Londres - Exposition - The Neo Naturists

 The Neo Naturists, 8 July–21 August 2016, Studio Voltaire, London. Site 

« This summer, Studio Voltaire will present a retrospective of the 1980’s performance group the Neo Naturists. This will be the first historical survey of the Neo Naturists work in a public institution.

The Neo Naturists are an important live art collective initiated in 1981 by Jennifer Binnie, Christine Binnie and Wilma Johnson. The group emerged as a part of London’s subculture that arose from the squatting community in the aftermath of Punk and the emergence of the New Romantic club scene and the advent of Thatcherism. During this time a creative energy developed in the UK that sat outside established institutional practices of the time, creating its own network of activities, events, economies and personalities.

The Neo Naturists were a part of a cultural network of collaborators and peers that included figures such as BodyMap (Stevie Stewart & David Holah), Leigh Bowery, James Birch, Jill Bruce, [choreographer] Michael Clark, David Dawson, Peter Doig, Boy George, Maia Norman, John Maybury, Sophie Muller, Simon Foxton, Bruce Lacey, Andrew Logan, Grayson Perry, Genesis P.Orridge, Psychic TV, Derek Jarman, Princess Julia, Marilyn, Philip Sallon, Test Department, Jill Westwood, Dencil Williams and Cerith Wyn Evans.

The group established quite organically, whilst Christine Binnie and Wilma Johnson had been experimenting at St Martin’s College with body painting as a way to expand past the canvas, Jennifer Binnie and Grayson Perry had also been using body paint as a way of exploring body image and identity at Portsmouth Polytechnic. United by a belief in the radical and subversive potential of bodypainting, the Neo Naturists took these private experiments to clubs and parties, which quickly developed into more formalized parts of the groups artistic practice. »