here - Studio Voltaire

The Neo Naturists
8 July –
28 August 2016
Introduction
The Neo Naturists are a performance art group founded in 1981 by Christine
Binnie, Jennifer Binnie and Wilma Johnson. The group emerged from a
subculture – connected with but not limited to the New Romantic club
scene – which developed in London against a backdrop of intense economic, political and social change. In the aftermath of punk, and at the
advent of the rise of Thatcherism, a vigorous creative energy developed in
the UK which sat outside of mainstream culture, creating its own network
of agents, economies, activities and events.
The Neo Naturists were a part of a wide constellation of diverse cultural
figures and sometime collaborators, which included BodyMap (David Holah
& Stevie Stewart), James Birch, Leigh Bowery, Jill Bruce, Michael Clark, David
Dawson, Peter Doig, Simon Foxton, Boy George, Derek Jarman, Princess Julia,
Bruce Lacey, Andrew Logan, Marilyn, John Maybury, Maia Norman, Grayson
Perry, Psychic TV, Philip Sallon, Test Department, Jill Westwood, Dencil
Williams and Cerith Wyn Evans.
i Christine Binnie interviewed by
Suzanne Cotter, 8 June 2009, Michael
Clark, Violette Editions, 2011
We used to go to nightclubs and do performances wearing body
paint. Sometimes the performance would be the act of painting
each other, sometimes we’d have the paint on already. All the people
around us were Blitz Kids doing all that post-punk stuff when it was
very trendy to be thin, po-faced and have perfect make-up. We could
never really manage that. We were always red and shiny and smiling,
and a bit too fat. So we did the opposite and painted ourselves, got
messy and had fun.i
The group was established organically. While Christine Binnie and Wilma
Johnson had been experimenting at St Martin’s School of Art with body
painting as a way of expanding beyond the canvas, Jennifer Binnie and
Grayson Perry were making parallel experiments at Portsmouth Polytechnic,
using body paint as a means to explore body image and identity. United by
a belief in the radical and subversive potential of body painting, the Neo
Naturists took these private experiments to clubs and parties, one of their
first official such performances being at the nightclub Wedgies in the Kings
Road in 1980. These public appearances quickly developed into more formalised parts of the group’s artistic practices.
In their performances, the Neo Naturists fused an idea of the liberating
potential of ancient, pagan ritual with an unabashedly lo-fi, contemporary
vernacular. Their performances at nightclubs, galleries, festivals and unannounced site-specific events celebrated a particular kind of anarchic
innocence and deliberate primitivism. Wearing little more than body paint,
the group achieved a unique artistic voice, one which contrasted with the
highly polished aesthetic prevalent in the New Romantic club scene. In a
cultural landscape that was decidedly slick, urban and modern, the Neo
Naturists’ work made frequent references to the English pastoral and homely
pursuits such as camping, girl guiding and harvest festivals; in later works,
themes of seasonal cycles, fertility cults and the pattern of death and rebirth become more pronounced.
Black Rapport Day, Thames Beach, Wapping
17 July 1982
2
Rough edged, consciously unfashionable and unprofessional, the wilfully
amateur ideal of the Neo Naturists and their practice can be located within
the traditions of punk and bricolage. Their performances and actions were
never rehearsed; a schedule would often be discussed just hours beforehand, with props sourced and produced last minute. This refusal to be slick
was indicative of the group’s determination for their practice not to be neatly
packaged: a deeply non-commercial position. As Grayson Perry remarked,
‘Christine never capitalised on Neo Naturism. It was frowned upon to optimise the career chances of things, she never repeated things and she never
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compromised on the un-entertainingness of it. She wasn’t one to have a
rehearsed show – she thought that would be selling out to do a rehearsal
because that would smell of entertainment’.
The Neo Naturists:
A Continuing Story
In the Neo Naturists’ performances, the body was both spectacle in itself,
and metaphor for the social body. Presenting the nude, painted body with
an almost Edenic lack of embarrassment, their performances were “bodypositive” and celebratory. Though negotiating gender and sexuality, the group’s
performances did not present explicit eroticism (although the group were
sometimes booked by venues in the misguided hope of such). The Neo
Naturists' employment of the naked body was more aligned with and reminiscent of the counterculture of the 1960s and its experiments in alternative
living. This return to a kind of Utopianism and innocence diverged from
both the increasingly commodified, ‘sexually packaged’ body promoted in
the 80s, and the conservative moral backlash towards it, in the shape of a
proposed return to ‘family values’.
by Louisa Buck
Not that any of this deterred the Neo Naturists. The unsympathetic climate
instead only provided them with a greater incentive to devise performances
and events that flew in the face of convention. Their unashamedly voluptuous naked bodies and their seriously playful rituals (revolving around
cooking, eating and female bodily functions) cocked a good-humoured
snook at both the earnestly exquisite dandyism of Steve Strange et al,
and the streamlined pneumatic amazons of Helmut Newton. Instead of the
cool sounds of new wave or synth-pop, Neo Naturist performances were
accompanied by records sourced from charity shops – Middle of the Road’s
Chirpy-Chirpy Cheep-Cheep and the then-outrageously unfashionable ABBA
being particular favourites.
This exhibition offers an opportunity to experience a significant selection of
the Neo Naturists’ extraordinary practice first hand. In doing so, we hope
the exhibition promotes a wider recognition of the importance of the group’s
work and approach, which remain as sharply radical and affective in the
present moment as thirty years ago. This publication has been produced
as an introductory guide to the works and material on display. Louisa Buck
has contributed an enlightening essay positioning the Neo Naturists’ practice within a wider context. The booklet also includes a guide to key performance and moving image works.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Arts Council England,
The Henry Moore Foundation and Thomas Dane for their generous financial support, which has enabled the largest presentation of the Neo
Naturists’ work to date. Our special gratitude goes to Yana and Stephen
Peel for supporting the A Night with the Neo Naturists at the Institute of
Contemporary Arts, London. Thanks also to James Birch, Louisa Buck,
Jane England, William Fowler, John Maybury, Gregor Muir, Grayson Perry,
Patrick Shier, Katharine Stout, Rob Tuffnell, Jill Westwood and Callum
Whitley. Finally, our warmest thanks go to Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie
and Wilma Johnson for their tireless involvement and generosity in the
development of this exhibition.
i ‘Neo Naturists Manifesto’,
International Times, v.86, n.3, 26
March – 24 April 1985, p.1
ii Christine Binnie, interview with the
author, 25 April 2016
iii Christine Binnie, quoted in Andrew
Wilson ‘Grayson Perry: ‘General Artist’’
in Grayson Perry, Guerrilla Tactics,
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2002,
p.80
iv Christine Binnie, interview with the
author, 25 April 2016
v Christine Binnie, in The Neo
Naturists, England & Co, 2007, p.13
vi Christine Binnie, interview with the
author, 25 April 2016
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In the sharp-edged, power-dressed, ruthlessly professional climate of the
Thatcherite early 1980s, the Neo Naturists were an incongruous presence.
The ideal of female nudity was buffed, honed and depilated. The art world
was dominated by macho neo-expressionist figuration and heavy duty theorising; performance art was strictly off the radar. Even the emerging postpunk, New Romantic club-land where the Neo Naturists found their early
home was a place of straight-faced posing in elaborate costumes and
immaculately-applied makeup, with excess and exuberance only encouraged
amongst cross-dressing males.
"Neo Naturists are not interested in making themselves look like something else; they want to look like Neo Naturists” declared the group’s
co-founder Christine Binnie in a wry 1985 manifesto, published in the
International Times magazine. In the same manifesto, Binnie defined Neo
Naturism as being “casual to the point of excess” and the belief that
“gorgeousness is the ultimate intelligence”i But undoubtedly the most
important element of the Neo Naturist ‘look’ was the way in which their
bared bodies were transformed into living art works by the expert painting
techniques of the group’s other co-founders, Jennifer Binnie (Christine’s
sister) and Wilma Johnson. Nearly three decades later Christine is keen to
emphasise that “Jen and Wilma’s unique and marvellous painting skills are
a very important part of Neo Naturism: they could – and can – very quickly
cover a body in proper painting, not just smears. It is never ‘make up’ but
always done in a very painterly way."ii
A crucial element that underpinned Neo-Naturism was what Christine described as her and Jennifer’s “sensible girl upbringing”iii in rural Sussex,
where their mother was a Girl Guide Leader and bastion of the village choir
and Women’s Institute. One of the things that Christine and Jennifer first
found appealing about Wilma Johnson was that they all “had Mums who
were into knitting, weaving and crafts and lived in houses filled with carrier
bags of wool.”iv It was this strangely irresistible combination of quasianthropological primitivism and sixties let-it-all-hang out hippy-dom with a
benignly British aesthetic of village fete, camper stove and bring-and-buy,
which made the Neo Naturists so unique. As Christine observed, “even though
we were completely naked on stage and with a very tight time limit, we could
still make a very nice Scottish pancake!”.v
Appropriately for a group that set so much store by informality and spontaneity, the Neo Naturists had no official start point (or indeed end date).
Christine remembers writing “the Neo Naturists were born today!” in her
diary on 24 October 1981, but this only referred to their name, a knowing
reference to punk’s much-discussed flirtation with Neo-Nazism but which
was inspired by Christine’s genuine admiration for the naked German punks
she observed on a trip to Berlin.vi For by this time the naked, body painted
performances of Christine, Jennifer and Wilma were a familiar occurrence in
the burgeoning London club scene, at Blitz in Covent Garden, Le Beat Route
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in Soho, and a wide range of other venues, from the Spanish Anarchist Association at one end of the cultural spectrum and the socialite Dai Llewellyn’s
Wedgies in the Kings Road at the other.
intense period of Neo Naturist activity, with Jennifer and Wilma producing
emphatically ritualistic, stylised paintings and Perry increasingly focusing
on making pottery, having been taken to adult education ceramics classes
by Christine. Other Crowndale Road occupants included Marilyn (soon to be
a pop star himself), as well as Wyn Evans, Sophie Muller and Angus Cook,
who styled themselves together as ‘International Film and Video’. The
fluid community in and around the squat also encompassed David Holah
and Stevie Stewart of BodyMap, the artist Firewolf, DJ Princess Julia, and
the aforementioned Maybury. While many of the above were regular or
occasional participants in Neo Naturist activities (as was Jennifer’s dog,
Prince), the nucleus of the group remained the triumvirate of Christine,
Jennifer and Wilma.
Satirists of the post-punk London scene, the Neo Naturists were nonetheless at the centre of it. Having completed a ceramics diploma at
Eastbourne College of Art, where she was influenced by the surprising
number of tutors interested in Fluxus and conceptual art, Christine had
arrived in London in the late 70s. Her first jobs in the city were as a life
model at Ravensbourne art college and as an attendant at the Hayward
Gallery – where the 1979 Hayward annual, curated by Helen Chadwick and
featuring performances by Bobby Baker, Anne Bean, Cosey Fanni Tutti and
Sylvia Ziranek made a particular impression – and later at the Tate Gallery
in Millbank. Her fellow guards at the Tate included St Martin’s School of
Art students Cerith Wyn Evans and Holly Warburton (both to become film
artists of note) and through them she met and befriended Wilma Johnson,
who was studying painting at St Martin’s.
Wilma decided to use Christine as her ‘personal life model’, but on discovering a mutual interest in performance art was soon applying paint directly
onto her friend’s body, and then her own. As Wilma recalls, “I swapped my
Flesh Tint oil paint for some blue and gold body paint and transformed her
into a voluptuous version of Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus, with the help of
a feather boa I happened to be wearing”.vii At that time, the fine art and
fashion departments at St. Martin’s freely mingled; dressing up was mandatory. Christine and Wilma were soon experimenting with different styles
of body painting, with faces, handprints or trompe l’oeil clothes painted
directly onto their skin. Taking their provocative new look out to the clubs
in the evenings, Christine said, they “were really shocked at how shocked
everyone was – it seemed to be something to do with appearing naked,
yet body painted, not sexually packaged, yet enjoying ourselves”.viii
In 1980 Christine was sharing a derelict squat in Carburton Street in Fitzrovia
with a pre-Culture Club Boy George and his friend, and fellow New Romantic
Blitz Kid, Marilyn. She’d set up a short lived, word-of-mouth café in a nearby
derelict Lewis Leathers shop which she named The Coffee Spoon, after
T. S. Eliot’s line ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’ from ‘The
Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock’ (1915). There was a basic menu, a typewriter for anyone to hammer out their creations on and also occasional
cabaret evenings. One of these included a performance by Jennifer, who
was studying painting at Portsmouth Polytechnic, and her fellow student
and then-boyfriend Grayson Perry, which saw Perry – in one of his earliest
public forays as a transvestite – driving his motorbike into the café dressed
as the TV cook Fanny Craddock, with Jennifer in biker gear as Craddock’s
husband Johnny, and culminating in the two flambéing bananas on a Baby
Belling stove.
The Neo Naturists frequently overlapped in their activities, both with each
other and with those beyond their group. At the same time as Christine
and Wilma were painting faces on their flesh or highlighting parts of
their bodies in different colours in London, at Portsmouth, Jennifer was
independently making photographs and Super-8 films in which she and
sometimes Perry appeared adorned with psychedelic body paint. Likewise,
along with Wyn Evans, another regular at the Coffee Spoon and clubs
like Blitz was budding film maker John Maybury, who featured many Neo
Naturists in his films. The individuals and activities of these various milieux
became even more intermingled when, early in 1983, Christine, Jennifer
and Perry all moved into a squat in Crowndale Road in Camden, which
they occupied until 1986. This highly creative period marked the most
6
vii Wilma Johnson, in The Neo
Naturists, England & Co, 2007,
op cit p.13
viii Christine Binnie, interview with the
author, 25 April 2016 and in The Neo
Naturists, England & Co, op cit p13
From the beginning, the Neo Naturists were a regular and conspicuous presence at many of the key counter-cultural events of the 80s. They took part
in the 1982 Faerie Fayre in Norfolk organised by artist and performer Bruce
Lacey and his wife Jill Bruce – visiting lecturers at Portsmouth who were
major influences on Jennifer’s work and thereby on the Neo-Naturists. The
radical dancer and choreographer Michael Clark collaborated with the Neo
Naturists on Sexist Crabs, a performance incorporating an abundance of
seafood taped on to performers, which fused Christine’s keen reading of
the aquatic evolutionary theories of Elaine Morgan’s Descent of Woman
(1972) with an oblique riff on pejorative descriptions of female genitalia,
and memorably provided the grand finale to Clark’s The Artless Dodge
at the Riverside Studios in November 1983. The group enacted Flambé
your Brassiere at a Parachute and Body Map fashion show in the Chelsea
Barracks in 1985, cooked fish fingers and cavorted in paddling pools at
the 1984 launch of Derek Jarman’s Dancing Ledge book, and frequently
participated in the flamboyant activities of sculptor and counter-cultural
impresario Andrew Logan, from his Alternative Miss World extravaganzas
to spending several days cooking and rock painting alongside his mirrored
Cosmic Egg sculpture in Portland, Dorset.
There were many impromptu public Neo Naturist events: Christine being
photographed by Wilma as she flashed her face painted body in the galleries
of the British Museum or in the streets of Soho, and the now notorious
Swimming and Walking Experiment, with the lavishly decorated Wilma,
Jennifer and Christine (and Prince the Dog) cavorting in the fountains of the
Centre Point building on New Oxford Street, until the police put an end to
the performance. In 1985 the trio even appeared on Noel Edmunds’ BBC
television show The Time of Your Life alongside David Attenborough and
Desmond Morris.
As the 80s art world started to expand, the Neo Naturists also performed
an increasing number of live events in art galleries, most notably a memorable week long residency at David Dawson’s B2 Gallery in Wapping in
1982, during which an expanded group of Neo Naturists enacted a different
theme daily, including a ‘Five Minute Macbeth’, an ‘Art Day’(when an array
of artists were invited to use their bodies as living canvases) and a ‘Black
Rapport Day’, instigated in large part by regular Neo Naturist Dencil Williams.
Whenever Jennifer and Wilma had solo exhibitions of their own paintings,
they would invariably make the opening a vociferous Neo Naturist performance mocking the art world pretensions of the ‘Private View’, with participants posing naked but for high heels, body paint or cocktail dresses made
from Sellotape. For the launch of her 1985 solo show at James Birch’s gallery,
Jennifer rode naked and unadorned on a white horse down the King’s Road.
By the end of the 80s the original core trio of Neo Naturists had physically
dispersed. The Crowndale Road squat closed in 1986 and Jennifer, who
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had by then parted from Perry, settled with Wilf Rogers in East Sussex,
where their son was born in 1987. She continues to work as an artist.
Christine remained in London and took a degree in Anthropology but still
makes ceramics. Wilma left London for a year in Mexico in 1987, then
spent ten years in an Irish fishing village before moving to Biarritz where
she now lives, paints and writes. Yet the Neo Naturists continued to perform,
largely under Christine’s direction. but with Jennifer still frequently contributing her painting skills, her body and her love of nature. An expanded and
shifting cast of collaborators and fellow travellers included the artists Liz
Finch, Mary Lemley and Genesis P Orridge, Perry’s new partner (and wife-tobe) Philippa and the designer Maia Norman. The performances increasingly
reflected Christine’s interest in feminism and tribal customs. “They became
more primal and ritualistic and less mediated by painting, artiness and Ye
Olde Englishness”, she remembers.ix
Yet Neo Naturism never relinquished its sense of fun, nor its ability to
prov-oke. This was amply confirmed when the original trio reconvened in
June 2012 to run a well-attended ‘Neo Naturist life class’ at the Hayward
Gallery’s Wide Open School, described as “a performative soup of
participation, paint and art.”x In 2014, Christine and early Neo Naturist
stalwart Jill Westwood, accompanied by a violin-playing Jennifer, made
a dramatic appearance at Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World at
London’s Globe Theatre, for which a resplendently be-frocked Grayson
Perry was the compere. Dubbing themselves ‘Miss Marina Psychopomp
of the Counter-Intuitive Homeostasis’ – a characteristically satirical sideswipe at reigning performance art superstar Marina Abramović – the trio
outraged the dressed-to-the-nines audience and fellow participants alike by
first appearing on stage in downbeat jeans and T-shirts. After a costume
change, they reproduced this ordinary garb in body paint, before changing
for a final parade into – shock, horror! – the most conventional of real
underwear: flesh-coloured Spanx pants and pristine white support bras.
Christine may state that “Neo Naturists are looking forward to being bodypainted octogenarians”,xi but it can be guaranteed they will only do so on
their own terms.
Key Works
ix Christine Binnie, in conversation
with the author, 25 April 2016
x Leaflet for 'Neo Naturist life class',
The Wide Open School, Hayward
Gallery, London, 2 June 2012
xi ‘Neo Naturists Manifesto’,
International Times, op cit and
Christine Binnie, in conversation with
the author, 25 April 2016
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8
Swimming and Walking Experiment,
Centre Point Fountains, Tottenham Court
Road, London, August 1984.
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Coffee Spoon Café Poems
1980
In the summer of 1980, Christine
Binnie and her friend Guy Thomson
opened a temporary café in a derelict shop next to the squat Christine
was living in on Carburton Street,
Fitzrovia. Named the Coffee Spoon
Café after T.S. Elliot’s line ‘I have
measured out my life with coffee
spoons’, the café hosted events
and happenings for a network of key
peers, including screenings by film
students John Maybury and Cerith
Wyn Evans; Flambé Bananas, a
performance by Jennifer Binnie and
Grayson Perry; and poetry events
where guests would write poems on
an old typewriter to be read aloud to
each other.
Wannock Weekend
May 1980
The English countryside provides
the backdrop to the film’s depiction
of a group of friends eating cream
teas and frolicking in chalk pits
and the South Downs. Wannock is
in close proximity to Charleston,
the home and country meeting
place of the Bloomsbury Group,
and the the film’s free-thinking,
bohemian protagonists can be
seen as channeling something
of that movement’s implanting of
radicalism and queerness in the
countryside. Attention to queer and
female sexuality runs through the
film. At one point, Christine Binnie
simulates sex with The Long Man
of Wilmington a hill figure carved
into the steep slopes of Windover
Hill – an action at once comic and
quasi-ritualistic.
2
3
10
Wannock Weekend shows Christine
Binnie, Jennifer Binnie, Wilma
Johnson, Grayson Perry, Cerith Wyn
Evans and an extended group on a
weekend at the Binnies’ childhood
home in Wannock, East Sussex.
Evoking the spirit of Romanticism
associated with British artists
William Blake and Samuel Palmer
and the pastoral surrealism of
Cecil Collins, the bucolic English
countryside and rural Sussex in
particular was a large influence on
the Neo Naturists and key to their
combination of ‘English village fête
practicality with Girl Guide common
sense, hippie idealism, the spirit
of love, a child-like innocence and
amateurism, all in a post-punk
context’.i
i Andrew Wilson, Grayson Perry Guerilla
Tactics, Netherlands Architecture Institute,
2002.
2
Sack Dress at 1980s Party, Cerith Wyn
Evans modeling sack dress, Chagford
House, London, 31 January 1980.
3
Paper Dress at the Embassy Club with
Boy George as Brittania, The Coffee
Spoon Embassy Club, London,
5 September 1980.
4
Wannock Weekend, Wannock,
East Sussex, 8 May 1980. Courtesy of
the Neo Naturists Archive and BFI Archive
4
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The Forest
1981
Jennifer Binnie appears in this film
in a man’s three-piece suit, cutting
open the breast of a paganistic
painted sculpture in some Sussex
woodland, bringing together
concerns with gender and identity
and ideas around nature, ritual
and performance. The soundtrack
features A Forest (1980), an early
single by The Cure.
The Private View
1981
In this early Standard 8 film, Christine
Binnie, Jennifer Binnie and Wilma
Johnson can be seen painted in
abstract colourful body paint in
Wilma’s parents snow-covered
garden. The film shows the artists
playing out the social conventions of
a private view, posturing and posing
while looking at Wilma’s paintings.
Towards the end of the film, Jennifer
and Wilma break their pseudo seriousness and freely dance around in the
snow, imprinting their multi-coloured
bodies onto the white ground.
This Super 8 film features Jennifer
Binnie and Grayson Perry hanging
out in a suburban café, eating chips,
smoking cigarettes and playing
music on a juke box. The film is
interspersed with flashes of Jennifer
enthusiastically dancing in body
paint, an early example of body
painting before it became a fully
cemented component of the Neo
Naturists’ practice. The film’s title
is drawn from its soundtrack – Don’t
You Want Me (1981), an early synthpop hit by The Human League.
5
7
Don't you want me baby
1982
6
Autumn in Folkington
1981
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This film by Jennifer Binnie drew
influence from Bruce Lacey and
Jill Bruce, who had performed at
Portsmouth Polytechnic when she
was studying. The film features
Jennifer in some Sussex woodland
covered in red body paint, and
reveals an early interest in ritual
and performance, as well as
Jennifer’s fascination with nature
and spirituality. One scene sees
the outline of Jennifer’s body being
painted directly onto the floor of the
landscape, a gesture which would
be repeated in a later work, Neo
Naturist Epic (1983–).
8
5
The Forest, 1981. Courtesy of the Neo
Naturists Archive and BFI Archive
6
Autumn in Folkington, 1981. Courtesy of
the Neo Naturists Archive and BFI Archive
7
The Private View, Highgate, London, 1981.
Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive
and BFI Archive
8
Don't you want me baby, 1982.
Courtesy of the Neo Naturists Archive
and BFI Archive.
13
Flashing in the British
Museum, The British
Museum, London
1982
Christine Binnie and Wilma
Johnson began working with
body paint whilst Wilma was a
student at Central St Martins.
Wilma documented a number of
these formative experiments with
staged photographs of Christine.
At roughly the same time, Jennifer
Binnie and Grayson Perry were
also experimenting with body
painting while they were studying in
Portsmouth.
As a way of covering their painted
bodies in between performances
and venues, Wilma made floorlength fake fur coats for each of the
group. The coats also enabled the
group to experiment with covertly
wearing body paint in more open
public spaces, Christine and Wilma
having become bored of the studio
and wanting to perform in the
daylight.
May Day Performance
Centro Iberico, Notting Hill
& The Fridge, Brixton
1982
For their performance at Centro
Iberico, a squatted Spanish anarchist centre in Notting Hill, the group
painted themselves with Communist
style uniforms. They held placards
bearing portraits of themselves
sketched by Jennifer Binnie and
parodic 'Chinese' versions of their
names, including MA-SON and JENSU-BIN.
The performance began with the Neo
Naturists goose-stepping into the
room to a recording of the Red Army
Choir. Cerith Wyn Evans then gave
a reading from Chairman Mao’s
Little Red Book, while on stage the
performers made pseudo-political
gestures and smashed a plaster
poodle. Grayson Perry remembers:
One of the outings that followed
was to the British Museum, where
Christine flashed amongst the
ancient artifacts. This was one of
the group’s first experiments in
making unannounced, site-specific
performances.
We were cavorting and having a
very good time, with no political
message involved, but when we
goose stepped out of the room
at the end of the record there
was a dead silence. There were
around a hundred anarchists in
the audience as well as some
punks and they all hated it, not
one of them clapped…ii
9
9
14
Christine recollects that Whitehouseiii
were also playing at the venue that
evening and their fans, who made
up a large part of the audience, took
the performance very seriously, and
seemed rather confused.
The same performance was repeated
later that evening at The Fridge, a
nightclub in Brixton. On this occasion, the audience’s reaction was
of aggressive hostility, particularly
in reaction to the inclusion of male
nudity; the group were removed
offstage by security halfway through
the performance.
ii Grayson Perry, Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Girl, Wendy Jones.
iii Whitehouse were a pioneering English
power electronic band formed in 1980,
an important part of the industrial music
scene.
Flashing in the British Museum, Christine
Binnie body painted and photographed by
Wilma Johnson, British Museum London,
3 March 1982.
10 Neo Naturists, Andrew Logan's Alternative
Miss World at Olympia, 1981.
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Pink Punk Yoga
Performance
The Fridge, Brixton
1982
Neo Naturist performances were
never rehearsed. Instead, a schedule
would be discussed with plans and
drawing made, as well as shopping
lists for props and materials drawn
up. Although not many plans for
the performances survive, those
for Pink Punk Yoga Performance are
relatively complete.
The initial idea for this work was ‘an
anarchic exploration of everyday
actions and ritual action, ‘common
sense’ and nudity, and a celebration
of our bodies.’iv The performance’s
combination of two seemingly
disparate elements – punk and
yoga – attempts to highlight a shift
in popular culture from hippy ideals
of love and peace to the angst
and anarchy associated with punk.
Christine recalls being interested
in the outfits worn by people who
went to places like the Pineapple
Dance Center and would practice
yoga, recalling: “Skin tight lycra
was new then, it was intriguing that
people walked around wearing that,
but wouldn't be seen dead naked.
Those clothes, and that pink and
black colour scheme, were also
worn a lot by punks.”
iv Christine Binnie, The Neo Naturists,
England & Co, 2007
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Live-in Performance
B2 Gallery & Thames
Beach, Wapping
1982
One of the most ambitious Neo
Naturist events took place in July
1982 and involved 15 people living
in the nude at David Dawson’s B2
Gallery for five days, sleeping in a
large roped-off bed in the middle
of the gallery. Audience and participants included Derek Jarman,
Duggie Fields, Bruce Lacey, John
Maybury and Andrew Logan. Every
day had a different theme: Private
View Day, Fashion Day, Macbeth
Day, Black Rapport Day and Punk
Day. Black Rapport Day, which
heavily featured Dencil Williams,
involved the participants painting
themselves in black body paint
and only consuming black food and
drink, such as black pudding, black
olives, black bread, burnt food and
Guinness.
11 Pink Punk Yoga Performance, The Fridge,
Brixton, 10 June 1982.
12 Ibid.
13 Black Rapport Day, Thames Beach
Wapping, 17 July 1982 (Jennifer Binnie,
Wilma Johnson, Nico Holah and Bruce
Lacey).
14 Ibid.
16
12
14
17
Sexist Crabs
1983 onwards
…An adolescent shocker in which
three hefty women appeared nude
but for crustaceans sellotaped to
their loins.v
Ritual eating is a recurring element
in the Neo Naturists’ performances,
with food often cooked on a calorgas hob and then fed to audience
members, evoking equally the ceremony of communion and the world
of Girl guideing. Sexist Crabs was
one such performance, debuting at
The Zap Club, Brighton in June 1983
and revisited multiple times.
The dancer and choreographer
Michael Clark invited the Neo
Naturists to perform with him
as part of his first production at
London’s Riverside Studios. The
Artless Dodge, Michael Clark with
The Neo Naturist Cabaret & Friends
was their first collaboration. For
this iteration of Sexist Crabs, the
group painted scales onto their
legs and sellotaped them together,
transforming themselves into mermaids. Cerith Wyn Evans performed
with a squid sellotaped to his front.
During the performance, more seafood was stuck to the performers
and distributed to the audience,
while Clark danced around them with
prawns stuffed into his fishnet tights.
v Unknown source, Neo Naturist archive
17
Neo Naturist Epic
1983 onwards
15
15 Sexist Crabs, The Zap Club, The Royal
Escape, Brighton, 1 June 1983.
16 Sexist Crabs and The Cosmic Egg,
Portland Bill Quarry and Sculpture Park,
Portland, Yorkshire, 1 August 1983.
17 Sexist Crabs, The Zap Club, The Royal
Escape, Brighton, 1 June 1983.
18
16
This series of unfinished films bears
a characteristically Neo Naturist mix
of the serious and the ironic, expressing earnest concerns with about
contemporary society in a slightly
lowbrow comedic style, reminiscent
of the Carry On films (1958–92).
The group were influenced by the
writings of evolutionary anthropologist Elaine Morgan and her
“aquatic ape” hypothesis – i.e.
that the evolutionary ancestors of
modern humans spent a period
of time adapting to a semiaquatic
existence – a theory which in works
like The Descent of Women (1972)
grounded some of the first claims
about the the pivotal role of women
in human evolution. In the film we
see the Neo Naturist protagonists
cavorting at the beach and cooking
fish over a stove.
In the scenes of the group drawing
around each other directly onto
the rocks of Portland quarry, the
group chose luminous paint for
its modern, even punk-like look,
to disrupt the natural or primitive
connotations of painting onto rock.
Moving away from canvas to body,
rocks, animals, fabric etc, the Neo
Naturist approach to painting is
apparent here as an attempt to
connect with and celebrate the
environment. Evoking ancient cave
painting, it also repositions the
(female) body within history and in
the landscape.
19
Mermaids with Marilyn
Henley Regatta,
Henley-on-Thames
1984
The Neo Naturists were invited by
Andrew Logan to perform at an
arts festival following the Henley
Regatta. The group’s attendance at
the event with singer Marilyn, along
with the sight of naked body painted
women, attracted significant tabloid
attention.
Upper crust types choked on their
cocktails as the – two shapely
sisters – peeled off and began
PAINTING each other’s bodies. As
the girls began performing in the
exclusive stewards enclosure a
blushing copper discreetly ushered
them into a nearby refreshment
tent. Men in dinner jackets and
women wearing expensive ball
gowns stared open-mouthed as the
pair coated themselves in green
and silver paint and sticky tape to
“look like fish.”
The Sun, 9 July 1984
18
18 Cro Magnon Woman, Film Show and
Performance Flyer, B2 Gallery, Wapping,
London, 13 February 1983.
19 Sellotape dresses with Marilyn, Crowndale
Road, 1984.
20 The Sun, Monday, 9 July 1984.
20
19
20
21
Swimming and Walking
Experiment, Centre Point
Fountains, Tottenham
Court Road, London
1984
Following their experience with
Marilyn at the Henley Regatta, the
group wanted to test further the
effects of being nude in more public
settings. This performance took
place in the fountains at the foot
of the iconic Centre Point Building,
one of the first skyscrapers in
central London. At the time, there
had been a number of stories in the
press about streakers at football
games. Christine Binnie was struck
by the fact that in such stories the
streakers generally ran away from
the police, but were inevitably still
arrested. ‘I thought it would be
good to experiment with turning
and facing the police and seeing
what happened. Also we were not
very good at running and wouldn’t
have got very far, it seemed very
uncivilised to run away’.vi In the
ensuing Swimming and Walking
Experiment, the performers
avoided arrest, but did have an
extended discussion with a passing
policeman about the difference
between indecent exposure and
insulting behaviour.
Flambé your Brassiere,
Duke of York Barracks,
Chelsea
1985
Simon Foxton had invited the Neo
Naturists to perform as a part of a
catwalk show for the fashion label
Parachute. The group were told that
they could do whatever they wished
and the disruptive performance
which ensued caused shock and
upset, according to one press report,
with publicist Lynne Franks said to
have watch in tears as the group
‘trashed the stage’.vii
It’s nearly time to start and Wilma
quickly paints some sexy underwear on to Jen. The fashion models
gawp and enjoy the display. We
put our kit on the catwalk and
take our positions sitting in the
audience, with our ordinary clothes
on. The performance started with
us clambering onto the catwalk,
just after the show had started á
la feminist protest beauty contest
style. It was like a dream come
true being able to jump onto the
catwalk with all those glamorous
models and parade up and down
with our ordinary clothes on –
it’s a gorgeous experience. We
take our clothes off as we walk
along, and then start painting.
We get bored and get into the
audience and pretend Wilma is
an unawares audience member,
we drag her on stage and make
her join in. To start with we paint
sexy underwear on and all swagger
up and down the catwalk several
times, then print on the backdrop
then sellotape Wilma’s bra to the
backdrop and write; FLAMBÉ YOUR
BRASSIERE. Then paint fashions
like the models onto our bodies.
(The models seem to enjoy it). Out
comes the coloured porridge. A few
prints and a few venus signs
AND suddenly it’s the end.viii
vii Unknown press cutting from the Neo
Naturist archive, possibly I-D or The Face.
vii Christine Binnie, A Day in the Life of A
Neo Naturist, Performance, 1985.
vi Christine Binnie, Neo Naturist archive
21
Existentialists Macbeth
for Halloween
The Fridge, Brixton
1985
During this performance at The
Fridge nightclub, Christine, Jennifer
and Wilma paint themselves in a
tartan pattern, invoking the witches
in Macbeth. The group were inspired
by the speculative origin of the word
bonfire as “bone fire”, an ancient
tradition of burning animal bones
after they had been slaughtered for
winter as a ritually prepation for the
cold months. During the event, the
performers recalled this pseudotradition by themselves burning
bones on a calor gas stove, creating
a noxious smell and setting off the
venue’s fire alarms.
21 Swimming and Walking Experiment,
Centre Point Fountains, Tottenham Court
Road, London, August 1984.
22
22
22 Swimming and Walking Experiment,
Centre Point Fountains, Tottenham Court
Road, London, August 1984.
23
Art for Money
Michael Clark, The Royal
Opera House, London
1986
Be Aggressive
B.E Aggressive
B.E.A.G.G.R.E.S.S.I.V.E.
OOOHH UM GOWER
WE GOT THE POWERix
Art for Money was created by Michael
Clark for the gala Save The Wells,
held at the Royal Opera House in
aid of Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Clark’s
production featured an appearance
by performance artist Leigh Bowery
as well as the Neo Naturists, whose
performance involved body painted
cheerleaders chanting “money
money money”.
Easter Chicks
Performance at Andrew
Logan’s Easter Party
The Glasshouse,
Worship Street, London
1988
The Neo Naturists performed Easter
Chicks… at Andrew Logan’s Easter
Party. For the performance, the
group ‘painted on lacy underwear,
made a nest from shredded paper,
crucified a chicken, rolled hard
boiled eggs on our bodies, drank
Bitter to symbolise our bitterness,
and gave out Easter eggs’. The group
sang the refrain 'He was despised
and rejected' throughout, a Biblical
line found in Handel’s Messiah
(1741), and which Christine and
Jennifer Binnie had learned in
Jevington Church Choir as children.
ix Part of the Neo Naturist’s chat during
'Art for Money, A Day in the Life of A Neo
Naturist', Performance magazine issue 37
23
25
23 Body Painted Cheerleaders, with Michael
Clark, Taboo, London, 1985.
24 Neo Naturist Cheer Leaders, with Leigh
Bowery and Michael Clark, Royal Opera
House, London, 9 February 1986.
25 Easter Chicks Performance, Andrew
Logans Easter Party, 1 April 1988.
24
24
26 Opening a shopping centre in the Kings
Road with Andrew Logan, London, 1988.
26
25
Mother's Day Performance,
Cave of Desire
Heaven, London
1989
From 1987 Christine and Jennifer
Binnie continued the Neo Naturists
in a more sporadic manner, with
a changing cast of members.
Though they continued to perform
rituals, household tasks, cooking,
singing and giving communion,
during this time themes of seasonal
celebrations, the planet’s annual
cycle, and death and rebirth
assumed increasing significance
for the group and their practice. A
per-formance which formed part of
Cave of Desire presented by Psychic
TV, taking place at the gay club
Heaven, featured bags of fish in
water sellotaped to the bodies of
the performers, who then ‘birthed’
the fish by extracting them from the
bags. In turn, the fish were used to
make kedgeree, which was cooked
and fed to bewildered clubbers.
Taking place on Mother’s Day, the
performance was intended to celebrate maternity and ‘invoke that
aspect of the Goddess.'x Towards
the end of this documentation of
the performance, a member of the
crowd tells the group that they were
disgusted by the performance;
the Neo Naturists seem unfazed
by this reaction and discuss how
increasingly moralistic the young
have become, calling the woman a
'child of Thatcher'.
27 Mother's Day Performance, Cave of Desire
presented by Psychic TV, Heaven, London,
5 March 1989.
28 Many Breasted Godess, Sacred Red Ochre
sow, Criminal Justice Bill March, Hyde
Park, 24 July 1994.
29 Many Breasted Godess, Sacred Red Ochre
sow, Criminal Justice Bill March, Hyde
Park, 24 July 1994.
x Christine Binnie in conversation with
Jessica Vaughan, 2016
28
27
26
29
27
Selected Neo Naturist Performances
and Events
1980
The Blitz Easter Communion, The Blitz, London
1987
1981
Psychedelic Body Paint (St Martins Alternative Fashion Show),
Central St Martins, London
Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, Olympia, London
Valentines Day Performance, The Fallen Angel,
Islington, London
Salad Performance, Pyramid, Heaven, London
1988
Communion with Christine, The Diorama, London
Easter Chicks Performance at Andrew Logan’s Easter Party,
Andrew Logan’s Studio, Appold Street, London
Opening a shopping centre in Kings Road with Andrew
Logan, Kings Road, London
Trance, Dance, Sleeping Beauty, Web Cabaret Contra Point
Youth, Bletchley Leisure Centre, Milton Keynes
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
28
Little Swiss Misses Cabaret, The Beat Route, London
Valentines Cabaret, Wedges, London
Flashing in the British Museum, The British Museum, London
Mashed Potato Baby Mothers Day Performance, Riverside
Studios, London and Heaven, London
Easter Crucified Chicken Performance, The Fridge, London
May Day Performance at Spanish Anarchist Centre, Centro
Iberico, London and The Fridge, London
Wilma’s Private View Performance, Central St Martins, London
Pink Punk Yoga Performance, The Fridge, London
Excalibur Performance with Coloured Porridge, Bruce Lacey’s
Faerie Fair, Norfolk
Week Long Live-in Performance: Fashion Day, Macbeth Day,
Black Rapport Day, B2 Gallery, London & Thames Beach,
Wapping, London
Cabaret Fridge, The Fridge, London
Cro Magnon Woman, Neo Naturist Film Show and
Performance, B2 Gallery, London
Sheherezade, The Knives Besides the Plates, Charles Centre
Peguy, Notre Dame Hall, London
Sexist Crabs, The Zap Club, The Royal Escape, Brighton
Sexist Crabs giving birth to Whitebait, Commemoration Ball,
Oxford
Sexist Crabs and the Cosmic Egg, Portland Bill Quarry and
Sculpture Park, Portland, Yorkshire
One Minutes Ballet, Venus and Adonis with Michael Clark,
Riverside Studios, London
Halloween Performance with Apple Bobbing, International
Students House, London
The Artless Dodge with Michael Clark and Cerith Wyn Evans,
Riverside Studios, London
Sexist Crabs with Michael Clark, Riverside Studios, London
Valentine Sexist Crabs, The Fridge, London
Morris Dancing May Day Performance, The Clarendon, London
Neo Naturist Private View Performance, Jennifer Binnie
Exhibition, James Birch Gallery, London
Neo Naturist Mermaids with Marilyn, Henley Regatta,
Henley-upon-Thames
Swimming and Walking Experiment, Centre Point Fountains,
Tottenham Court Road, London
Sellotape Dresses, Andrew Logan’s Exhibition,
The Book Show, Cylinder Gallery, London
The Neo Naturists Perform with Eternal Fires, The Clarendon,
London
Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, Water, Brixton Academy,
London
Body Painted Cheerleaders, Heaven, London and Taboo,
London
our caca phoney H.our caca phoney H. with Michael Clark,
Riverside Studio, London
Flambe your Brassiere, Parachute Fashion Show, Chelsea
Barracks, London
Existentialists Macbeth for Halloween, The Fridge, London
Neo Naturist Tea Ceremony, James Birch Gallery, London
Neo Naturist Cheer Leaders with Leigh Bowery and
Michael Clark, Royal Opera House, London
Art for Money with Michael Clark, The Royal Opera House,
London
Gardening for Spring, The Fridge, London
Neo Naturists, Firewolf and Body Printing,
James Birch Gallery, London
Madonna Performance, The Dome, Islington, London
1989
Cupids and Amazons (The Diorama, Sexuality Festival, London),
The Diorama, London
Mother's Day Performance, Cave of Desire presented by
Psychic TV, Heaven, London
Bastille Day Performance Performance with Hermine
Demoriane and Ian Hill, Espace Donguy, Paris
Sandy and Andy Performance with Hermine Demoriane and
Ian Hill, Espace Donguy, Paris
Thou Art Goddess, The Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury
Share Out 89, Birch & Conran Fine Arts, London
1990
May Day Performance at The Diorama, The Diorama, London
The Princess, the Pea and the Period, D Beauty of Kaos,
L’Espace Bizarre, Brussels
Pagan Halloween Festival, The Witches Fashion Show, The
Commonwealth Institute, London
1991
The Miss Ts of Avalon at Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss
World, Business Design Centre, London
The Last Weekend, The Edge Biennale Trust, Alston Cumbria
The Last Tango, The Chelsea Arts Club, London
The Neo Naturists Halloween Performance at the Wheel of
Death Bang, Portobello Road, London
Heaven with Molly, Alison and Ellis, Heaven, London
1992
St Patrick’s Day Performance, Night of the Living Ultra
Vixons, The Gas Light Club, London
Easter Performance, Night of the Living Ultra Vixons,
The Gas Light Club, London
The Untamed Fashion Show with Andrew Logan,
Jurmala, Latvia
1994
Red Ochre Goddesses, Criminal Justice Bill March,
Hyde Park, London
1995
Sewing with Alex Binnie, The Gas Light Club, London
The Misses Wyrd Alternative Miss World, The Grand, London
1999
Neo Naturists Ladies Choir, Earth Spirit Festival, Sussex
2000
Neo Naturists Ladies Choir, Hastings Festival, Hastings
Summer Solstice with Barking Batteria Samba Band,
Stonehenge, Wiltshire
2001
Shit/compost/land/love performance in honour of
Mary Barnes and RD Laing, Kingsley Hall, London
Neo Naturists Ladies Choir, Vic Naylors, London
2003
Homage to Virginia Wolf, The Quentin Follies,
Charlston Farm House, Sussex
2004
Sexists Crabs Summer Solstice, Birling Gap,
Nr Eastbourne, Sussex
Selected Neo Naturist Exhibitions
and Screenings
Everyone Who’s Ever Been
a Neo Naturist (1979 to 2005)
1983
Cro Magnon Woman, Neo Naturist Film Show
and Performance, B2 Gallery, London
2006
The Secret Public – The Last Days of the British Underground
1978–1988, Kunstverein Munchen, Munich
The B2 Gallery, My Dead Gallery by the Centre of Attention,
The Fieldgate Gallery, London
2007
The Secret Public – The Last Days of the British Underground
1978–1988, The ICA, London
Neo Naturist paintings, films, performances, ceramics
from the 1980s, England & Co Gallery, London
Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie, Wilma Johnson, Wilf Rogers, Dencil
Williams, Grayson Perry, Jimmy Trendy, Trindy’s friend, David Holah, Nico
Holah, Ellis O’Neil, Cerith Wyn Evans, Michael Clark, Bruce Lacey, Paula
Haugney, Mi Mi Tin Maung, Helen Terry, William Coley Moore, Firewolf,
Jill Westwood, Michelle Sinnott, Raven Sinnott, Rufus Goddard, Magnus
Rogers, Kath Campbell, Kath’s friend, Penny Marlow, Lizzy Johnson,
Susanne Radmann, Mary Lemley, Vicky Burton, Sarah Austin, Claire
Laurie, Claire O’Conner, Antal, Ian Hill, Dome Boy, Margo Uden, Molly,
Alison, Mystery woman at Diorama 1, Mystery woman at Diorama 2,
Jason Catchpole, Tarisha, Manda Telal, Tony, Lionel Mculum,
Jeanette Parker
2008
Neo Naturist Films, Derek Jarman Super 8 Festival,
Gate & Ritzy Cinemas, London
2011
Neo Naturist Archive and Films, Camulodurum,
Firstsite, Colchester
2012
Neo Naturist footage in the British Guide to Showing Off,
Curated by Andrew Logan, Guadalajara International
Film Festival, Guadalajara, Mexico
Neo Naturist Life Drawing Class, Wide Open School,
Hayward, London
Wilma Johnson, Jennifer Binnie, Christine Binnie with current
work and The Neo Naturist Archive, Gallery 286, London
Neo Naturist Films go into the BFI Archive,
British Film Institute, London
Neo Naturist Films, ICA, London
Neo Naturist Films, Tramway Festival, Tramway, Glasgow
Reading List
Boy George, Take it Like a Man, 1995, London: Harper Collins
Rob Bowman (Editor), The Secret Public/ The Last Days of the British
Underground 1978–1988 [exhibition guide], 2007. London: Institute of
Contemporary Arts
Louisa Buck, Shards and Barbs: a Potted History of my Friendship with
Grayson Perry, in Mike Baird MP and Rachel Kent, Grayson Perry: My
Pretty Little Art Career, 2016, Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art
Australia
Suzanne Cotter and Robert Violette, Michael Clark, 2011, London:
Violette Editions
David Dawson and Rob Le Frenais, New Image and Neo Naturism,
Performance Magazine, 1982
Stephen Duncombe (Editor), Cultural Resistance Reader, 2002, London:
Verso
Jane England, The Neo Naturists, 2007, London: England & Co
Ken Hollings, Valentines Cabaret, Performance Magazine, 1982
Ken Hollings, Can Your Monkey Do The Dog, Performance Magazine,
1983
Wilma Johnson, Surf Mama, 2011, London: Beautiful Books Limited
Wendy Jones, Grayson Perry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, 2007,
London: Vintage
Stefan Kalmár & Daniel Pies (Editors), Be Nice, Share Everything, Have
Fun, 2010: Munich: Kunstverein München and Cologne: Verlag der
Buchhandlung Walther König,
Catherine McDermott, Street Style: British Design in the 1980s, 1987:
London: Rizzoli
Barry Miles, LONDON CALLING: A Countercultural History of London since
1945, 2010: London: Atlantic Books
Elaine Morgan, The Descent of Woman, 1974, London: Corgi
Robert Violette (editor): Leigh Bowery, 1998, London: Violette Editions
John A. Walker, LEFT SHIFT: Radical Art in 1970s Britain, 2002: London:
I. B. Tauris & Co
Andrew Wilson, Grayson Perry Guerilla Tactics, Netherlands Architecture
Institute, 2002
29
© 2016 Louisa Buck, Joe Scotland, Jessica Vaughan, the authors,
Studio Voltaire, London and An Endless Supply, Birmingham.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Editors
Joe Scotland and Jessica Vaughan
Editorial Assistance
Matthew McLean
Design
An Endless Supply
Print
Sharman & Company Limited
All images courtesy of The Neo Naturists Archive unless stated otherwise.
This booklet is published on the occasion of the exhibition
The Neo Naturists, 8 July – 28 August 2016, at Studio Voltaire, London.
The Neo Naturists has been kindly supported by Arts Council England,
The Henry Moore Foundation and Thomas Dane.
In addition, A night with the Neo Naturists, Wednesday 24 August 2016,
in partnership with the ICA has been generously supported by
Yana & Stephen Peel.
Studio Voltaire staff
Joe Scotland, Director
Niamh Conneely, Communications and Development Manager
Georgina Corrie, Bookkeeper
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Board of Trustees
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31
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