“Eurotrash,” an exhibition by Corbin Shaw

“12,000 years ago, nobody was living in Britain. We are all the children of immigrants.”

The exhibition provides a wry look at British identity, combining nostalgia and critique to explore the paradoxes of a nation grappling with its historical grandeur and present decay. It features symbolic elements like bleach-white Union Jacks, EU flags, and Brexit 50p coins, set against a landscape that includes a public urinal fountain symbolising riotous patriotism. Shaw’s work challenges visitors to reflect on modern British identity through his critical portrayal of the country’s past and present. With a soundtrack by James Massiah the exhibition asks who the British are now in a landscape where pride and despair vie for the last word.

We caught up with Corbin ahead of the opening of his new exhibition in Milan.

CZ8 : What was the moment that inspired Eurotrash?

Corbin : It was a number of things really. I was in America; I’d just got my new non-EU passport and the far-right riots were taking place up and down the country in England and I thought what has come of this place post Brexit. The promise that Brexit would magically sort all our problems, and of course it didn’t come true. I called this show ‘Eurotrash’ because one being out the EU, and two because I think England is becoming more and more like America culturally. What happens there, happens here next. I see people in the uk driving past green hills littered with amazon warehouses on their way to retail parks in Teslas with Stanley cups full of Diet Coke, going through drive throughs to get donuts and chips and more coke. It’s a nightmare really.

CZ8 : Besides Orwell, are there any other British Authors or characters that have helped inspire this exhibition?

Corbin : After reading the Lion and the Unicorn, I read Virginia Wolf’s ‘Room of One’s Own’ (1929). I was really interested mainly in her suicide note in 1941 she wrote before drowned herself. ‘I am going mad again, I feel that we can never go through one of those terrible times again’. Staring down the barrel of rising fascism in Europe. She couldn’t bear to live in the state of the world. I am interested in applying her thoughts on the ruling men of her time, the men who made schools for themselves, made institutions for themselves. Wrote books and stored them in libraries for themselves and wouldn’t let anyone in and why were they still the angriest, most disillusioned ones. The men at the top of the food chain and the men at the not so far bottom. Let’s face it but the world’s problems are caused by the men of this world. I think her writing rings true today. And in Britain we are constantly stuck, in a feedback loop. The revolution never comes. But I can just exist in it and try to make sense of it.

CZ8 :What’s the most memorable response you’ve had to your art so far?

Corbin : I don’t know, you can’t make flags forever.

CZ8 : Tell us more about your ‘British Airport’?

Corbin :I want viewers in Milan to feel as though they are getting off a flight and through the door, they’re arriving in a British airport. I have curated this show with long queues, oversized macho public sculpture and monuments. Urinal fountains adorned with stone pint glasses and flags obviously. It’s very much me but on a larger scale, more British, more grotesque with love.

CZ8 : Are you a fan of the 4am airport pint in Wetherspoons before jetting off somewhere exotic?

Corbin : No, I think that’s feral to be honest.

CZ8 : What do you see Britain’s future being?

Corbin : Under this lack lustre labour government, it’s not good, is it? It’s dark. Where is the hope now?

CZ8 : Your exhibition is in Milan, how do you think the Europeans view the British?

Corbin : Bloated, Loud and doomed at football.

CZ8 : What was it like working with the Pet Shop Boys? (watch Corbin’s video here)

Corbin : Actually, the best.

The free exhibition opens today (Friday 8th November) at Spazio Maiocchi, Via Achille Maiocchi 7, 20129 Milan

https://www.corbinshaw.com