The Pink Panther Show: Gallery 46, London
The Pink Panther Show is a group exhibition of emerging and mid career artists, each of whom have created a work specifically for the show. The Pink Panther Show is an experiment as much as it is an exhibition.
At first glance, the artists have hardly anything in common: they are in different points of their career; their practices are diverse; they deal with different issues, and are interested in distinctive themes. However, being brought together by the eponymous character, they are 'forced' to interpret the same concept without losing their definitive traits.
In the live action version of the film Pink Panther, Ponton tells Inspector Jacques Clouseau: "You never cease to surprise me, sir." to which the Inspector replies: "With me, surprises are rarely unexpected." With the artists working independently and not being aware of how the others respond to the theme, surprises are rarely unexpected, indeed.
Luckily enough, the versatile character of the Pink Panther allows for surprises, even welcomes them. The feline has many faces: it combines mystery with humour, crime with performance; it disappears and reappears all of a sudden, and lives in-between fantasy and reality. It is easy to relate to the Pink Panther, and each artist deals with a different characteristic of the iconic cat: using anthropomorphism, language to describe the otherwise mute panther, life documentation, duplication and reproduction (to mention a few methods). Drawing inspiration from the real-life crime stories of the Pink Panther gang to the classic cartoon series, the works are as diverse as the character itself.
The Pink Panther Show does not have pretentions. Its nature is ethereal. Its mood is fun and light. Its time is limited. Just as 'the cool cat' suddenly vanishes after the film credits in the beginning, the exhibition will last just enough to let the works engage in a dialogue within the space, to make visible the common traits among the different practices that only the Pink Panther can enable. -Victoria Gyuleva
Curated by: Evangeline Ling, Martin Mayorga and Vanessa Murrell
Artists: Daniel Burley, Jade Chingyuk Ng, Arnaud Desjardin, Hetty Douglas, Fiona Grady, Laurence Greenberg, Tom Hardwick Allan, Evangeline Ling, Tanya Ling, Michael Murphy, India Nielsen, Callum Nixon, Delilah Olson, Niamh Roberts, Liam Scully and Hannah Tilson
For the exhibition, Fiona Grady created Mancini Moments, a series of site-responsive window installations across several rooms within the gallery.
