Skye Sherwin, Friday 18 September 2009
The Guardian Newspaper
Exhibitionist: The best art shows to see this week
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/18/exhibitionist-art-this-week
‘In the 1970s, when changing the world really seemed possible, the Chilean maverick Alejandro Jodorowsky was making mind-altering mystical art cinema like Holy Mountain. He has since abandoned movies for writing graphic novels and reading the Tarot. Before he made the career switch, however, Jodorowsky attempted a film version of Frank Herbert’s portentous sci-fi epic Dune. At London’s Drawing Room gallery, the project has been revived with Dune: An Exhibition of a Film of a Book That Never Was. Jodorowsky’s concept of Dune, as a myth with the potential for infinite retellings, becomes a springy launch pad for exploring artistic adaptation. Alongside intricate original production designs from the unrealised film by Chris Foss, Moebius and HR Geiger, are new commissions from artists Steve Claydon, Matthew Day Jackson and Vidya Gastaldon. Delightfully out-there, Gastaldon’s sugar-sweet pastel watercolours of snarling, amorphous blobs are inspired by passages chosen at random from the novel.’
