Gordon Cheung, The Journey, 2009. Stock Listings, acrylic gel and spray on canvas.Courtesy the Artist.
Review: Gordon Cheung - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The New Art Gallery Walsall, until November 1 2009
Gordon Cheung's 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' borrows its title and point of departure from the Bible’s Book of Revelation, and uses stock listings from the Financial Times as its canvases.
Cheung’s work can be appreciated for both its aesthetic and tactile qualities. Paint has been dripped down the monumental canvas of The Four Horsemen and thickly applied acrylics give a relief quality to paintings like The Journey.
He uses a variety of media and loaded references throughout the work to suggest a unity between the legend of four weapon-wielding Biblical figures and the constant activity of our present economy.
This can be seen in Endgame, where the head of a bull and the head of a bear are used to reflect an adapted version of the Four Horsemen - apparently acting as symbols of both a thriving and a collapsing stock market.
Gordon Cheung, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 2009. Stock listings, acrylic gel and spray on canvas. Courtesy of the artist
The artist's work also references human mortality and capitalism via a collection of thirty small portraits of famous people, ten of them dead, in 'Top Ten Dead Celebrities who are Still Earning'.
In a similar style but differing form, Cheung projects four films on adjacent walls of a darkened room. They show silhouetted figures struggling on a bucking bull against the background of a rolling and hallucinogenic post-apocalyptic landscape.
The Revelations, a collection of laser etchings, reference Durer's interpretation of the same Biblical passage. These are delicate and tonally refined depictions created over press cuttings that continue the economic theme of the exhibition.
Whilst The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse reflects some well worn ideas about capitalism and religion, there is at the heart of his apocalyptic vision an underlying theme of death awaiting every person.
That said, he seems to be encouraging us to show a conscientious attitude in an effort to curb an apocalypse that is our own capitalist system.
