Carl Hopgood, a ’94 Goldsmiths graduate, captures a moment and makes it last forever. It may be a clichéd phrase but Welsh-born Hopgood isn’t one. He loves his enemies, he chooses to fuck love and he thinks last year’s Frieze was a “corporate art supermarket trying to sell work they couldn’t shift at other art fairs.” Thank god for that.
His solo exhibition FUCK LOVE involved transforming public loos into art, addressing gay relations and sexual politics across the globe. Hopgood himself says, “I wanted the Taylor Public Conveniences [Darlinghurst, NSW) to become an underground museum based on my experiences of a gay culture: a stereotypical world of hedonistic beauty meeting tragic, seedy underground world.”
The Hustler Frieze lines the toilet walls like one giant, male-mural calling-card, each figure comparable to ancient Greek statues artfully missing limbs. The inspiration for such an idea? Cigarette cards. He liked the concept of “collecting heroes you could keep discretely in your pocket.”
The work Stigmata shows Hopgood’s own fists with the words ‘Fuck’ and ‘Love’ tattooed on them, inspired by the fetishism of the fist and his victimisation of homophobic bullies when he was young. “I was bullied because I was different. I suffered from dyslexia and was put in the remedial class. I was so embarrassed about being bullied and being called names like 'Gay Lord' and 'Queer boy' – I felt worthless. I felt I had no one to talk to, no one to confide in. Eventually my brother found out, got the main bully and held him by his ankles over a railway bridge threatening to drop him if he didn’t leave me alone! Needless to say the bullying stopped after that.”
But Carl isn’t fucking love out of anger - when it comes to art, fucking love is a good thing – it’s the best of both. And he’s used his experiences to create such beauty as Stephen, his monochrome partner after a particularly sweaty round of Soho Go-Go dancing.
And Pool Piece was another memento mori. “I had a near death experience as a child when a rowing boat I was in capsized. My father saved me and I remember that moment of awakening. It was like being born again. It was one of the most terrifying and profound experiences of my life.”
From top to bottom: Hustler Frieze - 2008 Detail Inkjet, Stigmata - 2008 - Plaster Cast of Artists Fists, 35mm Slide Projection, Can-Can Dancers - 2008, Video projection, Stephen - 2009 B&W Inkjet Print. All images are courtesy of Carl Hopgood and copyrighted to Carl Hopgood.