A NEW HAPPENING (unreleased)
A collaboration between artist Sunil Pawar and photographer Gavin Watson. Watson’s photography series famously captured the energy of the underground party scene in the late Eighties/early Nineties in England.
Pawar’s ‘remix’ artworks relay narratives from the same viewpoint whist providing an alternate future aesthetic, building on Watson’s bold monochrome imagery, providing the photos with a heightened tenacity, returning the portraits ‘back into the dance’.
‘A NEW HAPPENING’ SERIES OF POP UP VIEWINGS
01. BETA SHOW LAUNCH The series of artworks alongside interactive animations were unveiled to an invited audience of fifty guests at the Bureau space in London for one evening only. All communication was handled by texts from a dummy phone, with the location being revealed by passworded google map pinpoint only 20 minutes beforehand.
02. When the resulting Milan showing was cancelled due to the pandemic, a digital version of the show was swiftly created. LOCKDOWN 01 was a web based exhibition that was held in the first week of the global lockdown, exclusive to registered viewers through whatsapp and email. The digital location was only revealed 2 minutes before launch and lasted just 12 hours before disappearing. The show saw over 1000 people attend.
Alongside exclusive artworks to view, there was also a short talk by the artists, recorded in East London pre shutdown, downloadable brochure, attached print shop and complimentary tracks by the original super sharp-shooter legend DJ Zinc, for time sensitive free download. The show received widespread coverage including BBC Arts.
03…?
“I was obsessed with pirate radio stations in the early Nineties, so hearing the same tunes but on a 100K sound system rig at a warehouse party in East London rather than a small JVC tuner with a coat hanger for an aerial, blew my mind....”
— SP
‘A NEW HAPPENING’
Gallery of works
Sunil Pawar / Gavin Watson
“It felt like there was a massive urge to get to these raves. Everyone who was anybody was involved. It was important—we marched in London and changed the licensing laws.
If it had been a purely working class thing they would have stomped on us, they would have trodden us into the ground. But it wasn’t, there were middle-class people and even Lords going to these raves. Everyone was involved, they couldn’t stop it. The police just didn’t understand it. They had never had to deal with hundreds of people having a good time”
GW
”As a person I am very enthusiastic, but I am always a bit outside of things. It was a fantastic release. It didn’t take much to go there, but it’s not like I suddenly decided that I was going to put on a smiley face t-shirt and a bandana and “become a raver”
GW
“This project has absolutely nothing to do with nostalgia or a hazy trip down memory lane, its a celebration of the DIY spirit in the party/music scene that still runs through the veins of the UK to this very day.“
The explosive visual language and underlying narrative has provoked resonance with a wide audience of all ages.
“My first experience was seeing the scene from the organiser side of things, I was 16 and was taken to a party by a crew who were working the nights. I remember having a go controlling the laser gun and lighting panels high up in a massive abandoned warehouse in East London.
From what I can remember the DJ cut the music and dropped Roy Ayers ‘Everybody loves the Sunshine’ the place went wild.
The next thing I knew I was outside in the freezing cold air being bundled into the back of a car, covered in blood.
I had fallen from the lighting scaffold a few flights up and must have blacked out, I couldn’t go to casualty as they would have asked too many questions, so someone took me home and carried me through the front door. I still carry a scar from the night.”
SP
The artwork, the music, the projections. To this day creatively, everything that leaves my studio is an indirect result of that night, so this body of work we have created is taking things full circle. ”
SP
ACCOMPANYING SOUNDTRACK
GAVIN WATSON
Gavin Watson was born in London in 1965 and grew up on a council estate in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. He bought a Hanimex camera from Woolworths in his early teens and began to take photographs. Upon leaving school at the age of sixteen, Watson moved back to London and became a darkroom assistant at Camera Press. He continued to photograph his surrounding working-class skinhead subculture brought together by a love of ska music and fashion.
Watson’s photographs document a time and place where the subculture was racially mixed and inclusive. His photographs have been published in the books ‘Skins’ (1994) ‘Skins and Punks’ (2008), ‘Raving 89’ (2009) and ‘Oh what fun we had’ (2019), and the director Shane Meadows cited them as an inspiration for his film ‘This is England’. One of the leading youth culture photographers of his time, he subsequently went on to document his experiences of the rave party scene in the late Eighties.
“What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing’.”— Shane Meadows
Gavin has shot campaigns for Plan B, Rudimental, Dr Martens and Aquascutum, with clients including Raf Simmons, Fred Perry and Alexander McQueen.
SUNIL PAWAR
In the late Eighties, at the age of Fifteen, Sunil skipped school one afternoon and walked into the Camden offices of music legends, Soul II Soul with a bag full of paintings, he sold every one of them.
Present day and he is an exhibiting artist /art director whose studio output walks the line between gallery shows and commercial projects, a progressive practise that sees his creations inhabit a multidisciplinary realm including painting, design, fashion and film.
Sunil's works have appeared in The Tate Modern, The Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma and Katherine Hamnett Tokyo
Solo shows include The Stern Pissarro Gallery during Frieze Week, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and Phonica Records, Soho.
Commercial clients including Junya Watanabe / Comme Des Garcons Tokyo (signature artist for three capsule ranges) Levis, Harvey Nichols, (Knightsbrige full window display) Make Poverty History, Nokia and Sony BMG.
Sunil was born and bred in London town and is rather partial to a nice plate of pie and mash.
The ‘A NEW HAPPENING' capsule has yet to be displayed in the physical public domain and is currently looking for a new project/exhibition to be part of in 2024..
Please contact the studio direct here for further information.
THANKYOUDJ ZINC
JEFF BOARDMAN
BUREAU AGENCY
DAN BUCK JOYCE
PETE HELLICAR
DEN SALAZAR
RAW MESSINA GALLERY, MILANSIAN REES
KING AND MCGAW
JOSH HIGGINS
TIM AND BARRY
PAOLO BUGLIARI GOGGIA
GEORGE ‘THE BOUNCER’ COOPER
JUNIPERFOR FURTHER ENQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT
Jürgen ON BEHALF OF SUNIL PAWAR STUDIO
EMAIL / INSTAGRAM / MAILING LIST