Untitled (The Rich...)

Simon Bedwell sources and transforms old, second-hand posters, intervening with his own eye-catching, spray-painted slogans that are themselves often ‘found’ material. Discovered in charity shops and foraged from billboards, Bedwell manipulates, reroutes and subverts the meaning of the original image, creating uncanny tangents that critique an oversaturation of ephemeral media in advertising and popular culture. Bedwell notes that posters are ‘like bus ticket designs, the things we see every day all around us. But they’re immediately evocative of their time in a way that’s stronger than most other things.’ Two works produced in 2004, Bedwell’s first year as a solo artist after his twelve-year tenure working under the collective BANK, illustrate his canny ability to beguile and bemuse his audience. Untitled (The Rich..) features an enigmatic caption framing a photograph of a dashing white horse, while Untitled (Festival) - lot 96 on the online section - stages a young Al Pacino as the unlikely poster boy of a fictional ‘Psychoanalysis Festival’.