To Here
04 Aug - 23 Sep 2006
TO HERE
Keith Coventry, Mustafa Hulusi, Hew Locke, Dietmar Lutz, Mark McGowan, John Riddy, Anne Tallentire
Seven London based artists were invited to consider the journey from their home or place of work to Bloomberg SPACE (Finsbury Square, Moorgate) as the inspiration for making new work. The seven resulting commissions are distinguished by their very different approaches to the idea and their experiences of these journeys. They encompass the disciplines of sculpture, performance, painting, photography and film.
Part of our experience of city is formed by the way in which we move around it; for example we may repeatedly use the same route. Whilst London is constantly developing, certain aspects of its geography appear to remain static; its roads and rail links for example evolve slowly, over decades, if not centuries. The significant changes can be observed in the space between; the islands of land described by the webs of interlocking networks, the evolution of areas and redefinition of neighbourhoods which shift according to the city’s needs and the people who inhabit them.
What distinguishes a particular journey? Is it the experience of a journey as a whole? Is it the mode of transport - car, public, bike or foot? Has the encountering of other individuals or groups made it special? Are we inspired or depressed by the architecture we pass? How is the economic, social and ethnic character of an area expressed? What are the sights, sounds and smells which distinguish one route from another? Or is a journey just something to be endured or ignored, allowing us to escape into our newspaper, novel, music or daydream?
Keith Coventry utilises the symbolic language of early modernism in a large, white, shallow sculptural relief that features directional arrows. Mustafa Hulusi uses abandoned billboards in the East End to display posters with his retinal starburst logo that will also appear as paintings within the gallery. Hew Locke appropriates the sculpture of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square which he transforms with pound-shop merchandise, an act which questions the nature of history and culture. Dietmar Lutz’s installation of impressionistic paintings captures people and vistas glimpsed on his journey from Hackney Wick. Mark McGowan shows the press coverage of his celebrity three-legged race from Peckham via Lambeth Bridge and Oxford Street to Finsbury Square (taking place shortly before the exhibition opens). John Riddy’s intense colour photographs are reflections of his meditation on time and place, surface and light while Anne Tallentire’s twenty minute film shows the night sky growing lighter, framed by the edges of buildings and the tops of trees, as dawn breaks on her journey by car.
Keith Coventry, Mustafa Hulusi, Hew Locke, Dietmar Lutz, Mark McGowan, John Riddy, Anne Tallentire
Seven London based artists were invited to consider the journey from their home or place of work to Bloomberg SPACE (Finsbury Square, Moorgate) as the inspiration for making new work. The seven resulting commissions are distinguished by their very different approaches to the idea and their experiences of these journeys. They encompass the disciplines of sculpture, performance, painting, photography and film.
Part of our experience of city is formed by the way in which we move around it; for example we may repeatedly use the same route. Whilst London is constantly developing, certain aspects of its geography appear to remain static; its roads and rail links for example evolve slowly, over decades, if not centuries. The significant changes can be observed in the space between; the islands of land described by the webs of interlocking networks, the evolution of areas and redefinition of neighbourhoods which shift according to the city’s needs and the people who inhabit them.
What distinguishes a particular journey? Is it the experience of a journey as a whole? Is it the mode of transport - car, public, bike or foot? Has the encountering of other individuals or groups made it special? Are we inspired or depressed by the architecture we pass? How is the economic, social and ethnic character of an area expressed? What are the sights, sounds and smells which distinguish one route from another? Or is a journey just something to be endured or ignored, allowing us to escape into our newspaper, novel, music or daydream?
Keith Coventry utilises the symbolic language of early modernism in a large, white, shallow sculptural relief that features directional arrows. Mustafa Hulusi uses abandoned billboards in the East End to display posters with his retinal starburst logo that will also appear as paintings within the gallery. Hew Locke appropriates the sculpture of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square which he transforms with pound-shop merchandise, an act which questions the nature of history and culture. Dietmar Lutz’s installation of impressionistic paintings captures people and vistas glimpsed on his journey from Hackney Wick. Mark McGowan shows the press coverage of his celebrity three-legged race from Peckham via Lambeth Bridge and Oxford Street to Finsbury Square (taking place shortly before the exhibition opens). John Riddy’s intense colour photographs are reflections of his meditation on time and place, surface and light while Anne Tallentire’s twenty minute film shows the night sky growing lighter, framed by the edges of buildings and the tops of trees, as dawn breaks on her journey by car.