Michael Wilkinson ‘Dresden’

The fire-storm that resulted from the bombing of Dresden in 1945 is the most sensitive issue in any examination of English conduct in the Second World War. Its use as a basis of the shop’s [Seditionaries] design indicates [Malcolm] McLaren’s increasing ambition to take on the Establishment. (England’s Dreaming, Jon Savage, Faber and Faber, 2005, p 284)

The economic crises of the early 1980s recreated mass-unemployment for the first time in 40 years, at all events in Europe. In some ill advised countries the crisis produced a veritable industrial holocaust, Britain lost 25% of its manufacturing industry in 1980-1984. (The Age of Extremes 1914-1991, Eric Hobsbawm, Abacus, 1995 p 304)

Michael Wilkinson’s third exhibition, ‘Dresden’ at The Modern Institute will also be the inaugural show of the gallery’s new exhibition space at Aird’s Lane, Glasgow. A former glass factory Aird’s Lane will be a new permanent space for The Modern Institute housing a flexible programme of shows each year alongside its Osborne Street space.

The exhibition includes new canvases, a vitrine, mirror and sculptural work featuring echoes of Joseph Beuys, Karl Marx and the punk boutique Seditionaries.

Michael Wilkinson’s solo exhibitions include, ‘Never Works’ Le Temple, Paris, 2011, ‘Lions After Slumber’, The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd (2009) and Wrong Gallery, New York, 2004. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Rubble Stir’, The Glue Factory, Glasgow, 2010; ‘Wayfinders’, 135 Castlebank Street, Glasgow, 2006; and ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’, FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, 2004. His book 1979- was published by Blackdog Publishing, London.