Alexander Augustus
ALEXANDER AUGUSTUS (B. 1988)
Alexander Augustus is part of a new generation of artists who create spectacular installation works that are comprised of meticulously made elements, using classic methods: bronze-casting, painting, woodblock, textiles, metalwork, and theatre. He also works with digital media. Trained in anthropology and art history, before training as an artist in America and then at Central St Martins in London, his work is essentially a coming-together of ideas with processes of making. Founder of the prominent ‘The Bite Back movement,’ with South Korean artist Seung Youn Lee, over the last five years he has organised large-scale events and exhibitions in the UK, Germany, France, and East Asia.
The Bite Back Movement has engaged with issues of our times. In 2013, an exhibition at Somerset House in London, titled ‘A Dangerous Figure’, dealt with the alienation and despair of young unemployment.
Covered by Art Monthly and Frieze Magazine among others, and registered in the archive of the National Portrait Gallery in London, ‘A Dangerous Figure’ brought focus to a contemporary tragedy. The bronzes in the current exhibition are ‘Dangerous Figures’, a continuation of that body of work.
More recently, his work has engaged with various types of modern mythology, and the imagery that this evokes. Large-scale works in metal in Berlin, permanent steel sculptures in Seoul, and installation work streamed into Tate Modern, are interesting examples of this mythological exploration. He lives and works in London and Berlin.