Headthinkers
dal 12/3/2003 al 3/5/2003
Segnalato da
12/3/2003
Headthinkers
Houldsworth Gallery, London
Headthinkers will be Laura Ford's second solo exhibition at Houldsworth. This new group of sculptures, while still containing the melancholy and drama characteristic of Ford's oeuvre, is perhaps offering a more frank, even tongue-in-cheek analysis of her sculptural practice.
Laura Ford
13 March - 3 May 2003 Headthinkers will be Laura Ford's second solo exhibition at Houldsworth. It follows her well-received show The Great Indoors at the Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Spain and the De La Warr Pavillion, Sussex. This new group of sculptures, while still containing the melancholy and drama characteristic of Ford's oeuvre, is perhaps offering a more frank, even tongue-in-cheek analysis of her sculptural practice.
Stationed around the gallery are several small boys, dressed in pensioners' attire: dark striped jumpers - worn thin around the sleeves - thick wool pleated trousers and tartan slippers. They lean, sit, stand aside, prop up and even hang from the gallery furniture of heavy plinths and long shelves attached to the walls. But like Eeyore and Bottom, these boys are bearing too much upon their shoulders: built in ceramic stoneware and glazed in the same muted palette as the boys' garb, their oversized, top-heavy heads are those of donkeys.
Headthinkers plays with a major tenet of modern sculpture: how to present a completed work. These (almost) free-standing sculptures are intimately involved with the gallery space, carefully placed by the artist so that the viewer must continually shift around them whilst navigating one's way through the gallery. Meanwhile, the boys themselves have long ago given up on the prospect of breaking free from the supporting structures. Out of compliance or exhaustion and unable to achieve complete independence, they have found a place to rest or perhaps something to bang their cumbersome heads against. In these awkward and heavily laden boys, Ford deftly endeavours, with a bit of sardonic humour, to unify her works' contrasting aspects, for ceramics is a vital part of her overall practice.
Ford's The Great Indoors will tour to the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Glynn Vivian and Oriel Mostyn Galleries throughout this coming spring and summer. The Aldrich, Connecticut is organising a show of British sculpture, curated by Stephen Hepworth, to include Laura Ford and planned for late 2003. Iowa Museum of Art is also planning a solo exhibition for Ford, touring to various venues in the US. Her work is in numerous collections, including Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Tate Britain, Arts Council of England, Government Art Collection, the National Museums and Galleries of Wales and the Prudential Corporation.
Opening times
Monday-Friday, 10.00-5.30, Saturday 10.30-4.00 (closed 23 December-6 January)
Image: Headthinker 2003, steel, plaster, ceramic, fabric, plinth 112 x 76 x 51cm, 44 x 30 x 20in
Upcoming exhibitions
Matthew Radford, 8 May- 7 June 2003
Paul Hodgson, 12 June-12 July 2003
Houldsworth Gallery
33-34 Cork Street
London