Simon Bedwell
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Simon Bedwell (born 1963, Croyden, UK) is an artist based in London.
He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including “Post No Bills” at White Columns [1] in New York, “Galleon and Other Stories” at the Saatchi Gallery [2] in London, “England Their England” at Laden fur Nichts in Leipzig and “Beck's Futures 2004” at the ICA [3] in London and the CCA in Glasgow. He is represented by Ritter/Zamet [http://www.ritterzamet.com/ in London.
Simon Bedwell, now working on his own, spent most of his art career as a member of the London-based collective BANK. BANK consisted of Bedwell and three other artists – John Russell, Milly Thompson and Andrew Williamson – who, throughout the 1990s, were a consistent presence on the London art-scene. BANK regularly hosted shows in their own warehouse space which combined the work of the group with that of other, often very well-known, artists in schizophrenic installations where it was often impossible to tell where one work ended and another began. The group also regularly produced art-world-baiting material in the form of satirical exhibition invitations, provocative show titles, their own tabloid newspaper ridiculing the excesses of the London scene and a campaign to improve gallery press releases that involved returning said documents to galleries with corrections to grammar and tips for improvement.
Since the group’s split Bedwell as become a highly successful artist in his own right. His most widely known works combine second-hand posters with carefully selected slogans produced by Bedwell using WordArt, stencils and spray paint. This strand of Bedwell’s practice is typical of his methods; the juxtaposition of found imagery with purpose built text creates an often funny, politically apposite, yet highly convincing brand-new objects. His work functions via a critique of advertising, logoism, signs and signifiers; picking holes in means of representation favoured by the mass media to discover the limits of tolerance and relevance of ‘rebellious’ acts, and believability, within a given context.
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simon bedwell is a well liked tutor at goldsmiths college
