Mick Peter's 'Trademark Horizon' Exhibition Explores Failed Logos Through Sculpture

Mick Peter's exhibition 'Trademark Horizon' features five large sculptures that repurpose eccentric trademarks from predigital eras, challenging distinctions between art and design. The artist draws logos from old Graphis annuals, focusing on abstract or idiosyncratic designs that failed to clearly represent their products. Works like 'Toot and Come In' transform a supermarket logo featuring a pharaoh's head into jesmonite and polyurethane foam sculptures. Peter's approach highlights the arbitrariness between form and function in commercial imagery, creating playful, almost animate objects. The sculptures are set on a stagelike blue ground in the gallery, resembling lifesize chessmen or props from Jacques Tati's 'Playtime'. This continues Peter's interest in commercial art, following his 2012 exhibition 'Lying and Liars' at Edinburgh's Collective Gallery. The exhibition questions common misconceptions about how art and design create meaning differently. David Crow's 2007 book 'Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics' provides context, referencing Umberto Eco's views on contemporary art's deviation from common structures. Peter's work emphasizes revisionist histories of art and design, capturing moments where both fields veer into counterculture. The visual style references midcentury modern design, reminiscent of Robert Stewart's textile and ceramic work. The exhibition was reviewed in ArtReview's Summer 2013 issue.