Shizaru Gallery Presents:
BAD FOR YOU
October 10th – November 23, 2012
London, England
“Health of the Planet #563” 2010, carbon ink jet & silk screen, 29”x24” private London collection
As the international community ?ocks to London for Frieze, Shizaru is delighted to host BAD FOR YOU, an
exhibition curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody featuring sixty-eight contemporary and established artists
primarily from America. Taking inspiration from its eponymous title, BAD FOR YOU highlights the unwavering
relationship between art and vice, displaying the human relationship with what is ?bad? through issues like self
destruction, drugs, alcoholism, gambling, materialism, vanity, and cigarettes. A title that is at once humorous and
grim the exhibition avoids judgment, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
Artists explore these many themes through various moralistic viewpoints. Some works celebrate, disregard and
revel in what is seen as being ?Bad? whilst others raise alarm and aim to forewarn the consequence of a life of
decadence. Artists celebrate the excitement of experimentation, and the pleasure that comes with doing what is
?Bad for You? such as Fred Tomaselli, who revels in his chosen vice; drugs, by making decorative patterns out
of marijuana leaves and Liz Markus, whose humorously titled “Fuck it” evokes the carefree attitude of “doing it
anyway”. These words written on raw canvas next to a whiskey bottle depicts that vertiginous moment, when
one decides to carelessly down the rest of the bottle.
Many works explore human desire and the thrills that tempt us to rebel. The glitzy plethora of fortune is
presented by Tony Oursler in his video installation “Bedazzled, Set for Life, Funky $5, Mother’s Day, Welcome
to Vegas” which captures a stack of various gambling scratch-off cards, alluding to the temptations that can lure
one into a rip of false promise.
