Sarah Maple Calls Out the Artworld - by Kate Bryan
It is a time for reckoning in the art world, where straight white men have dominated both the commercial and institutional aspects of the art establishment for centuries. Sarah Maple, born in Eastbourne in 1985, was compelled to address structural sexism and racism in her work even as an art student, where she noticed that female students were given less air time and respect. Whilst still at college, she created the first of her self-portrait series, a triptych which borrows the person-holding-sign-with-text motif of the great YBA era artist, Gillian Wearing. From left we see Maple dressed in traditional Muslim attire, coyly smiling, her sign reads “I wish I had a penis”. This is followed by Maple in only red lipstick, bra and knickers with a franker expression and sign, “because then I’d fuck you”. Finally, we see her in a suit with red tie smugly smiling “then steal your job.” The appalled and shocked response from her professor and some of her classmates was a catalyst for Maple embracing provocation in her work and adopting an attitude that shone a big, noisy and often funny light on the elephant in the room.
A decade later and Maple has harnessed this frustration, dismay and disappointment in prevailing attitudes into mature and thought- provoking work that challenges ideas around identity, religion, race, the artworld, feminism and freedom of expression. Often using herself as a conduit to challenge stereotypes and normative behaviour, Maple is adept at confronting complex issues that we are all thinking about with wit, irony and a startling honesty. Maple’s own mixed religious and cultural background informs much of her work and her latest exhibition, which I am honoured to curate, is a timely exploration into the systemic race, class and gender barriers in the artworld.
Maple’s title, Nazi Sexy Shark Show, arbitrarily takes its name from words with the highest ‘click through’ appeal and includes painting, text-based marble works, collage, photography and video. The focal point of the exhibition is a ground breaking series of short films. Maple has essentially invented an ‘art-com’, fusing video art with sitcoms. Exploring her experience of being an outspoken artist, each film is a semi-autobiographical piece, a heightened reality that draws influence from Extras and Curb Your Enthusiasm as well as seminal artists such as Cindy Sherman and Sarah Lucas. Often absurd, and always biting in its commentary, the films are championed by those that agreed to take part, sending themselves up as they did so. David Tenant, a real-life collector of Maple’s work, plays an egocentric and less than generous version of himself which is filmed at ‘Crawley Soho House’ (in reality the top floor of 76 Dean Street after Nick Jones couldn’t resist her idea).
The piece also includes the seminal artist Sonia Boyce, much talked about for being first black woman artist to represent Britain at the next Venice Biennale. She also has a run in with seasoned art critics Will Gompertz and Nikki Bedi. My cameo takes me to an uncomfortable place as I perform as a bad feminist version of myself, instructing Maple with sexist, racist and patronising advice which is based on Maple’s own experiences. The art-com is a meta experience, blurring the line between fiction and reality. This is heightened by the fact that concurrent to being exhibited in a gallery, the piece will also be available to view in the U.K. on Sky Arts as short films– a channel which is now free to view. By positioning her work in people’s homes in this way, Maple is able to break down elitism that pervades the artworld, adapting the power of video art to include the accessibility of a sitcom.
Another work that bends reality is the photographic series, Portraits With Fans. We see Maple reluctantly posing grumpily for photographs with her adoring fans – some of the great male artists of our time: Damien Hirst; Jeff Koons; Grayson Perry; Anthony Gormley; Anish Kapoor; the Chapman Brothers; Marc Quinn; Mat Collishaw; Martin Creed; Olafur Eliasson, Wolfgang Tillmans and Matthew Barney. All perfectly photoshopped, Maple reverses the tables on these seasoned art world names, making them ridiculous in their fandom of a young, mixed race female artist. In her Celebrities in Stone series Maple plays with truth instead of fiction. The ingenious tablets present real-life tabloid headlines carved in marble such as Meghan Markle’s Avocado Snack Fuels Human Rights Abuses and Kim Kardashian Goes Topless With A Parakeet. Akin to ancient roman treasures, the new permanence of the medium highlights the facile and inane nature of ‘news’.
Maple also presents unreservedly joyful and exquisitely put together work such as the hand cut collage series that celebrates the female form in a vortex of beautiful shapes and colour. A parallel series about women, Clocks, employs digital collage to juxtaposes a selection of The Sun’s topless Page 3 Girls with their heads replaced by old fashioned clocks. The combination of imagery is drawn from being a young woman coming of age in the U.K in the nineties and the series highlights biological pressure on all women. Her large painted self- portrait, Self Portrait with Preceptor is also a subtle but striking work, one that removes artifice and lays the artist’s soul bare. She sits in front of a blank canvas facing the viewer, making us either her accomplice or critic, with her mother lovingly standing beside her, waiting for the work to reveal itself. A meditation on the role of the artist and potential family issues surrounding making such personal artwork, it is a quiet, reflective painting. In the Jealous Gallery window, a Neon asks ‘Why Art’ almost rubbishing her whole endeavor. Maple is a provocateur, insisting we pay attention to the hypocrisies and dangerous elitism of the artworld. But she also rejoices in the artworld she despairs at, her power is to unpick the system with disarming satire and wit. It’s a timely show and we need artists like Maple to both ask and beautifully answer ‘Why Art’ with exhibitions like this.
