October Surprise

October Surprise: Cole Denter, Titus McBeath & Corbin Shaw
12th October - 1st November 2024

Coined by campaign manager William Casey during the 1980 US presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, the term October Surprise refers to a news event, either spontaneous or deliberately engineered, that has the potential to influence the outcome of an upcoming November election. In the lead-up to the election, Reagan's camp feared Carter might orchestrate the release of American hostages held in Iran just before election day, swaying public support in his favour. This hypothetical, last-minute boost was seen as a pivotal "surprise" that could tilt the election in Carter’s favour.

In response, Reagan’s team, operating in a state of paranoia, developed an extensive intelligence network aimed at undermining any such surprise. They enlisted contacts within the US Air Force to track military aircraft movements, suspecting they might be used to return the hostages. This counterintelligence effort contributed to Reagan’s eventual victory, with the hostages being released shortly after his inauguration in 1981. This chess game of engineered crises, real-time political events, and spontaneous happenings gives us a glimpse into the delicate dance of manipulation that sculpts our political history.

This exhibition takes the contradictory notion of a "contrived surprise" as its launching point. While the timing of this show (during a US presidential election) is no accident, the bringing together of the artists and works here is an attempt at dissecting the latent undercurrents of the Anglo-American cultural moment. The artworks wrestle with the complexities of patriotic self-conception, national symbols, and falsities present in our public and private discourse, encased within an often trite political climate.

Central to each artist’s practice is a serious confrontation with Anglo-American patriotic symbology. In our shared moment of hyper-reel discourse, "serious" does not necessarily imply "solemn." The works in this show make use of humor, nostalgia, and the grotesque, offering a reconfiguration of the mimetic symbols associated with an excluded, unseen, and otherwise distrusted lumpen political discourse. This collision of sincere reflection and wry detachment tempts us to remodulate what these symbols are and could be—both in their historical context and their contemporary use in online culture, protest movements, and partisan debate.

The exhibition shares moments with the long tradition of British satirical critique, notably the 18th-century Whiggish tradition, characterised by its caustic "Juvenalian" satire aimed at Tory opponents. British satire has long been an effective tool for cutting through political pretensions. From Jonathan Swift’s biting prose to the scathing caricatures of Alexander Pope and William Hogarth, satire has served as a lens through which the public could engage in critical dialogue with power. As Northrop Frye, the Canadian literary theorist, points out, satire is rooted in a “militant irony,” a form of rhetorical warfare against the establishment.

In our present moment, the use of exaggeration, irony, double entendre, and hyperbole are spontaneously produced in the uncultivated wilds of online political discourse. Glycine factory problematica, flat-line figure pastel infographic explainer-fundraiser, out-of-context street attack scene rage bait—these forms, knowing or naive, are the visual culture through which most of us now experience the fragmentary inflammation that is our real political moment. It’s in this chaotic terrain of visual production that the artists here operate.

Beyond satire, we must consider deeper questions of authenticity, nationalism, and class identity. To see only mockery and détournement of political figures is imprecise. These works aim to probe the multifaceted and often knotted conception of Englishness. The idea of the English as deferential and apathetic, a stereotype often perpetuated by contemporary media, is challenged by historians such as Marxist doyen E.P. Thompson. Thompson reminds us that historically, the British working class was known for its turbulence, defiance, and resistance to authority. In his words, “the British people were noted throughout Europe for their turbulence, and the people of London astonished foreign visitors by their lack of deference.” The 18th and 19th centuries, as Thompson details, were punctuated by riots sparked by everything from bread prices to new machinery, strikes, and the enclosure of common lands.

In this precise spirit, the artists in *October Surprise* explore the turbulence of today’s working-class experience, reflecting on how this historical legacy of defiance and dissent informs their own practices. These works, filtered through the prism of personal and collective histories, offer a speculative vision of a culture unafraid to confront itself—one that moves through its own contradictions rather than around them.

Each of these artists—Cole Denter, Corbin Shaw, and Titus McBeath—engages with the socio-political landscape not only as cultural commentators but as active participants in the ongoing redefinition of national identity. Their work is deeply rooted in the contradictions of belonging and the inescapable pull of patriotism, even as they critically dissect its modern-day implications.

*October Surprise* becomes more than a reflection on political manipulation or media spectacles. It serves as a meditation on the complex, often contradictory forces shaping contemporary cultural and political life—forces that are just as likely to surprise us as they are to be deliberately staged.

Exhibition text by Adam Bellagha (b. 1992, London, UK) a researcher and writer based in London, UK.

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For all enquiries, please email info@shipton.gallery

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Image 1:

Cole Denter,
Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) with stage IV advanced Metastatic Melanoma, 2023
Oil on Expensive European fabric,
35cm x 30cm

Image 2:

Titus McBeath,
American Sniper, 2024
Multi-color Polyjet, Edition of 1 with 1 AP,
5.25”x6”x1”

Image 3:

Corbin Shaw,
Improving Non-Stop, 2024 (Framed)
Graphite Pencil, Aluminium
40 x 50 cm

Image 4:

Titus McBeath,
Dela-Wear Your Hat to the Poles, 2024
Multi-color Polyjet, Edition of 1 with 1 AP,
2.75”x8.25”x1”

Image 5:

Cole Denter,
Mark Collett (Patriotic Alternative) with stage IV advanced Metastatic Melanoma, 2024
Oil on expensive European fabric,
30cm x 25cm

Image 6:

Cole Denter,
Andrew Leak (Tug Haven, Dover), 2024
Oil on expensive European fabric,
45 x 35 cm

Image 7:

Corbin Shaw,
Tradition, 2024
Chalk from the Thames
12 x 15 x 9 cm

Image 8:

Corbin Shaw,
Smile, 2024
Chalk from the Thames
12 x 15 x 9 cm

Image 9:

Cole Denter,
Christopher Hitchens for Vanity Fair 2007 (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) 2022
Oil on expensive European fabric
45cm x 45cm

Image 10:

Corbin Shaw,
Kite Mark One, 2024
Porcelain
19 x 15 x 8 cm

Image 11:

Cole Denter,
Type D Royal British Legion poppy cross wreath Anti-Imperial Monochrome, 2024
Spray Paint, Plastic,
89.3 x 15.5 cm

Image 12:

Corbin Shaw,
Half Penny 1983, 2024
Leather,Brass
100 x 8.5 cm

Image 13:

Corbin Shaw,
Andrew, 2024
Denim, Resin
38 x 28 x 9 cm

Image 14: