News Release No 00/62

31 October 2000

Eminent artist and illustrator's one-man exhibition

Monday 6 November will see the opening of a one-man exhibition by one of the UK's leading artists, Mario Minichiello, at the European Illustration Collection Hull (EICH) Gallery.

With favourable reviews already received from some of the country's most notable critics, the show promises to be an exciting exhibition. The opening on Monday is due to be attended by a number of political figures and the Reportage Introduction will be given by Lord Lester QC.

Mario - a senior lecturer at the Loughborough University School of Art and Design (LUSAD) - is a graduate of Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design. His work spans the period in Parliament before it was televised, and High Court cases such as 'Spycatcher' and the Guilford Four hearings.

At the show, Mario will exhibit a number of his magazine illustrations including Geographical-City Limits, as well as many editorial works for Britain's leading newspapers, television and magazines. There will be sections of the exhibition dedicated to packaging and drawing, including the Amsterdam reportage works, and New York and Paris sketchbooks, and also bays with interactive materials and video and slide shows.

Examples of some of Mario's work on display at the show - which will run until 28 Nov 2000 - can be seen on the EICH Gallery Web site at www.eichgallery.dabsol.co.uk

For further information about the exhibition, please contact the EICH Gallery, University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, George Street, Hull, Telephone (01482) 462060.

ENDS

For further information contact Mario Minichiello, LUSAD, on (01509) 228929, or Hannah Baldwin, Publicity Office, on (01509) 222239, email H.E.Baldwin@lboro.ac.uk

Notes to editors

Reviews of the show by Art Directors and Art Historians

Phil Thompson, Art director, Financial Times.
"Minichiello is a brave artist who tackles contemporary issues directly without recourse to a socio-political agenda his work may be shocking, but it is always felt. Drawings such as his recent series from the red light district in Amsterdam are personal chronicles of our age, no less than Goya's or Hogarth's were of theirs, and it would be nice to think that they were being preserved and disseminated to a wider audience."

Laura Gascoigne, Editor, Artist and Illustrator magazine, 1998.
"With Mario's work we always get, without any choice in the matter, the full blown articulation of mind, attitude and opinion. There are no seams nor joins, the man is the work, and the work is the man. Its flair and directness of communication is exactly what our world needs. We should continue to both demand it and celebrate it."

Martin Mulloy, BBC Publications Director, BBC World Wide.
"It's a world full of eyes, of furtive looks, of hard confrontational stares, of eyes full of fear and guilt, of leering animal eyes. The eyes are the most naked element in Mario Minichello's Amsterdam, windows that reveal the true nature of the red light zone. Mario's art captures this half-hell better than anything you can imagine: pour yourself a whisky, light a cigarette and enter."

Anne Murrow, Illustration Editor, The Guardian, 198596.
"Like the Berlin of Grosz, Mario Minichello's Amsterdam shows the hardness, the human pain and the ugliness of the red light zone. A world of weary whores and lap dancers, customers and clients with stricken faces, and malevolent pimps. It shows their places of work crowded clubs full of contorted male faces, bare rooms with a crumpled bed and billowing net curtains and streets full of garish menace. Mario Minichello's work grabs your eyes, your brain, your whole self. This is not easy viewing: this is intense engagement. Every image involves you as witness, as voyeur, as participant."

Dr Pat Kirkham, Professor of Design History, Bard Graduate Center, New York, and a member of the Advisory Editorial Board of the new journal, Visual Culture in Britain.
"Mario is a talented artist whose energy and artistic direction is inexhaustible."

Jeff Willis, graphic designer and senior tutor, Royal College of Art.
"Mario makes very strong images with evocative powerful content that address the depravation and contradictions of our era."

Three publications on Mario Minichiello's work are available: a catalogue of essays and Illustrations ISBN 0 953 8380 4 (essays), a CD-Rom of works and selected writing 0 953 8380 3 (CD), and a book on drawings and prints ISBN 1-900856-38-7, all of which all available in limited numbers from the EICH Gallery.
Loughborough is an established university, with an international reputation for excellence in teaching and research, and for unrivalled sporting achievement. An average teaching quality score of 22.7 out of 24 places Loughborough first equal with Cambridge in the UK. Industry highlights Loughborough in their top five for graduate recruitment. In Research, more than 70% of staff were assessed in grades 4 and above. The University has been awarded two Queen's Anniversary Prizes, for its collaboration with industries such as BAE Systems, Ford and Rolls Royce, and for its work in developing countries.With a range of new interactive exhibits and a brand new look for the display, Loughborough University is hoping that its exhibition will help to stimulate children's interest in science, engineering and technology.

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