the expanded pixels of black & white film stills. In other works the TV's surface sends brightly coloured images into swirls of moiré distorting and disturbing the image and one's vision.

This question also extends to images which do not confront us so obviously, but instead those that are partially hidden and must be sought out. A love letter is blown out of all proportion; the handwriting replaced by a typeface bereft of sentiment, and with the essential words replaced with a line hinting at what might have been said.

A series of landscapes depicting solitary buildings are blown-up low quality digital files found on an internet search engine, the buildings themselves have been removed exposing a second image underneath, which retains the shape of the thing that is no-longer there. These images are inspired by architectural palimpsests, a phenomenon so common in London, a city ever haunted by more and more ghosts.

I Built my House on Sand is an exhibition in which nothing is stable. The house was not built on sand through foolishness or by accident, but with the knowledge that we must always be prepared to let what we have go, and start again.

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David Risley Gallery, 45 Vyner Street, London, E2 9DQ, UK
Telephone: +44 (0)208 980 2202 Email: info@davidrisleygallery.com
Opening times: Wednesday - Sunday 12.00pm - 6.00pm or by appointment.