LE GUN ‘La Noche de los Alebrijes Vivientes’ OLD VIC TUNNELS

Le Gun ‘La Noche de los Alebrijes Vivientes’ Established in 2004, LE GUN is an art collective consisting of five artist illustrators and two designers who met as graduates at London’s Royal College of Arts department of communication art & design. As a team of illustrators they create idiosyncratic imagery which blends a punk, occult, pop and surrealist aesthetic. As well as being the producers of their cult self-titled magazine, the group is internationally recognised for their enigmatic installations, performances, design projects and art shows. For the Day of the Dead Festival, LE GUN have drawn on the fantastical and macabre world of Mexican Alebrijes. These hybrid animals, something like three-dimensional exquisite corpses, are the dream children of Pedro Linares who, during the 1930s while sick, hallucinated the creatures and heard voices repeating the nonsensical word: alebrijes, alebrijes, alebrijes. His creations, made from papier-mâché and cardboard, caught the attention of British Filmmaker, Judith Bronowski, and her 1975 documentary brought recognition and growth to the tradition which then spread to Oaxaca where, to this day, local artisans carve and sell alebrijes made from wood. As the surreal and the subconscious are a large part of LE GUN’s world, for the festival the group have collectively created a series of giant hanging alebrijes in the tradition of the exquisite corpse, the process bringing about the birth of imaginary beings as yet unknown. The large-scale wall drawing also occupies a strong tradition in the work of LE GUN. The particular style they developed, in which the sum is greater than the parts, is what makes LE GUN’s group aesthetic so distinctive. Commissioned by NOMAD Text by Bronwyn Carter