‘Dream English Kid 1964-1999 AD – Mark Leckey’

“Dream English Kid began when I found on YouTube an audio recording of Joy Division playing at a small club in Liverpool. A gig I’d been present at but could barely remember. As I listened I wondered if, through enhancing the audio, I could actually find my fifteen-year-old self in the recording. That led me to think would it be possible, at this point, with so much imagery available in the digital archives, to reconstruct my memoirs through all the DVD re-releases, eBay ephemera, YouTube uploads and above all the resource of the internet itself; the way it can actualize half-forgotten memories and produce a niche for seemingly every remembrance” (Mark Leckey). A fragmentary work made of various films and audio recordings excerpts, ads and pop music, historical and highly personal footage, overlapping and repeating, Dream English Kid 1964–1999 AD is an ode to the late 20th century.

Since winning the Turner Prize in 2008, Mark Leckey (UK, 1964) has become a deeply influential figure for younger generations of artists. His work has been exhibited at WIELS (Brussels), ICA (London), MoMA (New York), among others. Leckey is a reader in fine art at Goldsmiths, London, and served as professor of film studies at the Städelschule Frankfurt.