Bilawal Bhutto

Henry Procter, award winning artist working within the frame of
political activism, is staging an event this Valentine’s Day, February 14th 2008, at the
University of Brighton. The artist’s new work entitled ‘The Mass Media
Reader’ is a sculptural tower of multiple images of Bilawal Bhutto, son
of the late Benazir Bhutto.

The stack is made from thousands of identical images and gives a new
form to the political portrait. Printed on newsprint using standard
lithograph plate, the image of Bilawal occupies the entire newspaper
front page.

The artist’s choice of Bilawal Bhutto signifies an image in waiting, an
image yet to be widely distributed. Bilawal Bhutto inherited leadership
of the Pakistan People’s Party from his mother Benazir Bhuto following
her assassination last month. Bilawal is currently a student at Oxford
University and student status affords him a degree of privacy, however
public consumption awaits.

Procter’s stack considers who owns the image and who will be most
influential in determining what it signifies. The artist argues that
the images unfurled around us can be a mistake. Our ability to be
subjective is only good enough when formed independently. It could be
said that an image within the media takes part in an
auto-contextualisation. The context for the understanding of that image
is provided by its accompanying headline and editorial copy; the
political slant of that said media. The artist asks, whose subjectivity
is being supplanted in ‘the mass-media reader’? By contrast an artist
paints not to repeat an image, but to paint anew. By acting on an image
that is yet to be standard currency, Procter hopes to create a space
for understanding and interpretation that he believes is not working
under the guise of a mass media project. For his stack, the artist
deliberately chose an image of Bilawal as close to blank canvas as he
could find.

Participants at the Valentine’s Day event can take an image away with
them and the artist encourages the bedroom poster to be replaced with
something more meaningful. After a talk given by the artist where the
question ‘Is there any room for difference?’ will be asked the audience
will take part in a debate. The discussion will continue via Henry Procter’s Facebook group, for invitation please email henryprocter@aol.com.

Henry Procter is a final year student on Critical Fine Art Practice at
the University of Brighton; he has exhibited both nationally and
internationally. He was recently awarded the 2007 Nagoya prize, a
four-month residency and exhibition at Gallery Be in Nagoya, Japan.

ends

Is there any room for difference?

2-4pm, February 14th at University of Brighton,
Grand Parade, Brighton
To reproduce the image used please contact Getty images.

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