The Jockey Paloma Proudfoot

26 June – 26 July 2015

Opening and performance: Paloma Proudfoot and Aniela Piasecka
Friday 26 June, 6–8pm

The Jockey is the culmination of Paloma Proudfoot’s month-long residency at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. Taking as it’s inspiration the Carson McCullers short story of the same title, and the eclectic newsagents of Leith, the exhibition will be introduced by a performance, made in collaboration with Aniela Piasecka.

“A rose shattered and the Jockey picked up one of the petals, bruised it between his thumb and forefinger, and put it in his mouth.

The infamous Bitsy Barlow, slim as the rose’s stem he steals from, slips up on the scene in his signature silks. Injured and despondent, he, who for so long has been the model of self-restraint, dissolves into excess before us.

The News Agent is omnipresent in Bitsy’s fall-from-grace. He knows this binge spells the end of the Jockey’s illustrious career but continues to watch with that professional glaze over his despair, intervening only to purvey more vice.

The Agent moonlights as the Barber, but with no hair left on the Jockey’s streamlined scalp, where will he turn the scissor’s attention?” [1]

[1]  Carson Mccullers, The Jockey, 1941

Images Credits: Lesley Jones