ANDREW LOGAN: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF REFLECTIONS
Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Until Sat 9 Feb
Oxford-born sculptor Andrew Logan brings a selection of his multidisciplinary masterpieces to the Aberystwyth Arts Centre this autumn. Born in 1945, Logan qualified in architecture in the 1960’s, and has since created work which challenges the status quo, mixes media, and plays with artistic values, spanning sculpture, stage design and public art. His museum, The Andrew Logan Museum Of Sculpture in Berriew, Powys, is the only museum in Europe dedicated to a living artist. Opened in 1991, it features a glistening selection of Logan’s trademark works: jewellery, original costumes, memorabilia from his legendary Alternative Miss World pageants and much more.
Gallery 1 at the Arts Centre will be adorned with jewels, hanging mobiles, glinting 2D works and sculptures that fill the gallery with music. Central to the wide variety of eye-catching sculptures will be Goldfield, an expansive piece comprised of giant, 4.5-metre wheat stalks accompanied by field mice and butterflies. This is a rare public display for the piece, which has only been shown a handful of times since it was commissioned and exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1976. Ever since he started, Logan’s work has relied on his resourceful and inventive nature, using whatever he has to hand. With his instinctive aptitude and imagination, he has converted real objects into unique new versions, comprising fauna, flora, planets and gods.
The Alternative Miss World is one of Logan’s best-known creations, a fancy-dress contest judged on the theme of transformation, rather than beauty. Where Miss World is about conventional beauty, Alternative Miss World is about transformation and letting “people’s imagination run completely riot.” Anyone can enter, and all can expect to be treated equally and judged solely on what they can bring to the table: past winners have included a 70-year-old Russian lady and a robot.
The official opening on Sat 1 Dec will also include a jewellery extravaganza, featuring bejewelled models moving to the music. Events such as this are part and parcel of Andrew’s avant-garde portfolio, and the exhibition promises to be something of an otherworldly experience in the heart of west Wales. TIM DODD
Admission: free. Info: 01970 623232 / www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk