Hew Locke
Golden Horde 1, 2006
Mixed media
202 x 268 x 191 cm
Hew Locke’s deeply layered artworks explore the languages of colonial and post-colonial power. Through fusing pre-existing materials with historical research, Locke’s works examine how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time.
Golden Horde 1, (2006) is one in a series of seven flying vessel-like forms. A closer inspection of the adorned Golden Horde 1 reveals its decorative elements to be plastic toys, artificial flowers, beads and ornaments. Quoting the saying, ‘All that glitters isn’t gold’, in the artist’s reflection on this work, Locke has used objects that imitate more precious materials, giving the impression of wealth and riches.
Titled after the original Golden Horde, one of the Mongol armies descended from Genghis Khan, this connotation is embodied by the assortment of children’s toy weapons, and plastic armour covering Golden Horde 1, creating a troop ready for battle but armed with harmless weapons.
Golden Horde 1 draws on Locke’s years of visits to cathedrals, palaces and museum treasuries. Whilst exploring the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Gilt and Silver Rooms which hold over 10,000 silver and gold objects from around the world, Locke became particularly interested in the nef, a boat shaped table-setting made of gold or silver used to hold cutlery, napkins and spices in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
The nef was placed in front of the most important person at the table as a mark of their status. A nautilus shell, a spiral-shaped shell which belongs to a group of marine animals called cephalopods, was sometimes combined with the nef to form the main body of the vessel. Locke observed how resources like nautilus and coconut shells — which can now be cheaply purchased at beach resorts — were once seen as so exotic and precious that an extravagant table setting would be commissioned to display them.