David Lynch
My Head is Disconnected
2019
HOME, Manchester with Manchester International Festival
Curated by Sarah Perks and Omar Kholeif
Producer | exhibition
All copyright David Lynch
Installation images by Lee Baxter
A trip into the mind of one of contemporary culture’s most radical and visionary figures, My Head is Disconnected was the first major UK exhibition of work by pioneering film director and artist David Lynch featuring painting, print, sculpture, assemblage, photography and film, from the late 1960s to the present day.
Best known for films such as The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and TV show Twin Peaks, since graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts he has also produced a prolific body of work which collectively unfolds the inner workings of everyday life. In his work, the mundane provides an opportunity for dark, quirky inner exploration.
The first chapter, City on Fire, explored extreme, dystopian landscapes and how they affect the people that inhabit them. Nothing Here looked at the human psyche and the fragility of the mind through a set of broad characters. Industrial Empire presented drawings on the themes of labour, industry and the environment. The final chapter of the exhibition, Bedtime Stories, featured new works by Lynch that fold his dark narratives and characters together in their own universe.
David Lynch at HOME also featured curated music events upon our main stage programmed by Katie Popperwell, with live performances by singer, songwriter and actress, Chrystabell (Twin Peaks: The Return), Anna Calvi, Douglas Dare, These New Puritans, Whyte Horses, Oliver Coates and Hatis Noit.
An extensive film programme programmed by Jason Wood spanned the many high points of Lynch’s unique oeuvre, from his earliest forays into short filmmaking to the seminal TV series Twin Peaks.
Live video streams with David Lynch at home allowed audiences to directly question the artist and director, who also hosted a discussion on Transcendental Meditation, with Curator Sarah Perks, musician Tim Burgess and executive director of the David Lynch Foundation UK, Deirdre Parsons.
A signed, exclusive limited edition print (sold out) was produced on the occasion of the exhibition. Entitled Four (4) Heads Came Out on Wednesday, created in the Parisian workshop of Item éditions.
