London - After a stellar launch
party at Saatchi & Saatchi London on Thursday 27th November, the VivaWomen!
Exhibition ‘There’s a Good Girl’ moves to the Assembly Rooms in Soho where it
will be on view to the public from 1st to 19th December. Performance artist
Pandemonia, singers Joanna Yearwood of Duran Duran and Sonique, Nancy Dell’Olio
and Saatchi & Saatchi Chairman and CEO SSF Group EMEA Robert Senior
attended the event at the iconic Charlotte Street agency, with many of the
exhibiting artists including Alison Jackson, Pam Glew, Alison Pope, Mary Nighy,
and new Selfridges filmmaker in residence Kathryn Ferguson coming along to see
their work in situ, and Vogue photographer Elin Hornfeldt documenting the event
with her camera. Guests enjoyed
delicious St. Germain and Beluga cocktails, Peroni and there was a scrum for
the goodie bags containing such treats as Candy Kittens, Ren skincare, Frost
French knickers aptly named ‘Floozie’, Picador books, hot sauce from The
Pickled Village, Lazy Oaf products and scented candles from Architect at Home,
and enjoyed ProperCorn popcorn in a pop up screening room.
‘There’s a Good Girl’
takes its name from the 1980s bestseller written by Marianne Grabrucker, whose
book detailed her attempts as a mother to override gender stereotyping of her
daughter, and encourage her to “reach for the stars”. ‘There’s a Good Girl’ (TAGG) features new and
unique artwork created by; Alison Carmichael, Alison Jackson, Arvida Bystrom,
Cassandra Yap, Hattie Stewart, Jessica May Underwood, Jillian Lochner, Kathryn
Ferguson, Malika Favre, Mary Nighy, Michela Picchi, Miss Cakehead, Nancy Fouts,
Natasha Law, Pam Glew, Rhea Thierstein, Sara Pope, Soozy Lipsey, Toni Gallagher
and Veronique Rolland. These women have created iconic commercial work as well
as innovative fine art, either way they are making their mark on contemporary
culture.
Alice Jones of The
Independent commented: “For decades, the
way women appeared in advertisements was dictated by men. But now female photographers and creative are
changing the rules.”
The seed for the concept
of the exhibition came after Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director Jo
Wallace attended an event organized by VivaWomen! A Publicis Groupe initiative
that works to raise the profile of women in advertising. They invited
Wallace to stage an event at Saatchi & Saatchi, and she plumped for an
exhibition celebrating women’s creativity. Sara Baumann, Talent Strategy
Director of Leo Burnett Group and Chair of VivaWomen! UK explains: “We
are a creative business, working to engage women for the majority of our
clients, yet women are under-represented in creative departments in our
agencies, which simply doesn’t make sense. The artists involved in this
show have demonstrated incredible determination to push the boundaries both
professionally and personally, and we are delighted to champion such audacious
women making their mark on contemporary culture.”
Wallace drafted in some
of her colleagues at Saatchi & Saatchi to make the dream of showcasing some
of the best women creatives a reality including Shelley Dobson and Lisa
Robbins. Also in the TAGG team are Senior Art Director Suzie Quill and
Project Manager Layla Boyd, who invited several female creatives, illustrators
and filmmakers known primarily for their commercial work, to exhibit their more
personal work. Quill worked closely with her creative partner Camilla
McLean on the exhibition, and they created a beautiful exhibition catalogue,
and commissioned master doodle-bomber Hattie Stewart to create one of her
subversive images for the poster and catalogue cover. Stewart also
created a limited edition ‘There’s a Good Girl’ print for the exhibition, a
unique digital and pen artwork ‘Babe, No’, and TAGG knickers!
Director of Global
Creative PR Lee Sharrock co-curated the exhibition, and invited Toni Gallagher,
Pam Glew, Soozy Lipsey, Alison Jackson, Natasha Law and Nancy Fouts to take
part. Several of these women started out as creatives in the advertising
industry and later carved out successful careers as artists, exhibiting in
galleries all over the world. For example Alison Jackson who created a
memorable campaign for Schweppes with a Camilla Parker Bowles lookalike sipping
a G&T, and went on to exhibit extensively in galleries and create a
signature style of voyeuristic photography of celebrity lookalikes, exploring
the contemporary obsession with fame and the cult of celebrity, and in ‘There’s
a Good Girl’ her paparazzi-style photo of a Kim Kardashian lookalike being
squeezed into a pair of Spanx by Kanye captures the zeitgeist and perfectly
sums up how women are constantly trying to attain what is perceived as physical
perfection. Nancy Fouts, who was one of the original high-powered women
creatives, known for her seminal Silk Cut ad in the 90s featuring an iron and a
length of silk, has transformed the iron from that campaign into a sculpture
with a delicate Turin-shroud like figure of the Madonna on its underside.
Sharrock discovered Soozy Lipsey’s work at the Other Art Fair, and
Lipsey’s flying retro feather-covered hoover ‘Hovering Between the Two’ (2014)
is a fabulously ironic twist on the exhibition’s title. Toni Gallagher
began her career as an art director, before making a move into fine art. For
the TAGG launch at Saatchi & Saatchi she created two beautiful lightboxes
of an x-rayed ostrich, and at The Assembly Rooms her ostrich x-ray etchings
will be on display. Pam Glew is exhibiting in TAGG an American flag
screen printed with an image of Vogue editor Anna Wintour - Glew has created
her signature flag portraits for commercial clients including Ralph Lauren, and
her image ‘Afghan Girl’ was featured on the cover of Le Monde. Natasha
Law, who has made some beautiful illustrative commissions for clients including
Mulberry, is exhibiting an Ink and Gloss painting from her new series ‘Stretch
(I)’ (2014), a more abstracted version of her familiar languid female
torsos.
The exhibition features
some unique and disruptive sculpture, photography, illustration, drawing, film,
and even edible art in the form of Miss Cakehead’s slug-covered cake titled
‘When I’m Good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m Better’.
Alison Carmichael created a clever typographic twist on the exhibition’s
title, covering a giant billboard in Saatchi & Saatchi’s car park featuring
the words ‘Good Girl’ spelled out with hundreds and thousands. Three
films are included in the exhibition, all examining issues concerning women and
young girls in today’s society; Veronique Rolland, whose work is featured in
the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and is known for her seminal
Dove campaign showing real women, is showing her film ‘Tree in Fog’ (2009),
created during a trip to her native Scandinavia where she experienced a personal
epiphany; Mary Nighy, who recently made a powerful short film for the Thomson
Reuters foundation about child slavery, is exhibiting her 2011 film ‘Small Town
Glory; and Kathryn Ferguson, well known for her fashion and short films, is
screening ‘Rear Guard’ (2013) which examines the hyper-sexualisation of women
in music videos.
Rhea Thierstein, known
for her collaborations with photographer Tim Walker, created a fragile
sculpture of a Queen Bee ‘Bittersweet’ (2014), a gentle twist on the notion of
struggle and isolation experienced by women today, and the vulnerability of
motherhood. Sara Pope, who was fabulously invited to the Vatican to
present her portrait of the Holy Father to him personally, created a striking
neon image of a pair of pouting red lips, a comment on the symbolism of red
lipstick.
Arvida Bystrom, whose
photography was commissioned by VICE at the tender age of 16, created a new
installation ‘Not in Her’ (2014) for TAGG, featuring digital work and imitation
skin, and examining notions of contemporary feminism. Cassandra Yap, an
art director whose work explores the juxtaposition of darkness and beauty,
exhibits ‘Diamonds are Forever’ (2014), a limited edition screen print
created from vintage pin ups and erotica. Photographer Jillian Lochner’s
photographs ‘Study in Pink 1’ and ‘Study in Pink 2’ examine similar themes to
Bystrom, depicting what appears to be skin being manipulated by surgey.
Jessica May Underwood, a Central Saint Martins graduate whose career
began drawing in house at Alexander McQueen, is showing her delicate drawing
‘Olivia’. French artist Malika Favre has a distinctive Pop aesthetic, as
seen in her illustrations commissioned by Aldo, and the personal piece ‘Office
Supplies’ that she is exhibiting in TAGG. Michela Picchi, an Italian
creative based in Berlin, has created exquisite, colourful collaged
illustrations for clients including Nike, and in TAGG we see her print
‘Divination’ (2014).
A percentage of any
artwork and exhibition merchandise sold will be donated to charity Plan UK, who
work with the world’s poorest children so they can move themselves from a life
of poverty to a future with opportunity. They help girls around the world
who are threatened by poverty, gender inequality, violence, poor education, conflict
and disasters. www.plan-uk.org
The exhibition will be on
display at The Assembly Rooms, 8 Silver Place, London, W1F 0JU, from Monday 1st December until 19th December.
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 9am-6pm.
Free admission. http://theassemblyrooms.tv
Twitter.com/TheresAGoodGirl
Facebook.com/TheresAGoodGirl
Instagram.com/TheresAGoodGirl
#TAGG #TheresAGoodGirl
#VivaWomen #SaatchiLondon
Thanks to sponsors; Ren,
FrostFrench, Dash, The Pickled Village, Candy Kittens, Lindt, Max Factor, St
Germaine, Peroni, Beluga vodka, Picador, Propercorn, Architect at Home, Lazy
Oaf.
Printers: Wren Press and
Jealous Print Studios.
Photographer: Elin
Hornfeldt.
Saatchi & Saatchi
TAGG team; Jo Wallace, Suzie Quill,
Camilla McLean, Shelley Dobson, Layla Boyd, Lee Sharrock & Lisa
Robbins.
Image credits: Alison
Carmichael ‘Good Girl’, photo copyright Elin Hornfeldt