Elliott Mickleburgh
Elliott Mickleburgh is an artist and writer based in London. Recent exhibitions of his work include Future Archive at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, the solo show XX.XX.XX (Under the Scene) at the Salzburger Kunstverein in Austria, and the online presentation ART MATTERS 5 by Galerie Biesenbach in Cologne. His texts have been published in online journals and print publications such as Testudo, THE SEEN, and Notes on Metamodernism.
Mickleburgh's most recent interdisciplinary project, XX.XX.XX, is a reflection on the biblical story of the Annunciation. This project is executed through the eclectic materials that emerge during the production and representation of luxury commodities such as clothes, jewellery, and cosmetics. In making advertisements and the products they describe, documents and objects such as mood boards, screen tests, and the very sets used for photography and videography all come to indicate a condition of labor and ingenuity that takes place before and during the making of something, a state during which creativity has yet to zero in on a point on the teleological horizon. The Annunciation carries a similar impression of the prototypical: canonized in the Gospel according to Luke, this chronicle describes the pomp and ceremony around the archangel Gabriel descending from the heavens to inform Mary that she will eventually become the Mother of God on Earth. Like the earliest production stages of luxury goods and their fetishized images, the Annunciation is an internal communication stating that more communication has yet to come, a message declaring that there will be more messages, a promise that something extraordinary will happen but not quite yet.
