Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy & Hamed Maiye with special guest David Liebe Hart.
Co-curated by Brooke Wilson
11 – 15 Oct 2023
Frieze London, Focus Section, Booth H24
Installation View: Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy and Hamed Maiye at Harlesden High Street, Frieze London 2023. Photos by Damian Griffiths.
The booth will be designed to replicate the set of The Junior Christian Teaching Bible Lesson Show, a public access television show, which aired in the United States from 1988 to 2008, consisting largely of a stage for the puppets and a seat for the host, David Leibe Hart. During the course of the fair, there will be timed performances with Leibe Hart (Live at 5 with David Liebe Hart) as well as recorded presentations of archival footage.
Taking reference from Leibe Hart, emerging artists Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy and Hamed Maiye utilise their individual practices to explore a new religion: one centred on personal experience and storytelling, the other on contemporary fashion and the modern-day aesthetics of religion. Fusing these two styles and opening further discourse into the nuance of religion, a collaborative work by Guarnera-MacCarthy and Maiye will depict David Leibe Hart and his puppet, Chip.
Installation View: Mattia Guarnera-MacCarthy at Harlesden High Street, Frieze London 2023. Photos by Damian Griffiths.
The project is part of a series by Harlesden High Street titled ‘Public Access’, taking its name from American public access television of the 1980s and beyond, which offered an outlet for the general public to produce and televise their own content, predating Channel U, YouTube and other forms of social media.
Fitting with the gallery’s ethos of providing space to largely underrepresented artists and creatives, specifically those in Black communities across London, we hope to provide insight into those communities through this presentation. This presentation will please people of varying interests and those who above all enjoy counterculture and underground television networks.
Installation View: David Leibe Hart Performance at Harlesden High Street, Frieze London 2023.
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