Mike Snelle and James Golding managed to turn the whole art-world on their finger. Like Banksy, The Connor Brothers are bringing confusion, initially hiding parts of their biography and their real identity. Their work escalating increases their price and become a desirable commodity in the auction houses, without dealers and owners to know what the truth is: behind the emblem of American artists with a dramatic adolescence, out of the trap of a pseudo-religious cult, actually stand two Brits...
After exhibitions in London, Sydney and Los Angeles, the authors Snelle and Golding continued to explore the possibilities of pop culture to tolerate postmodern transformations. Their works cite, fuse, rename, confuse, edit, and bbring laugh. Yellow literature and pocket-sized book covers are enlarged to modern exquisitely created uniques. Sentences, taken as if from the pages of pulp fiction novels, thoughts-clichés of grotesque or pretentious characters are rethought in a philosophy of mass culture of the 21st century. The Connor Brothers hint that we inhabit a world of enviable values that our inner life is dominated by dreams-phantoms.
Each "brother's" work has a vivid character, a hero in conflict or a person with a message. The question posed to the audience is whether and how we share this message. Can we be in different roles, how we dream, how we plan the project of our lives. And whether all this has something to do with the truth about ourselves. As the motto of their last exhibition reads: "We must be careful about what we pretend to be".
From March 29 to April 21, 2019 "We must be careful about what we pretend to be" will be presented in Sofia thanks to the American Foundation for Bulgaria, the Regional History Museum – Sofia and the National Academy of Arts. Original works will be displayed on paper, screen printing with mixed acrylic techniques and handwritten interventions, collages, etc. The selection was made especially for the presentation of the Connor Brothers in Sofia. The Bulgarian audience will see large-format works from the last year: "Conformity Is The Last Refuge", "I Don't Care What Anyone Says about Me", "Truth Is Rarely Pure" and the brand new "Complicated Ways" and "I Can Resist Everything Except" – directly from the studio of the artists in London. Mike Snelle and James Golding will atend the opening at the "Triangle Tower of Ancient Serdica" on 29 March 2019, 18:30 hours.
