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Titled HOLY POP!, the exhibition will investigate the ways in which fans express devotion to cultural icons, from musicians to fictional characters. Running across three rooms, the show aims to analyse the shift towards idolising public figures in an increasingly secular society and how these acts create communities.
The exhibition will feature works and artefacts relating to figures such as David Bowie, Princess Diana and Andy Warhol as well as considering the devotion towards fictional characters, with objects connected to Harry Potter’s Dobby the Elf included in the display.
Curated by Tory Turk – who previously worked on the Somerset House exhibitions No Comply and The Jam: About the Young – the show will move from the personal to the collective, considering private acts of devotion as well as examining public responses to grief and communal mourning.
The final section of the show will centre on a single, significant artefact: a piece of chewing gum chewed and discarded by Nina Simone, collected by Bad Seeds' musician Warren Ellis, and immortalised in his 2021 memoir, Nina Simone's Gum: A Memoir of Things Lost and Found.
“It’s about the community created when fans build their own memorials to their heroes and the affinity felt between strangers because they idolise the same pop star, devour the same literature, or worship the same actor,” Turk explains.
“Regardless of your religion, faith always comes from the heart. Somerset House, a building with a rich history and reborn today as an arts organisation showcasing arts and popular culture is the perfect venue for this contemporary exploration of devotion. HOLY POP! is about our very human desire to believe in something bigger, because that is what makes us feel alive.”
The exhibition forms part of the venue’s wider summer programme, which also includes the return of the Somerset House Summer Series in July featuring performances in the courtyard from artists including The Flaming Lips, Black Country, New Road and Agnes Obel
English (US) · 