Michael Petry

Tie A Knot In It: Le Petit Mort lll 
Image, courtesy of artist

Extract
Michael Petry 

GXgallery
43 Denmark Hill, SE5
June 16 – 30
Open Monday – Saturday, 9am – 6pm

Private view, Saturday June 16, 7.30pm
Artist Talk, Saturday June 16, 7pm

 
Extract provides us with a glimpse into Michael Petry’s visual journeying over the last year with extracts of extraordinary work from two influential exhibitions. Petry’s Tie A Knot In It series (Westbrook Gallery, London 2006), explores the form of the knot and its two serving purposes.  On the one hand, the knot represents an ejaculate - in British slang a woman might tell an unwanted suitor, or a mother tell a small male child who has to use the lavatory, to ‘tie a knot in it’.  On the other hand, the knot represents a puzzle (in this case, the puzzle of coded sexuality) - in ancient western symbolism, knots indicate the power of knowledge, most famously the Gordian Knot that was severed by Alexander the Great.  This body of work examines hidden language and develops themes from Petry’s seminal curatorial project Hidden Histories: 20th Century Male Same Sex Lovers in the Visual Arts Again each object seduces the viewer in order to communicate more than the visual. America the Beautiful (Sundaram Tagore Gallery, NY 2007) with Web Portrait 2, Web Portait 6 , Web Portrait 8. Petry asks anonymous web users to send him a photo of their anus (men and women) to form the basis of a virtual portrait. To make these works, he sews a piece of leather into a similar shape sent to him as a jpeg, and then photographs the resultant blossom.

Michael Petry, born in El Paso, Texas has lived and worked in London since 1981 and has shown internationally at Biennales, museums and private galleries.  Best known for large-scale multi-media installations (he is a co-founder of London’s Museum of Installation, and co-author of Installation Art, Thames and Hudson).
He is currently the Director of MOCA, London and the curator at The Royal Academy Schools Gallery.

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