Duct tape, bondage, condoms, chains… Marc Aurele's debut solo exhibition at The Bomb Factory Foundation is a striking exploration of your darkest arcane appetites. The exhibition, minimalist and meticulously curated, presents raw materials in their most unadorned state. Upon entering, visitors are immediately enveloped in a sensory experience.
“Sex had never been joyful for me before, or almost never…it had always been fraught with shame and anxiety and fear, all of which vanished at the sight of his smile, simply vanished, it poured a kind of cleanness over everything we did.” – Cleanness, Garth Greenwell, 2021
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation presents CORNERED, a solo exhibition by Marc-Aurèle Debut, one of Bomb Factory Art Foundation’s resident artists. This powerful exploration of contemporary gay culture through an autobiographical lens will be on display at their Holborn gallery from 26th July to 25th August.
The installation features three distinct components, each creating a visceral impact. A central wall, composed of intricately arrange duct tape bondage, segments the room and showcases entangled and bulky forms, that evoke a sense of constraint and confinement.
Adjacent to this, rectangular shapes, also wrapped in duct tape, are suspended from the ceiling, their surfaces marked by trapped condoms. This juxtaposition of materials and forms elicits a complex, tantalizing sensation, revealing the raw and often hidden aspects of human desire.
Complimentary to the installation, a series of images vibrating between the intimate and the pornographic while placed subtly loudly reflect the whole essence of the show. Marc Aurele Debut's work is directly confronting the dark corners of contemporary queer culture laying himself bare. Using his personal experiences as a narrative tool he becomes a beacon of the physical wellbeing of gay men while investigating the impact of sex practices of BDSM and Chemsex.
"CORNERED delves into the intricate landscape of modern gay experiences through a series of immersive installations. Debut's work navigates the complex interplay between sex, shame, and identity, drawing from the realities of anonymous encounters and digital hook up culture. The exhibition neither critiques nor celebrates the rituals common in many gay men's lives. Instead, it seeks to express and reconcile the physical and psychological effects the artist has experienced from participating in these practices.
With unflinching vulnerability, Debut lays bare the often-concealed facets of gay life in London. He invites discourse on experiences frequently repressed in the name of Pride, exposing and interrogating the complex relationship between gay sex and shame. By holding violence, carnality, tenderness and pain in tension, CORNERED uncovers the nuanced realities of contemporary gay men's lives, encouraging a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of LGBTQ+ experiences." - Bella Bonner-Evans
The curatorial text defiantly rings true however Marc is much more than that, Unapologetic sensationalism and a relentless truth that doesn’t cater to your comfort zones.
New Zealand–born, UK-based artist Cas Campbell works across ceramics, handmade paper, sculpture, and installation to explore humanity’s deep connection to nature. Drawing on evolutionary history, queer identity, motherhood, neurodivergence, and overlooked lives, Campbell’s practice weaves the personal with the historical. Their recent ceramic works construct alternative icons inspired by boundary-breaking female and queer figures, reframing ideas of gender, care, and permanence. In this in-depth interview, Campbell reflects on their journey from painting and installation to clay, the impact of becoming a young parent, and the slow development of a research-driven studio practice. The conversation offers an intimate insight into an emerging artist reshaping contemporary ceramics through tenderness, and resilience.
At Carl Freedman Gallery, Crossing Into Darkness sees Dame Tracey Emin step into the role of curator with striking emotional authority, assembling a multigenerational constellation of artists — from Goya, Munch, Bourgeois and Kiefer to Danielle McKinney, Lindsey Mendick and Celia Hempton — to explore vulnerability, mortality and psychological depth. Through restrained lighting, careful spatial choreography and an instinctive pairing of historic and contemporary voices, Emin transforms darkness into a space of reflection rather than despair.
Tate Modern’s Frida: The Making of an Icon (25 June 2026 – 3 January 2027) explores how Frida Kahlo evolved from painter to global cultural icon. Developed with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibition traces her lasting influence across art, feminism and popular culture, positioning Kahlo as a figure continually reinterpreted by new generations.
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