Hippy Dialectics

2010
Mellors, Nathaniel
Nathaniel Mellors makes satirical video, performance and sculptural works, which often involve absurd, amusing narratives. His ongoing video series Ourhouse (2010- ) is a mash-up of TV drama and situation comedy, set in a bohemian mansion in the English countryside. The series stars the Maddox-Wilson family and their peculiar visitor, The Object, who appears suddenly and begins to eat and regurgitate the books in the family library. The books that the object consumes exert a strange influence over the story, affecting both the family’s language and actions. Mellors’s Hippy Dialectics (2010) is a sculpture featuring two animatronic heads joined together by a shared clump of hair. As the heads jerk from side to side they deliver lines belonging to ‘Daddy’, the central character from Ourhouse. Their bizarre, repetitive conversation brings to mind the circular plots of Samuel Beckett’s plays, as well as the work of the surreal comedy group Monty Python.
  • Artwork Details: 113 x 160 x 40cm
  • Edition: 2 of 2
  • Material description: Animatronic sculpture with sound
  • Credit line: © the artist.
  • Theme:
  • Medium:
  • Accession number: ACC29/2015

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The Arts Council Collection is the UK's most widely seen collection of modern and contemporary art.

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