Stuart Layton: You’ll Never Work In This Town Again, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
29 June 2013 – 14 September 2013
Using found footage, Layton weaves a narrative rich in humour, pathos and nostalgia. His works begin on a local and intimate scale but ultimately come to represent something more profound and global.
Stuart Layton’s films originate from a fragment of information. They are paeans to times past, passing comments and passers-by. Using found footage, Layton weaves a narrative rich in humour, pathos and nostalgia. His works begin on a local and intimate scale but ultimately come to represent something more profound and global.
The two films presented here are two in an as yet incomplete trilogy.
The first film ‘The Devils Haircut’ concerns the legend of a Wednesbury barber, Dave ‘the Butcher of Baghdad’ who, had he not needed to flee his country, may have fulfilled his ambition of becoming a famous ballet dancer.
The second film ‘The Impossibility of Living in the Present’ offers us snapshots of characters and pastimes from local working-class communities torn apart by the political context in the 1970s and 1980s.
This screening continues Wolverhampton Art Gallery’s commitment to programming artwork that reflects both the light and dark tones of popular culture and how we are shaped by our surroundings.