Tom Burr
dal 5/4/2003 al 18/5/2003
Segnalato da
5/4/2003
Tom Burr
Institute of Visual Culture, Cambridge
'The Screens' will be comprised of black, fortress-like wooden walls with black iron braces. Arranged languidly around these will hang large, dark vinyl flowers based on the Warhol images; this will be a butch, brutal environment meant to evoke Genet's depictions of ruthless desire and unjust war.
The Screens
Institute of Visual Culture presents 'The Screens', a
new commission by New York-based artist Tom Burr, and
the first major presentation of his work in the UK.
Tom Burr develops abstract, stage-like environments
concerned with a critical take on minimalism, popular
culture and social space. His theatrical settings seem
caught between the certainty of the Modernist gesture
and the illicit thrill of secrecy and desire. In
Cambridge, Burr's installation will invoke Jean
Genet's plays 'The Screens' (1961) and 'Prisoner of
Love' (1986), as well as 'Flowers', Andy Warhol's
extensive series of silk screens also produced in the
mid-1960s.
Over the last several years, loosely appropriating
forms from Richard Serra, Tony Smith, Robert Morris,
and Brutalist architecture of the 1950s and 60s, Burr
has drawn the icons of high Minimalism into new
narrative frameworks. He creates games of cultural
role-play, in which references to Goth rock, the films
of Kenneth Anger, gay culture and Jim Morrison
re-inscribe the authority of the Minimalist object and
create new territories of desire.
'The Screens' will be comprised of black,
fortress-like wooden walls with black iron braces.
Arranged languidly around these will hang large, dark
vinyl flowers based on the Warhol images; this will be
a butch, brutal environment meant to evoke Genet's
depictions of ruthless desire and unjust war. It will
continue Burr's explorations of queer space, of the
complex engagement between private and public space,
of cultural déjà vu, and - like Genet - of social
legitimacy. To quote John Coplans on Warhol, 'the
garish and brilliantly coloured flowers always
gravitate towards the surrounding blackness and
finally end up in a sea of morbidity'.
Based in New York, Tom Burr (born 1963) has exhibited
widely in Europe and the United States. Recent solo
projects include 'Deep Purple' at the Whitney Museum
of American Art in New York (2003) and 'Low Slung' at
Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2000). He has
participated in several international group
exhibitions, including 'My Head is on Fire but My
Heart is Full of Love' at Charlottenborg Exhibition
Hall, Copenhagen (2002) and 'Partnerschaften:
Unterbrochene Karrieren: Ull Hohn und Tom Burr' at
Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin (2001).
opening Sunday, 6 April
14.30 - 17.00
Exhibition opening hours:
Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, and Sundays, 14:15-17:00.
Closed Mondays.
Institute of Visual Culture is easily accessible from
London. Trains to Cambridge leave from Kings Cross and
take only 45 minutes.
Institute of Visual Culture is supported by East
England Arts, Cambridge City Council, and the Regional
Arts Lottery Programme.
Institute of Visual Culture
Fitzwilliam Museum
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1RB
tel +44 (0) 1223 350 533
fax +44 (0) 1223 312 188