Identity! A Poly Styrene Retrospective

17th May – 7th June 2019

 

Please join us for this very special exhibition and programme honouring one of the UK’s foremost radical artists and musicians. 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning is excited to announce the production of Identity! A Poly Styrene Retrospective. Open May 17th – June 7th, 2019, the exhibition and programme will be the first showing of the personal and artistic archive of Marianne ‘Poly Styrene’ Elliot-Said, the lead singer of the British punk band X Ray Spex. Curated by Mattie Loyce and Poly Styrene’s daughter Celeste Bell the exhibition will explore her complex legacy and work as an interdisciplinary artist. The exhibition will include original artworks, writings, and photography, and highlight her experiences as a woman in music history, a woman in punk, being mixed race Black British, and someone living with mental health difficulties.

The programme will include a book talk on the brand-new biography DAYGLO delivered by co-authors Celeste Bell and Zoe Howe, a preview screening of the new documentary in production ‘I Am A Cliché’, and a Poly Styrene Weekender with an Art Lab led by Youth of Killing Joke, a panel exploring her legacy, and music gig curated by DIY diaspora punk festival Decolonise Fest!

 

Programme:

Opening
17th May 6:30-9:30pm

DAYGLO Book Talk and I Am A Cliché Film Preview Screening
22nd May 6:30-9:30pm

Facebook event

Poly Styrene Weekender
1st June 1:00-11:30pm

Tickets available on Eventbrite.

 

For more information email mattie@198.org.uk