23 November 2024 to 22 March 2025
This November, 20-21 Visual Arts Centre are delighted to welcome a major new exhibition by acclaimed contemporary artist Chad McCail, presented in Partnership with Turntable Gallery, Grimsby. ‘All Together Now’ includes his sprawling imaginary cityscape installation ‘Toy’, which will include new never-before-seen characters and locations.
Factories, farms, churches and military installations have been recreated on a miniature scale in cardboard, wood, insulation foam and papier-mâché. Within this exquisitely crafted fantasy landscape, a war is being fought between the many and the few… not only for control of the city, but for the very idea of freedom!
Chad McCail’s work explores how our institutions, social hierarchies and economic systems condition how we relate to one another. He presents alternative ways of organising society, and offers different visions of the future.
Born in 1961 in Manchester, Chad grew up in Edinburgh – he now lives and works in Thankerton, South Lanarkshire. Having first read English at the University of Kent, Chad later graduated in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London, in 1989. His work has been exhibited widely both in the UK and abroad, and is held in major collections including MOMA, New York and MAMCO, Geneva.
Chad McCail’s work has been sustained by his activities in the village where he lives. For many years he has run art classes, producing exhibitions and staging annual street-theatre productions. In 2014 he made a mural with local people in Dagenham and returned there in 2016 to produce a pantomime.
Last year Distanz published Giants, a 330 page monograph about his work (available from the gallery shop).
Update: Chad McCail – All Together Now has now been extended, and will run until 22 March 2025.
