When Andrew Hunt took over the running of the Focal Point Gallery in 2009, he transformed a provincial back water into a contemporary art gallery with a rigorously experimental agenda. Over the past couple of years the ex RCA maverick has introduced the likes of performance artist Alastair MacKinven of the provocatively irreverent Nang Gallery to Southend's residents. His group shows are as equally challenging, having made a name for himself for curating exhibitions with a strong social agenda.
Today sees the opening of Outrageous Fortune: artists remake the tarot, an exhibition inspired by the current state of the world economy and our collective desire to predict future events. Seventy-eight artists have been invited to remake a tarot card and the results are as capricious as the banking system, including Suzanne Treister's pen and ink drawing of the Montana Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and a maniacal looking Malcolm McDowell as Droog leader Alex DeLarge by painter Dawn Mellor. Other artists participating include Mike Nelson just back from his success at the Venice Biennale, Cerith Wyn Evans who took upon himself to remake The King of Chalices and Susan Hiller, an artist rapidly becoming known as the Grande Dame of Conceptual art, who has designed the back of each card. Whether it is a photograph of broken magician wands on a rusty table top, a psychedelic blur like the cover of an early Pink Floyd album, or a faux-religous depiction of historical prophets, it is certainly a neat way to expose the failings of our forecasts by using the unpredictable nature of art.
Outrageous Fortune: artists remake the tarot opens today and runs until August 27, 2011 Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea
Text by Jessica Lack
