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7/10/2014

Walead Beshty

Barbican Centre, London

This exhibition is part of the Barbican Constructing Worlds season

This Autumn, the Barbican has commissioned the London born, Los Angeles-based artist Walead Beshty to create a new work for the Curve . Over 12,000 cyanotype prints made by Beshty over the course of a year are installed from floor to ceiling along the 90-metre long wall of the Curve, making use of the gallery as a panorama. The process began in Beshty’s studio in LA in October 2013 and culminates in London, with the last group of cyanotypes made with materials sourced from the Barbican and its surrounding area during his month-long residency in the city. The installation is presented in chronological order, allowing the work to be read as a visual timeline, shifting in appearance along with the artist’s physical and temporal location. A central platform specially designed by London-based David Kohn Architects and constructed using recycled materials from a previous Barbican exhibition, enables the visitor to view the installation from alternative perspectives. Walead Beshty’s Curve commission opens on 9 October 2014.

Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: I am delighted that the Barbican is able to present Walead Beshty’s first solo London exhibition in a public gallery, the latest in our acclaimed commission series. Working with great sensitivity and thoughtfulness, Beshty explores photography in a completely new light. Beshty’s vast monochrome, in actuality an exquisitely rendered photographic collage, is the perfect complement to our main gallery show, Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age. The commission is also part of a larger season in which we celebrate both photography and architecture – two key strands in our programme – and the relationship between them.

One of the earliest photographic processes, the cyanotype was invented by the English scientist Sir John Herschel in 1842 and used by pioneering photographer and botanist Anna Atkins to publish the first book with photographic images, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843). For Walead Beshty’s Curve commission – titled after a 1979 lecture by the avant-garde filmmaker, photographer and writer Hollis Frampton – each one of the 12,000 cyanotypes was produced using an object from the artist’s studio. The object is placed on a porous surface (such as discarded paper or cardboard) that has been coated with UV-sensitive material and exposed directly to sunlight, producing the object’s silhouette against a cyan blue background.

Walead Beshty’s artwork explores photography’s ability to capture contemporary social and political conditions, often making the viewer question the possibilities of photography and its relationship to the world we live in. In the series Transparencies from 2007, monochromatic photographs consisting of blurred lines and hazy bands of colour were created by the movement of film through an airport X-ray machine.

Often striking in their visual appearance, Beshty’s photographs and sculptural works also convey another narrative: the history and the processes that construct both the world and his art. In his ongoing FedEx works a series of boxes were made from shatter-proof glass to fit the exact interior dimensions of a standard FedEx shipping box. Every time the work is exhibited, the work is posted to the gallery using the international courier service instead of professional fine art shippers. As the work is moved from Beshty's studio to the gallery and back it inevitably changes en route by its handling, accumulating cracks and scratches which act as a trace of the object’s transit.

Walead Beshty is an artist and writer working in Los Angeles. Born in London, he received an MFA in Fine Art at Yale University in 2002 and is currently Associate Professor in the Graduate Art Department of Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California. Recent solo exhibitions include Selected Bodies of Work at Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2014), Fair Use at The Power Station, Dallas (2013); Travel Pictures at Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2012); Securities and Exchanges at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2011); and A Diagram of Forces at Malmö Konsthall, Sweden / Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (2011). Future solo exhibitions include those at Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2014), Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2014), and Petzel, New York (2015).

The Curve is the Barbican’s free exhibition space that wraps around the back of the Concert Hall. Launched in May 2006, Curve Art is a series of new commissions in which contemporary artists respond to the distinctive architecture of the space. Artists who have previously made new commissions for the Curve are Tomas Saraceno (Argentina); Richard Wilson (Britain); Jeppe Hein (Denmark); Marjetica Potr č (Slovenia); Shirana Shahbazi (Switzerland/Iran); Hans Schabus (Austria); Huang Yong Ping (France/China); Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Canada/Mexico); Peter Coffin (United States of America); Clemens von Wedemeyer (Germany); Robert Kusmirowski (Poland); Céleste Boursier-Mougenot (France); John Bock (Germany); Damián Ortega (Mexico); Cory Arcangel (USA); Junya Ishigami (Japan); Song Dong (China); rAndom International (Britain); Geoffrey Farmer (Canada); Ay ş e Erkmen (Germany/Turkey) and most recently United Visual Artists (Britain).

This exhibition is supported using public funding by Arts Council England and by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Image: Chris Jackson / Getty Images

Press contact:
Ann Berni, Media Relations Manager +44 207 382 7169, ann.berni@barbican.org.uk
Ariane Oiticica, Media Relations Officer +44 207 382 6162, ariane.oiticica@barbican.org.uk

Media View, Wednesday 8 October 10am – 1pm

The Curve, Barbican Centre
Silk Street London EC2Y 8DS
Opening times:
Sat - Wed 11am–8pm
Thu - Fri 11am–9pm
Bank Holidays 12pm–8pm
NOTE: The Curve gallery will close earlier on 15 Oct. Last admission is at 5.30pm
Admission Free

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