For her exhibition at Paul Stolper Gallery Sarah Hardacre will present a body of new collages and will launch a new print ‘I Know I’ve Done Some Foolish Things’.
Both the buildings, and the women that dominate the architecture in the collages become objectified. “Post-war concrete architecture is finding its way into magazines, blogs and Instagram feeds – but its commodified comeback is completely at odds with Brutalism’s social agenda", Architectural critic, Catherine Slessor. The proliferation of Brutalist imagery is fetishised, it deliberately ignores both those lives lived inside the buildings and the bold Utopian vision of Brutalist architecture. It’s about the surface skin of the building, the look, a superficial and contemporary Ruin Lust. Hardacre’s women are standing in for this fetishised gaze; what are you looking at? Should you be looking at this? Are you looking at it for the right reasons? Do you feel uncomfortable? Are you thinking behind the facade? The sometimes flawed but noble attempt to give everyone access to outdoor space, where design meets democracy has long since turned the symbolic high rise into a symbol of depravation, crime and anti-social behaviour.
“The traditional togetherness of the village is giving way to the inbuilt loneliness of the new high rises” JG Ballard.
