Beagles & Ramsay – NHOTB & RAD
Beagles & Ramsay: NHOTB & RAD
Gallery 1
14 October 2023 – 28 April 2024
NHOTB & RAD from artist duo Beagles & Ramsay, is a major exhibition of newly commissioned work which will transform the iconic space with sculpture – including 50 life size figures – and video.
Creative directors Beagles & Ramsay will unveil three new NHOTB & RAD fashion lines, as the gallery becomes a flagship store, filled with clothing and accessories, and the 50 life size figures, sculpted from recycled office furniture and reclaimed display materials . Some of these figures will model the collections alongside video animations featuring their digital avatars. Many others have become disaffected and unruly consumers.
NHOTB & RAD (the acronyms refer to the artists’ long-standing alter egos, New Heads on the Block and Rope-a-Dope) continues the artists’ exploration of the politics and tensions within consumerism and the contemporary workplace.
📢SAVE THE DATE 📢
Celebrate this unique fusion of art and fashion at a special evening event on Thursday 19 October, 5.30 to 7.30pm.
More about the Collections
A minimalist carpet tile clad boutique will house the Holding Pattern capsule collection of city office wear, which is laser cut in timeless charcoal grey with subtle contrast stitching. Signature pieces include the ‘Dash Dress’ with elongated arrow arms to delineate the body with a starkly fresh geometric profile.
A second pop up boutique will showcase the Zero Collection of hybrid sports-workwear. A range of durable and strikingly colourful technical fabrics are finished with bold fluorescent stitching and angular pockets. Sharply defined silhouettes, fused with utilitarian forms, characterise garments such as the Cipher Hoodie and the Null Sweat.
At the heart of NHOTB & RAD at GoMA will be a select group of couture pieces presented on a fractured catwalk. Textures and materials include luxurious British wool with finely embroidered motifs, contrasted with sharply cut stainless steel necklaces and accessories. The centrepiece will be a two-metre tall intricately wrapped geometric ball gown.
Alongside these three collections, a host of 50 life-size figures sculpted from recycled office furniture and reclaimed display materials will activate the space. Each one of these flat pack bodies is unique in its design, materiality and attitude. Digital avatars of these figures also star in a suite of video animations, which play out interlinked scenes alongside animated doppelgangers of the garments.
Photo by Matt Barnes, courtesy of NHOTB & RAD
It was one of my most disturbing experiences which had evoked fear and anxiety. I found it very hard to complete the first cycle, and only when I re-entered the ground I had the guts to fulfil the whole walk – so real, it felt the same of what was going on outside in the streets of Glasgow…. so real how people tried to use their “Niederträchtigis Ansinnen” to take advantage of a technology nobody has heard of before. People fled mentally… the streets of Glasgow became ghostly sterile.
And that’s what NHOTB & RAD had sucked up and thrown into their scultures – so perfectly – it became a mission statement for myself not to let it happen to me. I went back and saw one of the other cycles. I wished I had seen all three.
The earth has spun around several times, and the world is changing, finally visibly. The cause of this seems to be so unknown…. like Covid19. It only started earlier – for most of us in 2005. For some the inexplicable joint-military surveillance on civilians, which stopped in 2014, became their trigger. For others profile marketing / surveillance capitalism. The list is long; the arts world with its queery folk picked it up before anyone was awake … sadly, they were targeted much before, also.
And then the resistance took shape. Small steps after small steps.
I am glad that we have exhibitions like that. It gives perspectives when so many open questions aren’t “closed”. A bit of former times, like William Blake…