Bruce Asbestos: Bootleg Shreg 2

About

Exeter Phoenix is pleased to present Bootleg Shreg 2, a solo exhibition by Bruce Asbestos. It features paintings, inflatable sculpture and digital artworks that explore the evolving world of Shreg. Shreg is a mutating green cartoon character – an amalgam of well-known green characters from recent and more traditional pop culture.

At its core, the exhibition explores how characters are generated and develop over time into icons, think of Mickey Mouse’s first appearance in Steamboat Willy in 1929, or the rough first Simpsons episode from 1989, and their commercialisation through reproduction in different media and merchandise. Meanwhile, it also muses on how developments in AI might erode human creative activity, authenticity, and visual expression – even make large swathes of it redundant entirely.

Shreg can be seen as a vehicle to combine the best qualities of popular green characters, like Yoda, The Grinch, Yoshi, Elphaba, or Luigi – even the Jolly Green Giant and the pagan Green Man. A tribute to their strength, wisdom, sharp wit, love of adventure, unwavering determination to overcome challenges or to protect their loved ones. Whether appearing as a giant inflatable, a backdrop painting or a slick, digital render, he embodies the spirit of the sequel and the second chance, celebrates both pop culture and counterculture, he represents the othering of outsiders, misfits, Luddites and artists, and recognises their ongoing value to all of us in contemporary society.

Through Shreg, Bruce Asbestos pokes at morphing ideas around creative authenticity with a subversive nod to ideas of the illicit bootleg version or the ‘knocked-off’ derivative of officially sanctioned intellectual property. He considers how in an age hurtling towards AI generated perfection, the rough-and-ready, hand-built, sketched out, or flawed rendering may accrue more cultural and creative value. And how long it will be for ever more sophisticated software to seamlessly replicate and absorb these qualities too.