BASTARD WORD GENERATOR
Reframing the Latin alphabet, this interactive collection of 26 hand-signed prints (A-Z) derives from Fiona Banner’s seminal work, The Bastard Word Studies (2006-7). Crafted initially as large graphite on paper drawings, each lithograph printed letter is formed using a collage of fighter jets to explore the conventional narrative of art and language. Spell out any bastard word you desire from the 26 lithograph prints (A-Z) using our custom-built word generator, and let your walls speak. Available to purchase for £150 +VAT per letter or £3,000 +VAT for the complete set of 26 letters.
Biography
FIONA BANNER AKA THE VANITY PRESS
Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press (b. 1966, Merseyside)
Banner explores gender, language and conflict a range of mediums, including drawing, sculpture, performance, and the moving image.
As her moniker suggests, language and publishing are at the heart of her practice and Banner’s attitude is at once playful and often performative. Her work centres on the problems and possibilities of language, both written and metaphorical. Intermittently, when language fails, she makes work based on fullstops. From ‘wordscapes’ written transcriptions of the frame-by-frame action in Hollywood war films to her use of found and transformed military aircraft, Banner juxtaposes the brutal and the sensual, performing a complete cycle of intimacy, attraction and alienation.
In 1997, Banner started her own publishing imprint The Vanity Press, with her monumental The Nam. She has since published many works, as books, sculptural objects or performances. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name, a sort of self-portrait as a book. In 2010 she exhibited Harrier & Jaguar to altered fighter planes in Tate Britian. Recently she exhibited Pranayama Typhoon, at the Venice Biennale, a film depicting two military decoy fighter planes as they act out an unrequited desire for intimacy not conflict.
Her work has been exhibited in prominent international venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Gallery, London.