Tomorrows World, Yesterdays Fever (Mental Guests Incorporated)
The Victoria Miro Gallery presents a major solo
exhibition of work by Abigail Lane. Tomorrows World,
Yesterdays Fever extends
her preoccupation with the fantastical, the Gothic and
the uncanny through a trio of arresting and theatrical
installations which are based around film projections.
The exhibition has been organized by the Milton Keynes Gallery in collaboration with
Film and Video Umbrella.
The Victoria Miro Gallery presents a major solo
exhibition of work by Abigail Lane. Tomorrows World,
Yesterdays Fever (Mental Guests Incorporated) extends
her preoccupation with the fantastical, the Gothic and
the uncanny through a trio of arresting and theatrical
installations which are based around film projections.
Abigail Lane is well known for her large-scale inkpads,
wallpaper made with body prints, wax casts of body
fragments and ambiguous installations. In these
earlier works Lane emphasized the physical marking
of the body, often referred to as traces or evidence.
In this exhibition Lane turns inward giving form to the
illusive and intangible world of the psyche. Coupled
with her long-standing fascination with
turn-of-the-century phenomena such as séances,
freak shows, circus and magic acts, Lane creates a
"funhouse-mirror reflection" of the life of the mind.
The Figment explores the existence of instinctual urges that lie deep within us.
Bathed in a vivid red light, the impish boy-figment beckons us, "Hey, do you hear
me I'm inside you, I'm yours ..I'm here, always here in the dark, I am the dark,
your dark and I want to play.". A mischievous but not sinister "devil on your
shoulder" who taunts and tempts us to join him in his wicked game. The female
protagonist of The Inclination is almost the boy-figment's antithesis.
Emerging from the dawn glow of an ocean shoreline this fragile, ghostly siren
entreats us to follow her as she lights her way, slowly up the beach. The film is
accompanied by a haunting sound track, composed for Lane by DJ and Producer,
Matty Skylab.
The more playful The Inspiratorfeatures the surreal vision of a panda playing a
trumpet in the depths of a forest. The poster declares, "Her mind was a
WILDERNESS, her world a WASTELAND and then from nowhere HE RETURNED". This
whimsical and unexpected creative spirit smiles fleetingly on those he favors before
disappearing, leaving only the outline of his grin. A glitter ball and mirrored fountain
create a magical but unworldly fairground setting to accompany the Inspirator's
celluloid world.
Abigail Lane emerged as part of the Freeze generation when in 1988 she and fellow
students such as Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas co-organised an
exhibition show-casing their own work while students at Goldsmiths' College. Lane
has exhibited extensively in this country and internationally. She has appeared in
group shows such as L'Empreinte at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Harald Szeeman's
Lyon Biennale and at other major venues such as the Wexner Center for the Arts,
Columbus Ohio, the ICA, Boston, the Hayward Gallery, London, Magasin 3
Konsthall, Stockholm, the Rooseum, Malmö, Sammlung Goetz in Munich and the
Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg. She has also exhibited in solo shows at the ICA London
and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Born in 1967, Abigail Lane lives and
works in London.
Exhibition Catalogue: Text by Harland Miller and essays by Steven Bode and
Stephen Snoddy. Designed by Paul Fryer and Abigail Lane. Edition 1500: 1,400
softbound, 100 hardback, signed with accompanying CD, plus 20 artist's proofs.
Prices: Softback £14.99. Hardback £75.00. ISBN 0-9536755-4-8.
Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 6.00pm
Summer Opening Hours, 4 August to 5 September 2001: Friday - Saturday 12 - 6.00pm, Tuesday - Thursday by appointment, closed Monday