THE ALL OF EVERYTHING

Art will eat itself

As a final hooray before the Arts Gallery in London is demolished in early 2010, Mike Ballard is literally embalming the space with art, covering floors, ceilings and walls with his own flamboyant take on art history. Transporting the viewer on a supersonic journey through a galaxy of hypermodern andprehistoric art, The All of Everything races back and projects forward through art history, fusing, referencing and sampling at blistering speed. Merging painted floors and walls and a baroque collage ceiling into one gargantuan installation, the gallery will ultimately become one immersive artwork into which the viewer is absorbed.

A time capsule hurled from London’s street art scene back through the artist’s personal art historical heritage appropriating aesthetics en route, from plundering the excesses of the Renaissance to sampling the euphoria of pop art, landing temporarily at prehistoric cave art, Ballard’s work calls on muses as disparate as Baroque kings of bling, prehistoric shamans, ancient Egyptian sovereigns, hip hop monarchy, comic book superheroes and the cosmic philosophy of jazz royalty Sun Ra.

 

 

Details of the exhibition here.