Selected Works

RAGE PEN is an interactive Photobook developed from a relational piece of the same name held at Chisenhale Studios 2017/18. Challenging the fetishisation of consumer culture & art objects RAGE PEN requires users to slit open its interior pages, in the process desercrating its initial form to view a complete narrative.

Originally devised by David Blackmore as a series of shuttered performances at Chisenhale Studios, London E3, in which anonymous members of the public, or ‘ventees’ –after being interviewed by the Artist about the sources of frustration were invited to destroy objects representing sources of frustration in their lives. These violent staged attacks were photographed and filmed live by Blackmore, and the visual material became the basis for RAGE PEN, a photobook, as well as a set of giclée prints. Each book has been personally cut by David with a mitre saw during the launch event. These imperfections are intentional and integral to the work itself, making each copy unique. Additional textual material has been provided by Michael Hampton in the form of a critical essay examining the rage room phenomenon, plus an online conversation piece between Blackmore and Hampton.

Embossed title | Perfect bound | Perforated fore-edge | Block cut with mitre saw | Corona Bright Red 270gsm | Extraprint 120gsm Offset paper | 21 x 14.8 cm | 108 pages

Biographies

David Blackmore is an artist based between London and Dublin. David’s socio-political art practice explores questions concerning consumerism, origin, belonging, and identity through transgressive actions performed for the photographic image, participatory exchanges, sculpture, print, artists books and zines. He studied at the Institute of Art & Design (Dublin) and the University of Westminster (London) completing a Master’s in Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art (London). He has exhibited widely, with solo shows including Stanley Picker Gallery Project Space (London), MOCA (London), Schwartz Gallery (London), SITEATION (Dublin), Central European House of Photography (Bratislava), Draíocht (Dublin) and Elliot Halls (Amsterdam). In 2023, he was commissioned by the Artichoke Trust to make work displayed across the UK on billboards and featured in BBC 4’s TV documentary ‘21st Century Mythologies’ in 2020. He is a Senior Lecturer at University of the Arts London and a Fellow of the RSA.

Michael Hampton is a London based writer and critical theorist. In 1998 a chance encounter at Modern Art Oxford with Gustav Metzger—the legendary Auto-Destructive artist—led to an invitation from Metzger to give talks about destruction in art at SPACEX in 1999, and subsequently Instal06, Glasgow. In 2018, with David Blackmore, he co-organised DIAS 2.0, a public event at Chisenhale Studios, London. He is a regular contributor to Art Monthly since 2009, with a special interest in artists’ publishing. His ground-breaking study and tool-kit for practitioners Unshelfmarked': Reconceiving the artists' book was published by Uniformbooks in 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and journals including 3am, The Blue Notebook, Frieze, Geschichte, The Kink in the Arc, Schizm, /Seconds, Denizen of the Dead, Invert/Extant and the Swedenborg Review. Against Decorum, a hybrid collection of modified texts and a scrapbook for bibliographic activists, was published by information as material in 2022.

Folium is a London based independent artists led publishing studio focusing on the production of experimental photobooks. www.folium.site