Exhibition Flyer
Works Exhibited
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_pulchevik, 2013, gouache, crayon, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 60 x 60 cm photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_pulchevik (detail), 2013, gouache, crayon, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 60 x 60 cm photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, hugs_n_fun-fun, 2013, gouache, pencil, PVA, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 50 x 50 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, solvent _state _of_tori, 2013, pencil, watercolour, gouache, digital print collage, pasted paper on paper, mounted on canvas, 50 x 70cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_light_of_the_ corps_eye, 2013, inkjet print on paper, gouache, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, fractured_corpus, 2013, ink, watercolour, gouache, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_age_of_the_ attenuated_hem, 2013, 71 x 50 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_age_of_the_ attenuated_hem (detail), 2013, 71 x 50 cm, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, styrene_de_bourgeois, 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, ink, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 71 x 71 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, styrene_de_ bourgeois (detail), 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, ink, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 71 x 71 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, styrene_de_ bourgeois (detail), 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, ink, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 71 x 71 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, hugs_is_all, 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, acrylic paint, pasted paper, on paper mounted on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, for_love_has_strangled_all_the_unflowers_love_has_thrown_the_ corpus_into_shadow, 2013, 70 x 90 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, oh_l’objet, 2013, watercolour, gouache, crayon, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 40 x 30 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, o_corp’rate_day, 2013, gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 35.5 x 40 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, they_kents, 2013, gouache, ink, watercolour, crayon, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 50 x 70 cm, Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, oh_my_have, 2013, ink, gouache, watercolour, acrylic paint, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 102 x 76 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, oh_my_have (detail), 2013, ink, gouache, watercolour, acrylic paint, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 102 x 76 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, but_the_general_ as_she_saw, 2013, gouache, crayon, ink, watercolour, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 90.5 x 70.5 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, they_called_her_styrene, 2013, gouache, ink, watercolour, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 100.5 x 120 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, the_long_queen_ of_the_bams, 2013, gouache, crayon, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 70 x 50 cm, Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ooh_l’objet, 2013, gouache, watercolour, pencil, acrylic paint, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 60 x 60 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, oh_my, 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 36 x 45.8 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, she_fled, 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, ink, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 70 x 49.9 cm, photographed by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick Photographer, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence Figgis, she_fled (detail), 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, ink, pasted paper on paper mounted on canvas, 49.9 x 70 cm, ©Laurence Figgis
Exhibition Text
‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’ by Laurence Figgis
and fun-fun Corpus-Eye! Grant me the odd word of Torian patois; for meat of our native tongue is rich in flavour, and you will know that when I speak of ‘monagés,’ I speak of they kents engendered to rule by virtue of their blood; that ‘Corpus’ is a word for ‘all’ or ‘everyone’ (sacred unity of living, breathing files under Ckom); that all things are good and beautiful that are ‘corp’rate’; that ‘Rwands’ are the places in Tori that were once civil but have long since been claimed by their sinister monagés: the ground, gravity, the ‘un-flowers,’ dust. Sing Corpus of Blonda! / Whore of the eternal Dadah. The solvent state of Tori, where our file unfolds, is a pious state. The Gods are ‘manifest,’ and therefore corp’rate. But the Bams decline to worship these crass and spiteful deities, calling them debauchers, calling them pretenders, to the grace of Ckom. And so the fractured Corpus fights, split by question of the Fkuks’ divinity. Wars, so many wars, in this solvent state, that much of the great city of La has been destroyed, and the Rwands encroach upon the upright world as if in hunger for its stable forms. Liquid are the Rwands – you could drown in them. You could drown in them, on such a day as this…the day the will-defining heart of Solvency is turned, charmed by a Pulchevik of their heretic creed to make peace and love to His recalcitrant descendent, the Long-Queen of Foucauldia. So peace it is. The Bams lay down their arms; flock from their northern state to witness their Queen’s defection, who comes in all her monagement to sign Dadah’s ‘love-treaty’. But the question is: will it last? There’s an old saying in Tori, un-blessed by peace for a thousand years: that of all the organs in the Corpus-Politic, diplomacy is the first to rot. And gazing with their far-seeing eyes into the streets of La, the Fkuks can see the unsubtle signs of decay; wounds festering in the body of an ancient city, hugged so many times by Athener, the Goddess of Just Force…
Further Reading
Review of ‘Laurence Figgis: Hugs n Fun-Fun’ by Kenneth Davidson
Laurence Figgis, Styrene_de_Bourgeois, 2013, gouache, crayon, watercolour, pasted paper on canvas, 71 x 71 cm
In the Glasgow Project Room at 103 Trongate, I met Laurence Figgis while his exhibition was being documented by a photographer. I introduced myself and we looked out across the street through the gallery’s windows to where a Glasgow city centre, seven-storey, 1920s (Goldbergs / and latterly, What Every Woman Wants) department store is being demolished. The bottom of Candleriggs, the remains of what used-to-be Granny Blacks, a longclosed bar, and the goldsmiths and jewellers which used to sit beside, both also long gone; the fruit and vegetable shop, too;— getting on twenty years. — I had visited the exhibition the previous day, Laurence Figgis, Hugs n Fun-Fun, New works on paper. I went back to see if I could get some photos. We chatted quite quickly.
At the door, a handout sheet of A4, the exhibition notes, carried the list of the titles of the 19 works. It carried a text also on its reverse. I suggested the work in the exhibition (bricollaged paper, paint, crayon, pen, ink fixed on 19 canvases) looked like what it ‘was’, character and storyboard designs — (to this text). And we talked about synthetic cubism, and pop, about whimsy and sentiment, about site and the use of space. Occasional, arbitrary numbers and occasional pieces of paper (colour scraps) were also stuck on the walls, so extending compositions beyond their canvas bases — for the watercolour paper ‘bodies’, — one work offset too, with paint directly on the wall. Photocopy pages (from a book on armaments, and inversed white-to-black, variously mirrored and reversed) were stapled in blocks on the walls (a kind-of inbetween “skin” between space and exhibit). The works, the pictures themselves, to look at them close, were loose-collaged, gouache, pencil, ink and paper combinations, each different and so, with distinct, several strategies in composition.
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun’, 2013, The Glasgow Project Room, installation view, photograph by Alan Dimmick, ©Alan Dimmick, ©Laurence Figgis
Laurence mentioned how composition has indeterminacy, how it is created through its integers, that these can shift. — «Like fridge magnets,» he said. — I noted how the paper layering, collaging, and positioning, the numbers, was an instance of the work being in a process of continuance, continuation, — of being beyond the frame. — And Laurence said he had admired the book which was the source of the blocks of photocopied pages of tanks and missiles, rockets, — since he was a child; he said his brother had had a copy. — Like pages out of Jane’s (Defence Weekly), I said, — and how you could calculate a film budget’s size in numbers of military helicopters. — I said something about the belly of the beast, and we laughed about how making art always involves other people. — And he said how this was his first solo show in quite a number of years. — And we laughed about how quick exhibitions in Glasgow are now, and the disjunction now also in the move of the Project Room from the Independent Studios, that spatial disengagement, the ‘civic aesthetic’. While we were talking, Laurence brought up classical, ancient, literature, how history extrapolates from fragments — and I commented on the duplications of classical texts on clay tablets, — how completion overlaps, how their fragmentation is plural. — Parallelly, the titles of the work in the exhibition intertwine with their Dada-styled written background, (the A4 handout), and its opening words, (the exhibition title). In a sense, Mr Figgis’ show, with all its stylings of character and location, is also a deconstruction of the processes of illustration. — (I am elaborating a little, on our conversation, but part of what Laurence is doing is positing language and story as revolutionary acts, something he has written about elsewhere, himself). — And so, this layering of surfaces, the implicit development and movement of characters, — the ‘picturation’ — itself, is a process in time, and coding of story, — this exhibition. — (When I tried to capture the show on camera, I found myself drawn to individual designs. It was too difficult to get everything in the frame — because the work is not contained in any traditional frame). — And that is part of the point, I think. You’d need a 3-D picture as big as the gallery because here, even the gallery itself is not the ‘frame’.
Laurence Figgis, ‘Hugs n Fun-Fun, New works on paper’ involves balances of bricolage, colour and design, — and these “works” —torn, appliquéd, focused, layered and composed, on the (shopbought) canvases and gallery walls as they are, the characters drawn on the paper; — these all, in the end, are, a sort of storyboard (and processing) — of praxes, fictions and archetypes.The exhibition is an investigation of ‘Dada(h)’, of Political Economy, and of automatic writing. — «A defence of whimsy and sentiment,» Laurence said. — At its root, the work reifies its own processes of illustration, design, and storytelling. — I have never seen an exhibition in the Project Room, in 103, not before. — I asked Laurence if he had read Blago Bung, Blago Bung, Bosso Fataka! — He had. —Modernism. Neo-conceptualism. And Glasgow, Newcastle and Hull. Those all came up too. You have to read Laurence for yourself. — Sometimes he writes for other artists. He trained as a painter. — Here? I have just written about what he showed, what we said to each other, our discussion during the exhibition documentation. — It meant something to me.
©Kenneth Davidson 2013
THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 2/1/4/1 (October 2013)