Bourouina Gallery is pleased to present London based artist collective LE GUN with The Unknown Room for the first time in Berlin.
The world of Le Gun is a nightmarish, poetical universe of drawn visions. The artists black-humoured drawings narrate tales of odd nonconformists in surreal sceneries, populated by the ghosts of Francis Bacon, William Burroughs or Aleister Crowley.
In 2007 Le Gun discovered a briefcase believed to have belonged to the late jazz pirate and trout tickler George Melly. Snapshots, a diary and other items in the case such as photographs, a pack of pills or a Marvin Gaye LP, revealed a narrative based around a room which Le Gun attempt to reconstruct in three-dimensional reality: The Unknown Room.
Central to the room is the table map of Le Gundon. Like you, Melly is a visitor in this land that reminds of James Ensors. But he is also a ghost, a tool for blending fact and fiction. As Melly travels through the land of Le Gundon, it is possible to follow his progress, featured in the pictures within the room. The Pleasure Zone, The Turkish Baths, The Interzone and The Last Civilization are all visualised extracts from his hand written diary. The map represents Le Gun themselves too. The worlds in which they move and operate, the people who have contributed directly or indirectly to their progress: Artists, dead poets, heroes and hoodlums.
The room is a collection of intrinsically linked and inseparable elements. Individual pieces of work that compliment and validate each other, giving each other life, history and future.
Le Gun was founded in 2004 by group of Graduates from the Royal College of Art. United by the same niche taste in art, such as the love for Raw Magazine which was published in the 1980's by Art Spiegelman in New York, Le Gun soon published their own self-titled magazine.
Le Gun's independent illustration publication is not just a platform for their own works, but for other artists, illustrators, writers and poets, too. Outside the mainstream, the magazine launches an exciting discussion of provocative and intelligent art. The publications focus is on experimental forms of comic and visual narration.
Besides having collective exhibitions, performances and the self-titled Magazine, Le Gun have produced large-scale communally executed drawings in London, opened a curiosity shop, cooperated with Paul Smith for a clothing line and produced a music clip for Pete Doherty's Babyshambles.
The exhibition The Unknown Room is accomplished by a publication with a text by Harry Malt (Dazed & Confused Magazine). Bourouina Gallery also presents the latest Issue (#5) of Le Gun Magazine as well as a book compilation including the first three issues of the Magazine, both just been published.
A group was formed to create a n ndependent publication focusing on narrative illustration. Le Gun, as it later became known, was founded by Neal Fox, Chris Bianchi, Bill Bragg, Robert Rubbish, Matt Appleton and Alex Wright. The Royal College of Art in the leafy area of London known as Kensington, provided the unlikely but nourishing womb-like environment for these mercurial characters to get to grips with each other, literally and metaphorically. Developing what is now recognised now as their own distinctive and much imitated style. It is useful at this point to mention the proximity of the RCA to that deliciously dirty area of London called Soho. Famous for it’s infamous ‘refreshment’ establishments and the tantalising array of misfits and weirdos that frequent them. Fuel for the creative fires. Unsubstantiated rumours at the time hinted that Le Gun editorial meetings were held in the steam rooms of a spa in East London. It is also around this point, the precise date remains clouded by canal mist and spider webs, that Stephanie von Reiswitz joined the group. They ploughed their own furrow with gusto, Le Gun a sum of its parts, its fascinating parts.
When it comes to making a film of this adventure and achievement, this part will be a montage.
An introduction to each character and his or her special talent. All adept, some slightly odd, all indispensable.
That was seven long years ago.
Out in the real world, away from the comfort a college can provide, Le Gun have continued in the manner in which they set out and are still a bunch of fiercely independent individuals. Never afraid to air their opinions, however crass, brutish or offensive, they remain as sensitive as they are difficult. Working alone, they have carved profitable and rewarding niches for their respective individual crafts. However, solo shows are two a penny, group shows come and go, gigs go on and on and performances pass. And as retired prize fighters turn back to the bloodied ring, Le Gun are inexorably drawn back into the their own fray. Putting aside ego, temper tantrums and fist fights to come back to the thing that compels them, the collective. The desire to produce work together, to travel to new countries and cities, to fuel their lust for new and lasting experiences. It is these things that bind and continue to inspire them. Happiest in those places they have yet to visit. New air for the lungs, new food for the eyes.
Content for the publication. It may seem they are fixated with dead poets, artists, drug addicts, buggers, murderers, philanderers, hoodlums and hawkers. And that’s true but Le Gun also harbours an innocence, a child like fantasy and a social conscience that is truly captivating. So take a chance to savour this ingenious cross breeding of whimsical historical vandalism and heroic idealism, it is a wonderful independently minded outlook on life, art and publishing.
To the business of the room.
The Unknown Room is hard to write about. As with all things Le Gun, there is a degree of mystery attached that clouds the actual truth. Chinese whispers, rumour, hearsay and urban legend prevail. Remember the mantra of the late Tony Wilson, ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’? It seems fitting in this case. The room’s inception has a lot to do with George Melly, the Da Da loving jazz truffler and Soho frequenter. The discovery of a suitcase containing his diary in a disused Masonic shoe shop in Hackney. The story unfolds. A kiss from lady boy luck combined with a trip to Belgium and quite possibly, some E’s, rubbish cocaine and several hundred pints of Guinness. To cut a long story short, here we are. The Unknown Room. Central to the room is the table map of Le Gundon. An introduction to the concept, or way of life, that is Le Gundon. To begin to have an appreciation of anything that stands around you study this map. It is your touchstone, the thing by which all else is measured. Like you, Melly is a visitor in this land. But he is a ghost, a tool for blending fact and fiction into their black and white hyper-reality. History, the present and the future combined. You, the audience are merely voyeurs, gifted an outsiders view into these sights and scenes unknown and mainly unusual. As Melly travels through the land of Le Gundon, it is possible to follow his progress, featured in the main pictures within the room, he goes about his business. ‘The Pleasure Zone’, ‘The Turkish Baths’, ‘The Interzone’ and ‘The Last Civilization’. All visualised extracts from his hand written diary. The map contains much more than just Melly, the map represents Le Gun themselves too. The worlds in which they move and operate, the people who have contributed directly or indirectly to their progress. Influences and agitations sit alongside facts of their modern lives. These are the pen and ink manifestations of sentient, enquiring, healthy minds. Absorbing and regurgitating all that they see, hear, smell, taste and try around them.
We may all be products of our environment but this map is a definitely a product of theirs.
As well as being festooned with objects you will recognise if you look closely enough, the room itself is littered with influences, the Surrealists, those heady Belgian beers, James Ensor, Marvin Gaye on a donkey in Ostend. The room contains many generous insights specifically tailored for the Belgian audience. A ruse to draw them into this parallel world, familiar and foreign. The artistic, musical, contemporary and literary references are too numerous to list, they jostle and vie for position with private jokes and brutal swipes at the nauseating aspects of our popular culture.
Initially built for an exhibition at Art Brussels 2010, the room is based on a collaborative drawing produced earlier that year. The original picture was sold, so a new one had to be created. Based this time on the real room. As the saying goes, works of art begat works of art. The new picture hangs above the dresser at the head of the room. Within this cyclical process lies a key to possibly all that is important in the this life, real or otherwise. Re-use, reinvention, the courage to change tack and to strike out on your own if necessary. Better with friends, there’s strength in numbers, the power and persuasiveness of a group.
The ability to justify and back up your own actions and statements. Island rule. Autonomy. DIY.
This room is a collection of intrinsically linked and inseparable elements. Individual pieces of work that compliment, and validate each other, giving each other life, history and a future. The members of Le Gun are the same, living emissaries from Le Gundon, representing The Unknown Room and all the minute constructed truth you see before you. Sentinels from their own imaginations,
denizens of the real and hyper real ensuring their own fictions and legacy.
In the words of the great writer and frontiersman Jack London, a hero to one of Le Gun’s heroes,
‘Don’t loaf and invite inspiration, light out after it with a club’.
Harry Malt. East London Dreamzone. Summer 2011.
