Andy Holden

Towards a Unified Theory of MI!MS

April 26 – June 21 2015

Centre stage of the comprehensive installation Towards a Unified Theory of MI!MS by British artist Andy Holden (b.1982, lives and works in Bedford) is the manifesto MI!MS – Maximum Irony! Maximum Sincerity, written by the artist and four friends between 1999 and 2003. In this manifesto they tried to define the position of contemporary art as well as their own work, and discussed strategies of how art can deal with the big human issues without turning it into kitsch. For them, the only way to communicate existential questions without any cynicism was to be found in irony.
The five friends met again ten years later and dicussed the manifesto. The outcome was a script that was re-enacted by young actors, cast by Andy Holden. Key locations from the history of MI!MS were reconstructed and a selection of songs, written by members of the movement at the time of the manifesto, were re-performed with an orchestra and a children’s choir and turned into a unique soundtrack to the show.
Towards a Unified Theory of MI!MS is based on Andy Holden’s individual biography, but this accumulation of images, paintings, sculpture, film and music is so emphatic that it turns the work into something universal. The installation employs a clever combination of old and new artworks, as well of a precise exhibition architecture that leads the visitor from one video to the other, before taking the visitor up to a platform from which it is possible to overview the whole installation. Andy Holden’s re-animation of his adolescence is far from navel-gazing and instead offers an exciting and sentimental journey that allows every visitor to meet with his own individual past. Just in time for the exhibition at Kunsthalle Winterthur, the vinyl soundtrack M!MS was produced; also available is the catalogue M!MS, published by the Zabludowicz Collection.

Oliver Kielmayer