“Saint Andrew’s vision of Frog Bats and Lancer charges – Ulundi 1879, Balaclava 1854, Omdurman 1898”

by Andrew Gilbert

Opening ceremony: May 7th, 5-8 pm
Exhibition dates:
May 7th – June 25th, 2022

Ten Haaf Projects is pleased to announce: “Saint Andrew’s vision of Frog Bats and Lancer charges - Ulundi 1879, Balaclava 1854, Omdurman 1898”, the sixth solo exhibition by Andrew Gilbert in the gallery.

“...the Owl Meat canapes were delicious, the curator wore a wonderful design by...“ sorry I thought this was my review of the Venice Biennalle for Voog Fashion magazine, the champagne was flowing like Saudi oil, the private Yacht party was briefly disturbed by the sight of drowned refugees floating in the canals, the pesky type of refugees, not the noble sacred white ones escaping the Great War of Nato Expansionism. However the next round of Canapes and New York based DJ beats brought back the celebratory spirit and soon the party was pumping like gas from a Russian pipeline...

It is in the tradition of the late medieval North European pseudo Msytic, from Henry Suso to Exuma of Norwich, that Saint Andrew presents his latest series of fractured visions. They rise like prophecies from the steaming cauldron of MacBeth’s three Witchdoctors, or suggested video links from Youtube algorithms, taking physical form on paper and finally manifesting themselves in “Saint Andrew’s vision of Frog Bats and Lancer charges - Ulundi 1879, Balaclava 1854, Omdurman 1898”.

“Leave no one behind” chant the 75th Rangers, except the people of Afghanistan, in the 2001 film Black Hawk Down. In an attempt to create nationalist mythology, that does not involve the genocide of the Native American population or mass carnage in the 1861 war in defence of slavery, a modern remake of the 1964 film Zulu (though set in Somalia 1993 rather than South Africa 1879) is vomited upon the Netflix viewers. Twenty-minute death scenes with tragic music for each fallen U.S soldier, juxtaposed with slaughter of savage silhouettes, which surge forward as one mass, like demons from a medieval painting of Hell, brandishing the contemporary equivalent of the spear and instantly recognisable to the Western audience as a symbol of barbarism - the AK47.

“I must order an Uber to the next private yacht party on my Leek PhoneTM”. While Nolde brings me fried Prawns Primitivist salad, Saint Andrew witnesses the eternal charge of the Duke of Cambridge’s 17th Lancer regiment: from fighting the American insurgency at Bunker Hill 1775, to the Crimean War of 1854, the destruction of the Zulu Kingdom at Ulundi, 4th of July 1879, to the massacre at Omdurman 1898, India 1936 (by now an Armoured Tank Division), Tunisia 1943, Palestine 1948, Northern Ireland occupation 1972, Iraq invasion 1990, the deranged merry-go-round at the pleasant rural town market square speeds up as horses scream, bodies explode and everything transforms in to cheap supermarket Onions and sacred Courgette fetishes on the altar of Empire nostalgia, a tooth is driven in to each vegetable fetish for each glorious charge, and a nail hammered for each sacred Martyr of western Civilisation and to celebrate Brexit and Independence Day. But the Leek Phone upon which I type is running out of battery and I left my charger in the Hotel next to my Squirrel fur handbag, the deadline for the Voooog Magazine review of the Biennalle is tomorrow at 9 a.m and I must begin my “Ten new Hot mazulkkkka mazooooonaaaaa Frog Bats drooling tips” for what to look out for, and who will be wearing what, at the upcoming Basil Weapons Fair. Someone has replaced the bunting at the market town fair with Carrrrrottttssss covered in nails...the enemy are all around us, the enemy have breached the walls...my Bible and my Emperor Andrew Instant Coffee are next to me...I upload this word document and press send before being decapitated by an Aztec....Saint, Emperor, marketing director of Leek Phone and Cresswells Pineaplle Juice, “I ́m dying for a Pineapple Juice”, Andrew 26.4.22

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Born in Edinburg, Scotland in 1980, Andrew Gilbert has exhibited at the Tate Britain London, the National Gallery of Singapore and the Bavarian Army Museum. His work has been shown in galleries throughout Europe, South Africa and Japan. Works by Andrew Gilbert are included in important private and institutional collections. From 2020 to 2021 Gilbert was guest professor for painting and drawing at the HFBK Hamburg. His work is included in the 2022 publication “Dissonance Platform Germany”, a survey of the most significant painters living and working in Germany in the past two decades.