Paul Richards

'The Incurable Malady of Coco the Clown' is a new video work by Paul Richards. A clown, haunted by the jokes of his past, is imprisoned in a bleak desert scene. Tantalised by a desire to quench his thirst, the clown undertakes a sequence of desperate acts. The clown's repeated failures become the subject of a behaviorist experiment rooted in slapstick choreography.

Paul Richards' work questions possible analogues between comic performance and artistic gesture, underlining the artist's ambiguous position as both cultural advocate and public entertainer. Richards' recent video work includes a densely collaged remake of the BBC sitcom 'The Good Life'. Currently working on a joke book, Richards will coordinate a future international Joke Telling event at the Romanian Cultural Institute London.

Paul Richards lives and works in London.