The first major retrospective of Gillian Wearing's oeuvre in Germany showcases photographic works and film installations. Nine exhibition rooms provide an overview of her work to date and convey its specific aesthetic qualities and characteristic artistic strategies.
Curated by Bernhart Schwenk
The first major retrospective of Gillian Wearing’s œuvre in Germany showcases
photographic works and film installations. Nine exhibition rooms provide an
overview of her work to date and convey its specific aesthetic qualities and
characteristic artistic strategies.
For Gillian Wearing, as can be seen, creating art
means rendering social relationships visible. Gillian Wearing is considered one of
the most important artists of her generation in Great Britain. Born in 1963 in
Birmingham, she studied at London’s renowned Goldsmiths’ College and has been
an international name since the 1990s. In 1997, the artist was awarded the Turner
Prize.
In her work, Gillian Wearing repeatedly focuses on a person’s self-expression in
staged situations. She is interested in the views and behaviour of people from the
most varied walks of life – ordinary citizens, as well as the homeless, pensioners
and school children. This candid but always equally circumspect analysis produces
portraits in which a fragile balance is struck between self-awareness and the
perceived image, private and public worlds, truthfulness and projection.
Her earliest works are from a project created on the streets. In 1992/93 Gillian
Wearing asked total strangers to write an important thought of theirs
spontaneously on a piece of paper. She then photographed each person with their
message. The series of some 600 portraits entitled »Signs that Say What You Want
Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say« mirrors
control and the loss of control that are automatically associated with the
production of an image and its effect.
In a group portrait reminiscent of historical paintings, 26 men and women in police
uniform look silently but sternly at the viewer. This portrait however is not a
photograph but a film. In the video installation »Sixty Minute Silence« (1996), the
»merely« portrayed figures turn into unpredictable protagonists – for one whole
hour.
Most people have probably asked themselves how much of their mother or their
father they have in them. Inspired by old photographs, Gillian Wearing slipped into
replicas of garments worn by her immediate relatives in a self-dramatisation as
members of her own family (2003–06). It is always Wearing herself who peers into
the camera from behind the silicon masks – sometimes older than those captured
in the original photographs actually were. Times and generations merge together;
the contrasting notion of closeness and distance is dissolved.
Wearing’s early video »10–16« (1997), in which adults move around to the voices of
children and youths between ten and sixteen years old, is confusing through its
antitheses. »I’m interested in people«, Gillian Wearing says, knowing that creating
a picture is always related to power, and that monopolising and manipulation can
never entirely be avoided. With this in mind, Wearing examines the structures of
social conventions and intermingles individual and standardised forms of
communication.
The publication accompanying the exhibition (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther
König) is the most comprehensive monograph on Gillian Wearing’s work. With
contributions by Daniel F. Herrmann, Doris Krystof, Bernhart Schwenk and David
Deamer, 100 colour illustrations, 232 pages. ISBN: 978 3 86335 156 4. Price: 29.80
euros.
Press
Tine Nehler | Leitung Presse & Kommunikation
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Pinakothek der Moderne
Jan Wilms | Stellv. Leitung Presse & Kommunikation
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Pinakothek der Moderne
Sarah Stratenwerth
Presse & Kommunikation Museum Brandhorst
Tel. +49.89.23805-1321
Fax +49.89.23805-1304
presse@museum-brandhorst.de
Press conference: Tuesday, 19.03.2013, 11.00
Opening: Wednesday, 20.03.2013, 19.00
Museum Brandhorst
Theresienstrasse 35a, Munich
Hours: Daily except MO 10.00 - 18.00; THU 10.00 - 20.00
Regular admission: 7,00 €;
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for the Museum Brandhorst, all three Pinakothek Museums, the Sammlung Schack and the Branch Galleries of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, no special exhibitions, no further Concessions
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for the Museum Brandhorst, all three Pinakothek Museums, the Sammlung Schack and the Branch Galleries of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, no special exhibitions, no further concessions
Annual pass: 90,00 €; concessions: 60,00 €
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