John Bunker: ‘Phraxos’: Let’s Do the Show Right Here!
By a cruel twist of fate, a virus-besieged England went into its second Covid lockdown in the very week that ‘Phraxos’, John Bunker’s show of new work, was to open at Unit 3 Project Space in east London. Once it became clear that visitors were ruled out, Bunker decided to press ahead regardless, using the time in the empty gallery to hang the work, reflect on it, and to use the photographic documentation of the exhibition as the basis of ”Phraxos’: Let’s do the show right here!’, a unique virtual re-staging of ‘Phraxos’ here on Instantloveland.
Alongside the visual record of the show, Bunker also presents here his collaboration with Instantloveland co-editor Matt Dennis,”Phraxos’: A Dialogue’, an audio recording of a ‘Zoom‘ meeting during which he talks at length, and in detail, about the modes and methods of his practice, its relationship to the history of abstraction, and the combustible mixture of memory and myth that has fuelled this new body of work.
Throughout ”Phraxos: A Dialogue’ individual works of art in the exhibition are discussed, as are works by other artists; all of these can be found amongst the images in the gallery at the bottom of this article. Hover the cursor over the left or right-hand side of each image, and click on the white arrows that appear, to scroll left or right. Below, for easy reference, there follows a guide to the exact point in ”Phraxos’: A Dialogue’ at which each work is mentioned. All works are by John Bunker, unless otherwise stated.
1.27: Triptych: ‘Ashlyme’s Plan’ (left) ‘Arethusa’ (centre) ‘Petromax’s Mirror’ (right).
2.37: ‘Totentaz’
8.37: ‘Mercutio’
17.52: ‘Catastrophist’
24.39: Lee Krasner, ‘Bird Talk’ & ‘Bald eagle’
25.40: Jackson Pollock, ‘Number 7 (Out Of The Web)’ & ‘Cut Out’
43.07: Lee Krasner, ‘Bird Talk’ & ‘Bald eagle’
43.17: ‘Sirocco’ (left) ‘Kardaki’ (right)
45.59: ‘Kardaki’
46.07: ‘Sirocco’
50:15: Barnett Newman, ‘Onement I’
55.17: ‘Sirocco’
57.07: ‘Sirocco’
101.37: Triptych: ‘Ashlyme’s Plan’ (left) ‘Arethusa’ (centre) ‘Petromax’s Mirror’ (right).
106.50: ‘Arethusa’
114.17: ‘Arethusa’
119.37: ‘Arethusa’
Installation view of ‘Phraxos’, Unit 3 Project Space, London, November 2020
Installation view of ‘Phraxos’, Unit 3 Project Space, London, November 2020
L to R: John Bunker, ‘Ashlyme’s Plan’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm; ‘Arethusa’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on denim on board, 63 x 128.5cm; ‘Petromax’s Mirror’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker, ‘Totentanz’, (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on board, 63 x 84cm
John Bunker, ‘Mercutio’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on board, 60 x80cm
John Bunker, ‘Catastrophist’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
Lee Krasner, ‘Bird Talk’ (1955), oil, paper, photographs and canvas on canvas, 58 x 56cm
Lee Krasner, ‘Bald Eagle’ (1955) oil, paper and canvas collage on linen, 195.6 × 130.8cm
Jackson Pollock, ‘Number 7 (Out of the Web)’ (1949), oil and enamel on canvas, 244 x 121.5cm
Jackson Pollock, ‘Cut Out’ (1948), mixed media on paper and cardboard, 78.8 x 57.5cm
John Bunker, ‘Sirocco’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker, Detail of ‘Sirocco’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker, ‘Kardaki’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker, Detail of ‘Kardaki’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
Barnett Newman, ‘Onement I’ (1948), oil and masking tape on canvas, 69.2 x 41.2cm
John Bunker, ‘Arethusa’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on denim on board, 63 x 128.5cm
John Bunker, Detail of ‘Arethusa’ (2020), acrylic, ink, collage on denim on board, 63 x 128.5cm
John Bunker, ‘Alzilu’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker, Detail of ‘Alzilu’ (2020), acrylic, ink and collage on canvas on board, 66 x 86cm
John Bunker: ‘Phraxos’ would have been at Unit 3 Project Space, Empson St, London E3 from November 7th-21st 2020
One thought on “John Bunker: ‘Phraxos’: Let’s Do the Show Right Here!”
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Hello John, good to hear you talk about the work and the connection to domestic space. While I generally prefer your pictures when they have escaped the rectangle, I fully understand why you want revisit that format after a time away. Could the plague restrictions have influenced this in the sense that we have all been thrown back on the domestic space?
Can’t wait till we can visit and view art in the flesh again. All best NC