“LIONS AFTER SLUMBER”

The title of this exhibition is from a poem by Shelley and a song by Scritti Politti.

Shelley wrote the poem, The Masque of Anarchy, in 1819 after hearing news of the Peterloo massacre and the deaths of fifteen protesters at the hands of the cavalry. It concludes with the lines:

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you-

Ye are many – they are few.

Scritti Politti’s Lions After Slumber features on the 1982 Rough Trade LP Songs to Remember. It begins with the lines:

My diplomacy, my security, my hope and my ice –cream,

My tomorrow and my temperature, my lips and my selfishness..

And continues in this way, concluding:

My pockets, my homework,

Like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number, oh yeah.

In an interview in Simon Reynolds’ Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews (Faber & Faber, 2009) Green Gartside, the writer of the song described it as “a little relativist hymn.”

This exhibition includes:

1. A black and white giclee print of Picadilly Circus on Somerset Satin 305 gsm paper, 1.5m x 3.78m. From a photograph of the interior of the shop Seditionaries c.1977 on pg.283 of John Savage’s England’s Dreaming- Sex Pistols and Punk Rock, Faber & Faber, 1991. Scanned in Glasgow by Robert Johnston (robert@pausebuttonedit.com) on a Umax Powerloop 3000 scanner and printed in London by John Jones (info@johnjones.co.uk) on an HP Designjet Z 60-100.Total Production Cost £881

2. 2808 used white Lego 2x4 bricks. Average cost £0.10 per brick (mostly www.ebay.co.uk) Assembled as a structure of four equal walls, 445mm x 445mm x 500mm.

3. An etched mirror 1225mm x 1100mm x 3mm (£42.75, Wilton Glazing, 514 Gt Western Rd G12 Tel: (0141) 339 9225) mounted on 8mm Perspex (£110, Stockline Plastics, Grovepark Mills Hopehill Rd G20, Tel: (0141) 332 9077) with mirror adhesive (£5 per 310ml, Wilton Glazing, as above) and hung using stainless steel fittings designed and produced by Bob Bennett. Features the face of an unidentified man in a crowd watching rioters confronting police in Paris, May 1968. From a photograph printed in The Observer newspaper in 1999.

4. Audio tape, removed from its casing and hung from the ceiling. Average £0.10 per tape, Dennistoun Baptist Church Charity Shop, 654 Alexandra Parade G31 3BU, Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice 368 Duke Street G31 1QL

5.  A stretched linen 1485mm x 1320mm:

1. Pine 34mm x 21mm x 2.4 m £2.10 Per 2.4 m length, Catani, 393 Alexandra Parade G31 Tel: (0141) 954 6300.
2. Linen. £33.50m @ 84” wide. Millers 28 Stockwell St G1 Tel: (0141) 553 1660.
3. Daler-Rowney System 3 Cadmium Red (Hue) Acrylic Paint. £13.75 For 500ml,The Artstore, as before
4. Verdigris. Produced by the action of vinegar, £0.55 for 275ml, Day To-Day 650 Alexandra Parade, G31 on copper (see below)
5. Encyclopedia image illustrating the Paris Commune, 1871. £0.20, Denniston Baptist Church Charity Shop, as above.
6. String. £3.99 for a ball. Douglas 172 Hope St G2 2TX Tel: (0141) 332 4105
7. Rustin’s blackboard paint. £5.99 for 500ml. Hardware Hut 660 Alexandra Parade G31.
8. Daler Rowney Purriefied Linseed Oil 75ml £3.25 Miller’s, as before.
9. Beeswax, £0.95 for 25g. Catani, as before.

6. A blackboard 970mm x 860mm, including:

a. Pine as above.

b. Plywood £27.60 Per Sheet of 2440 x 1220 mm Jewsons, Craighall Road, Glasgow, G4 9TN (0141) 331 1287

c. Johnstone’s blackboard paint. £20.06 for 2.5l Unit 8 Watt St Kingston Bridge Trading Estate Glasgow Tel: (0141) 429 8585

d. Screen-printed mirror 140mm x 140mm. 2000. Shows the face of Irene Goergens, a member of the Red Army Faction, as she appears on the cover of Raw Macro by Farben, Klang Elektronik Records, 2000. Fragment of damaged mirror shown at ZKM Karlsruhe Mar-April 2001. Produced in Liverpool by a craftsman no longer in business, information lost regarding production costs.

e. Copper. Prices vary according to gauge. Metal Supermarket, Unit 8, 9 Muirpark Industrial Estate, Ibrox G51 2RQ Tel: (0141) 440 1300.

f. Audio-cassette case. Biro on card, plastic. 1979, courtey of Susan Wilkinson.

g. Black and white photographic image of bombed out building in Berlin in 1941. Taken from ISMERNE: Modernismens Kunsthistorie by R.Broby-Johansens, 1977. £0.20, Denniston Baptist Church Charity Shop, address as above.

h. Chalk.  £0.89 for a box of 12. Douglas, as above.

i. Aldis slide-projector lens cap.

j. Black and white photographic image taken from the back of the sleeve of Wood Beez 12” by Scritti Politti, Warner. Bros Records, 1984. Shows front cover image under production.

k. Seed from a tree on the Ile de la Cité, Paris

The exhibition also features a carpet in Mars grey supplied by Reed (183 Torrington Avenue, Coventry West Midlands UK CV4 9UQ T. +44 (0) 24 7669 4114 @ £5.35 Per m sq and glass etch vinyl, £112.00 per window and fitting £45.00 for all three, all prices plus VAT, Fastsigns, Unit 7, 13-14 Upper Mill Street Industrial Estate, Airdrie, ML6 6JJ. T. +44 01236 675 1647

Michael would like to thank the following for their help with this exhibition - Toby and Andrew, Kitty, Alice, Kath, Paul and Lindsey at the Modern Institute, Fi, Ian, Christian, Robert, Bob, Diane, Mark, Rob, Alan, Ken and Kate and the Scottish Arts Council.