The Hope of Wrecks is a forthcoming multi-media exhibition at the Museum of St Albans & The Art and Design Gallery, The University of Hertfordshire. The Hope of Wrecks is a play on the title of the seminal Germanic romantic painting, The Wreck of Hope by Casper David Friedrich. As the world is struggling to recover from a continuing global financial and ethical crisis it seems a fitting moment to
explore how contemporary artists address the term ‘Hope’ both personally and politically. The Hope of Wrecks intends to explore how certain artists produce works which have an inherent optimism when seemingly either they, or the world that surrounds them, is at ‘rock bottom’. This optimism whether it be overt or underlying can take many strategies and narratives, such as humour, satire, honesty, naivety or faith. This form of hope is the essential flipside of hard won cynicism, a form of optimism that allows us to say 98% of life is futile. However there is the remaining 2% between the general feelings of inertia and despondency. The show will exhibit a range of multi-media works by established, mid-career and young artists in order to contextualise a modus operandi that has been at the core of many artists’ work throughout history. In many of the selected artists’ work there is a ‘gallows humour’ that both mocks and confronts either themselves, their environment, or the viewer. Artist's featured in the show include: Jo Addison, Chris Dobrowolski, David Ersser, Daniel Goodwin, Friedrich Kunath, Martin Kippenberger, Kypros Kyprianou, Adam Norton, Selina O, David Shrigley, Ali Tareen and Paul Thek.
