Artists from LE GUN: Robert Rubbish & Steph von Reiswitz
'The Last Huzzah of the Hoxditch Leisure Pirates'

Thursday 3rd May 2012

Robert Rubbish and Steph von Reiswitz have made a site specific piece for Radio Salon & Gallery on Redchurch Street, entitled 'The last Huzzah of the Hoxditch Leisure Pirates'. It comprises of a triptych of canvases detailing the three ages of man...

HOXDITCH, a place of nightmares and dreams. We join a queue of revellers waiting to enter a local nightspot. Tonight is the last huzzah of the Hoxditch leisure pirates, a disparate group of fashion buccaneers, layabouts, disco queens, has-beens, wannabes, and seasoned hedonists.
Rumours are rife that the leisure pirates will soon set sail to new uncharted lands, escaping the ever encroaching death grip of mindless commercialism. Tonight is the final death rattle and knees-up to their beloved Hoxditch.

I. The Queue before the Party (Childhood)
On a dank street in the environs of Hoxditch the bold and the beautiful stand in line to enter the nightspot where tonight the last huzzah of the leisure pirates will take place.
Excitement and anticipation is the order of the eve. What awaits within, who knows? Outfits have been styled and hairdos created, tonight the queue has become the catwalk.
'Abandon all reality and enter at your own risk' a doorman warns the revellers as he undoes the red velvet ropes. Let the party begin, every pleasure, every sin.

II. The Last Huzzah (Adulthood)
Within the nightspot we witness scenes on the dance floor, where the weird and the wonderful are normal. Devils and demons celebrate with offerings to Bacchus, gyrating to the echoing soundtrack of high camp electro disco. As the party continues clothes become surplus to requirements, the walls sweat champagne, euphoria is wafting around this pleasure zone.
There is no past, there is no future, just here and now.

III. The Morning After (Old Age)
Dawn has long broken and we join some of the revellers who have left the club and are reclining on a Hoxditch pavement outside an all night establishment offering libations.
A three eyed beggar begs on. He is heard to say 'Fear not people, no harm will come to ye, I was once just like you all.'
The price of the high is the low. The comedown is the price they pay. Dark spirits, demons, and unholy ghosts enter (or exit?) these leisure pirates washed up on the craggy cliffs of despair. Staggering or crawling home the mantra of the morn is 'Never Again.' But in their hearts they know it's never again until the next time. Life, after all, is ruled by fate, not by wisdom.