Newcastle University

Mark Leckey was born 1964 and is based in London. He graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic, now Nothumbria University in 1990 and is currently Professor of Film Studies, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

He works in film and video as well as music installation and performance. Leckey uses the raw material of popular culture as the stimulus for his work, sampling from many different sources, from Viz cartoons to music riffs. He often combines found and original footage capturing strange rituals, gestures and cultural phenomena. In his critically acclaimed work Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore' (1999), Leckey collages found footage of British dance culture from the 70s and 80s. Images of raves and disco scenes unravel as a visual essay on psychosis, mass hysteria, and nightlife excess. He is fascinated by youth and subcultures and their hedonistic and glamorous tendencies, reflected in their music and fashion.

His work reflects his obsession with the images that surround him and the relationship between the outside world and his interior world. Leckey has stated that creating Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore' lead him to the realization that I wanted to work directly from my own experience and my own locality. In other words that material experience would be the material with which I work.' Later works, including Parade' (2003) and Made in Heaven' (2004) reflect this desire, moving Leckey's attention from the outside world towards the interior, and literally to his own apartment. In these works and subsequent works Leckey began to perform and appear within the work himself. In 2005 Leckey formed the band Jack to Jack' and has made three films for the group's performances, including March for the Big White Barbarians' (2005).