dinosaurkilby

The Saracen’s Head

05.08.23 - 30.09.23

Private View: 5th August, 6 - 8pm

Open by appointment only

A Saracen’s head is the decapitated head of an Arab. It’s also the name of over two-hundred pubs in England.

Black vinyl script covers the main wall. Nastaliq text? Rorschach blotch? Alien cuneiform? Abstract Death’s-head moth? It actually reads Matriarch/Patriarch.

What do our mothers and fathers leave us?

The windows are tinted to an illegal level. Incandescent bulbs flicker beneath a pitched roof. A wallpapered hag confronts you, but ‘The Witch’ here is a green-faced Halloween stereotype, not the vilified proto-Feminist women of the 16th century. This witch has a dart stuck in her nose, drawing attention to how Western/Eastern beauty standards are confronted in her.

A small violent object thrown in the face of matriarchy that nods to pub culture. The scent of oud soaked into the floor. You know this carpet. The one in the function room, the one your strange uncle stumbles over on a Saturday night, the one that’s got that vomit stain from the teenager who couldn’t handle their drink. The pub is often a site of confusion. Why are we drinking, why are they fighting, why does this island never change?

Small Heath, Birmingham. Barber shop, skin fade, but can you cut vampire teeth into the back? 90’s Nike tick replaced with a blood sucking ghoul. White working class culture mixing with brown working class culture. Sick fade, bro.

England is haunted and what have they left us, our mothers and fathers?

This exhibition is a 1993 fever dream brought up on horror films.

You’re inside The Saracen’s Head.

With special thanks to Jack Peters for barbering, and to Dinosaur Kilby and Leah Hickey for your technical and curatorial support.

Ishmail De Niro (b. 1993) is a British artist based in Birmingham. Through disciplines including reprographic silkscreen printing and digital processes, the artist explores the self through materiality. De Niro has exhibited nationally and works from a private artists’ studio at the Jubilee Centre, in Birmingham Chinatown. In 2023, De Niro will co-direct Prayer Room, an artist-led gallery in Digbeth. Recent projects include: ‘If It Thunders on All Fool’s Day’ at Eastside Projects and Bene Culture at Satellite Store.

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