Black Mirror: Prepare Yourself for Saatchi Gallery’s Headlining Fall Exhibit

Saatchi Gallery has announced its fall show, Black Mirror, a major new exhibition featuring the work of 26 contemporary artists. 

From 28 September to 13 January, Black Mirror will explore art’s role in social satire and how political uncertainty has influenced art of recent years.

Black Mirror: Prepare Yourself for Saatchi Gallery’s Headlining Fall Exhibit

Jessica Craig-Martin; Red Ball Plaza Hotel, New York; Cibachrome print; 61.3 x 84.2 cm

Using media such as collage, caricatures, photography and installation, Black Mirror shows how satire can provide both light relief as well as unsettling commentary on the tumultuous, divisive climate of modern-day politics.

Black Mirror features contemporary artists making work about the world we live in, exposing the anxieties that our modern obsessions create. Artists featured include Turner prize nominee Richard Billingham, whose photography series of his parents Ray’s A Laugh pioneered ‘squalid realism’ as he confronted the art world with the reality of poverty; Polish artist Aleksandra Mir who parodies newspapers by crudely drawing them with childlike tools (indeed, ‘fake news’); and Chilean sculptor Alejandra Prieto, who transforms rejected lumps of coal into a beautiful, desirable object of opulence, confronting class disparity and the commodification of luxury over function.

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Works vary from the personal to the political, including Bedwyr Williams’ humorous take on the old adage ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes’, where he literally gets visitors to try on size 13 shoes. Jessica Craig-Martin creates voyeuristic and candid close-up photographs of high society hedonism. At a time of collective unease, Black Mirror emphasises the importance of art and satire in dissecting power structures, questioning societal norms and visualising political unrest.

Over the last five years the Saatchi Gallery has hosted ten out of the top 15 most visited exhibitions in London, according to The Art Newspaper’s survey of international museum attendance. The gallery also has more followers on social media than any other museum in the world. Entry to all the Saatchi Gallery’s exhibitions is free.

When & Where: 28 September to 13 January, Saatchi Gallery Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY