I’m in love with the modern world – January 2025
“ … Well, listen
Well, the modern world is not so bad
Not like the students say
In fact I’d be in heaven
If you’d share the modern world with me”
I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MODERN WORLD is a love letter to neon, with its connotations of urban life, jazz, freedom and above all modernity.
The works in the exhibition variously reflect the sense of liberation, the exhilaration and the poetry inherent in the medium.
Artists include Tereza Horacek, Paul Hosking, Simon Keenleyside, Peter Lamb, Nick Malyon, D J Roberts, Jacob Wolff.
The centrepiece of the show is I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MODERN WORLD, a large-scale neon which originally graced the roofline of Cleveland Park Avenue, London E17 (2014-2020).
A commission for L B Waltham Forest by D J Roberts, the text celebrates the ordinary, everyday world around us. It takes its title from the song by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, described by Guardian journalist Laura Barton as “one of the most magical songs in existence. It is a paean to the modern world, to the urban landscape”.
This much-loved neon will be returning to Walthamstow in 2025, to its new home above Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
Other works in the show include An Enormous Yes by D J Roberts, a tribute to jazz and modernity as expressed in Philip Larkin’s poem ‘For Sidney Bechet’; a number of works by Jacob Wolff referencing the legendary 1920s Rome nightclub created by Italian Futurist Giacomo Balla; and site-specific pieces which find a striking home in the various rooms of the Grade II listed Georgian terrace where the gallery is situated.
All welcome for a guest evening on Wednesday 22nd January 6-8pm!
Exhibition hours: Thurs – Sat 12-5pm and by appointment
Exhibition runs until Saturday 25th January 2025
