Christopher Bucklow
dal 8/2/2002 al 17/3/2002
Segnalato da
8/2/2002
Christopher Bucklow
Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London
Guests and Tetrarchs. Bucklow sees these works as a collective self portrait. While the Guest series establishes a cast of characters drawn from his circle of friends - and in some cases - foes, the Tetrarchs begin to develope relationships between those characters. Bucklow sees the figures as either representing types of personality that he already contains (and is comfortable with); or a character trait that he admires and aspires to incorporate within himself.
The Anthony Wilkinson Gallery is pleased to announce
the first solo show in London of Christopher Bucklow’s
Guests and Tetrarchs.
Bucklow sees these works as a
collective self portrait. While the Guest series establishes
a cast of characters drawn from his circle of friends - and
in some cases - foes, the Tetrarchs begin to develope
relationships between those characters. Bucklow sees the
figures as either representing types of personality that he
already contains (and is comfortable with); or a character
trait that he admires and aspires to incorporate within
himself. Others signify types that he wishes to expel from
his own mind. The full group is thus a self-reflecting gallery
of portraits that represent different aspects of the artist's
own psyche. In the Tetrarch series and in his drawings
and videos, Bucklow causes these sub-personalities to
act within the internal narrative of mental fission and fusion
that is his emotional and intellectual life.
Unlike conventional photography, each image is unique
and unrepeatable. The process Bucklow uses creates an
unusually intense quality of light and the images are
formed using sunlight with a technique similar to the
pinhole photography developed in the late nineteenth
century. He begins by making life-size silhouette drawings
direct from the sitter’s shadow on to sheets of aluminium
foil, which is then painstakingly penetrated with thousands
of pinholes within the outline of the shape. These pinholes
will act as the camera’s lenses. Using a large home-made
camera, he then places the foil on top and loads colour
photographic paper at the back. Sunlight is then allowed
to shine through, recording many images of the sun and
sky simultaneously, thus forming the shape of the figure
on the paper behind. Bucklow achieves a variation in the
different works depending on the intensity of the sunlight,
the time of day and the speed at which the pinholes are
exposed to the light...
He used a similar technique to create an installation for
the St Ives International in 1999. The Canopic Fusion
Reactor, installed at Botallack, ten miles from St Ives,
functioned as a multiple pinhole camera obscura. One
complete facade of the building was constructed from
sheet aluminium and the rest in rendered concrete. Like
the camera which produces his Guest and Tetrarch
photographs, each aperture focused a single solar image
upon a screen... Taken as a whole these solar images
described a human silhouette. The piece was destroyed
by fire on December 31st 1999.
Works from Guest and Tetrarch series are currently on
tour as part of a group exhibition of works commissioned
by Nokia, with Ron Fricke and James Turrell. The
exhibition began at the Musee d'Art Modern de la Ville de
Paris, and Bucklow’s works will then tour to New York in
February. From there they can be seen in Los Angeles,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, London, Berlin and
Geneva.
Anthony Wilkinson Gallery
242 Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 9DA
tel. 020 8980 2662
fax 020 8980 0028