Steve Reinke: Hobbit Love is the Greatest Love
14 November - 19 December 2008
Preview - Thursday 13th November 7 -9pm

LUX 28
28 Shacklewell Lane, Shacklewell Studios, Dalston, London E8 2EZ
Opening Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 5 or by appointment
www.lux28.org.uk

LUX 28 presents a new solo exhibition by Canadian artist Steve Reinke.

Steve Reinke is a Canadian artist best known for his video work. Often outrageous, yet nonetheless engaging and even titillating, his themes range from introspective anxiety to bemused and appreciative voyeurism. Reinke's voice is articulate and literate and often speaks in the voice of academic or cultural authority. His work diverges into absurd, unexpected directions — paradoxes, non-sequiturs, inadequate hypotheses, cruel jokes, and contorted metaphors – delivered in Reinke' inimitably laconic and dispassionate tones.

Reinke’s work also often invokes the idea of the anthology, along with the taxonomical urge to exhaustively catalogue existence. The exhibition at LUX 28 will present a kind of anthology of Reinke’s video work to date. This will include the ambitious project, The Hundred Videos (1989-1996), a six-year project Reinke stated would constitute his work as a young artist, and recent works such as My Rectum is Not a Grave (To a Film Industry in Crisis) (2007), Boy/Analysis: An Abridgement of Melanie Klein's 'Narrative of a Child Analysis (2008) and Final Thoughts, an ongoing series that will only be completed at the moment of Reinke’s death.

Alongside projected works and an extensive video library the exhibition will also present a number of his wall pieces including The American Military Casualties of the Second Gulf War for Whom Photographs Were Available as of November 6, 2006 Arranged by Attractiveness and Guernica (2005). Reinke’s disquieting combination of light and playful monologues, laced with an acid humour, prods and pokes at the sub-conscious underbelly of everyday life.

‘There is no such thing as self-esteem. I don't trust anyone who doesn't have frequent bouts of self-loathing...Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I think of bacteria mutating under an ultraviolet light and I'm happy again for a while. Within the Petri dish: unfettered, egoless desire, the proliferation of new possibilities, ideas made flesh, uncaring and finally airborne. Empathy is a tool for making the cruelty more precise. Beauty is independent of taste; the sublime only works for suckers. Whenever I laugh I feel guilty.’ Reinke

Artist’s Talk. Saturday 15th November at 3pm - Steve Reinke in conversation with Adrian Rifkin.
For more information, preview DVDs and images please contact Jackie Holt at LUX on 020 7503 3979, [email protected]