Sarah Beddington
12 Jan - 23 Feb 2008
SARAH BEDDINGTON
“Places of Laughter and of Crying”
12 January – 23 February 2008
Bloomberg SPACE, 50 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1HD
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am – 6pm Late Thursday 7 February till 9pm
W www.bloombergspace.com E gallery@bloomberg.net T + 44 20 7330 7959
Sarah Beddington’s solo exhibition at Bloomberg SPACE presents a selection of her new film and video works. From 16mm film to multi-channel projection, Beddington demonstrates her ability to move between different types of film and video installation as fluently as she does between other media.
Beddington’s connection to film is partly informed by her practice as a painter. She constructs meticulously framed compositions that explore the relation between movement and stillness, repetition and the single moment.
In Places of Laughter and of Crying, an ambitious large-scale commission created especially for Bloomberg SPACE, Beddington will hang 30 industrial unit LCD screens of differing sizes around the balcony area in a salon style installation. Each one depicts a single uninterrupted stretch of real time observation, up to an hour long, which has either personal or historical significance. The sense of duration in the works challenges the viewer to slow down in order to observe these parallel moments. Filmed in diverse locations all over the world, each scene appears loaded with either the memory of a past event or the anticipation of what might still happen there.
In contrast, the main gallery at Bloomberg SPACE will be transformed into a dark environment to screen Shanghai Moon, a half-hour long portrait of contemporary China recorded in the most densely populated city in the world. This kaleidoscopic cross-section of detail and overview weaves an especially composed sound design around the imagery to emphasise the psychological aspects of time and place. Maximising the potential of four screens, the editing demonstrates a complex understanding of pacing, structure and spatial possibilities. Beddington’s relation to place is specific but transcends documentation. Although non-narrative, a series of apparently disconnected sequences builds an eloquent insight, seen from a Western perspective, beyond the obvious frenzied surface of this city.
None of Beddington’s films are staged. She records unique social and aesthetic circumstances which can manifest themselves in unanticipated ways. In her new 16mm film Beddington characteristically focuses on often overlooked details. Here she creates evocative connections between nature, decay and the human presence. Typically, Beddington’s work investigates the intersection between the social, the personal and the political in everyday occurrences. Under her detached gaze, cultural and visual fragments coalesce into poetic tableaux in which the glimpsed moment becomes abstracted and surreal. As a result the works often have a dream-like quality, existing within a non-linear, non-narrative time.
Sarah Beddington is a British artist based in London and New York. Solo exhibitions include: Panoptiscope, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL, London (2005-2006); Parallel Lines and Other Stories at Artlab, Berlin (2005); Momenta Art, New York (2004). Group exhibitions include: Vanishing Point at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; the e-flux international touring project Video Rental (EVR); Surveillance, The Moore Space, Miami. Her work is in private and public collections including Arts Council England.
Shanghai Moon was initially conceived in collaboration with Artwise Curators.
“Places of Laughter and of Crying”
12 January – 23 February 2008
Bloomberg SPACE, 50 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1HD
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am – 6pm Late Thursday 7 February till 9pm
W www.bloombergspace.com E gallery@bloomberg.net T + 44 20 7330 7959
Sarah Beddington’s solo exhibition at Bloomberg SPACE presents a selection of her new film and video works. From 16mm film to multi-channel projection, Beddington demonstrates her ability to move between different types of film and video installation as fluently as she does between other media.
Beddington’s connection to film is partly informed by her practice as a painter. She constructs meticulously framed compositions that explore the relation between movement and stillness, repetition and the single moment.
In Places of Laughter and of Crying, an ambitious large-scale commission created especially for Bloomberg SPACE, Beddington will hang 30 industrial unit LCD screens of differing sizes around the balcony area in a salon style installation. Each one depicts a single uninterrupted stretch of real time observation, up to an hour long, which has either personal or historical significance. The sense of duration in the works challenges the viewer to slow down in order to observe these parallel moments. Filmed in diverse locations all over the world, each scene appears loaded with either the memory of a past event or the anticipation of what might still happen there.
In contrast, the main gallery at Bloomberg SPACE will be transformed into a dark environment to screen Shanghai Moon, a half-hour long portrait of contemporary China recorded in the most densely populated city in the world. This kaleidoscopic cross-section of detail and overview weaves an especially composed sound design around the imagery to emphasise the psychological aspects of time and place. Maximising the potential of four screens, the editing demonstrates a complex understanding of pacing, structure and spatial possibilities. Beddington’s relation to place is specific but transcends documentation. Although non-narrative, a series of apparently disconnected sequences builds an eloquent insight, seen from a Western perspective, beyond the obvious frenzied surface of this city.
None of Beddington’s films are staged. She records unique social and aesthetic circumstances which can manifest themselves in unanticipated ways. In her new 16mm film Beddington characteristically focuses on often overlooked details. Here she creates evocative connections between nature, decay and the human presence. Typically, Beddington’s work investigates the intersection between the social, the personal and the political in everyday occurrences. Under her detached gaze, cultural and visual fragments coalesce into poetic tableaux in which the glimpsed moment becomes abstracted and surreal. As a result the works often have a dream-like quality, existing within a non-linear, non-narrative time.
Sarah Beddington is a British artist based in London and New York. Solo exhibitions include: Panoptiscope, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL, London (2005-2006); Parallel Lines and Other Stories at Artlab, Berlin (2005); Momenta Art, New York (2004). Group exhibitions include: Vanishing Point at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; the e-flux international touring project Video Rental (EVR); Surveillance, The Moore Space, Miami. Her work is in private and public collections including Arts Council England.
Shanghai Moon was initially conceived in collaboration with Artwise Curators.