Display Gallery is delighted to present ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, a group exhibition curated by Juan Bolivar, bringing together a selection of works by seventeen artists. The 1990 film The Bonfire of the Vanities is a bitter sweet portrayal of late capitalism that was characteristic in Western society in the 1980s.

In Tom Wolfe's best-selling novel, the 'bonfires' refer to the 'Bonfire of the Vanities' which took place in 15th century Florence, when supporters of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola burned thousands of objects deemed to be of vanity, such as mirrors, cosmetics and garments - and books, manuscripts, sculptures and paintings which were considered to be immoral. These public bonfires lasted from 1495 to 1497 and were aimed at ridding society of what Savonarola considered to be the artistic and social excesses of Renaissance Italy.

Unlike Tom Wolfe's book, the film adaptation received poor critical and commercial acclaim and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards. In this, Sherman McCoy, played by Tom Hanks, is a Wall Street bond trader and self-proclaimed "master of the universe" facing disgrace following his arrest, whilst Bruce Willis narrates the story as Peter Fallow, a 'has-been' alcoholic journalist assigned to follow the story of Henry Lamb (the black youth victim of the hit and run accident Sherman McCoy is accused of).

Described as a comedy-drama the film is characteristic for its wide angle, exterior and interior shots, which draw parallels with Renaissance perspectival space and set the scene in an uncanny prelude to the Stock Market crash of 2008 and Enron's 2001 own fall from grace. The film ends by Fallow - now triumphant - asking us: "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?" as Sherman McCoy escapes the clutches of the law and Fallow gains fame through his account of others misfortune. The confusion and inconclusiveness of this quote from the Bible's Book of Mark, highlights our ambivalence towards wealth, success and the values which still dominate our market-driven economy. The film concludes as Fallow is greeted in rapturous applause, while social inequalities between the rich and the poor and the unresolved tensions in proximity between Manhattan and Brooklyn are forgotten.

In a recent interview Tom Wolfe describes the role of the artist in cities and urban development, and explains how "aesthetics is going to replace ethics, and art is going to replace religion as the means through which people express their spiritual worthiness". Art's role, he maintains, lies within "the birth of a new economy where money isn't exchanged for goods but an 'experience', a deep psychological satisfaction, and an intangible, known as excitement".