Stephen Willats
dal 24/5/2007 al 7/7/2007
Segnalato da
24/5/2007
Stephen Willats
MK Gallery, Milton Keynes
Person to Person, People to People. The exhibition provides an opportunity to engage with the breadth and integrity of Willats' practice and to recognise the remarkable influence his practice has had on a subsequent generation of artists.
Person to Person, People to People
Since the early 1960s British artist Stephen Willats has been making socially
engaged, multi-media art projects in areas and communities as diverse as tennis
clubs, housing estates, tower blocks, art galleries and night clubs. This is
Willats’ most significant and comprehensive exhibition in a public gallery in recent
years and features one of his most ambitious recent commissions, 'Person to Person,
People to People'. The exhibition provides an opportunity to engage with the breadth
and integrity of Willats’ practice and to recognise the remarkable influence his
practice has had on a subsequent generation of artists.
At the heart of Willats’ practice is the encouragement of the active participation
in a work of art by collaborators and viewers, in order to stimulate an engagement
in their own creative processes. Examples to be seen at Milton Keynes include New
Visions (2006) made for the Barbican Centre in London, where viewers could explore
the different ways three philosophers might have viewed certain environments and
encounters, and From My Mind to Your Mind (2006) and Imaginary Journey (2006) where
viewers could experience the surroundings of typical suburban outer London towns.
For Milton Keynes Gallery Willats has made a new work, People to People, Person to
Person by collaborating with eleven residents from the Netherfield estate, Milton
Keynes. Each of the residents used Super 8 film and instant cameras to record their
differing observations on the same walk around the estate. The results of the
project will be displayed in multi-channel wall mosaics and DVDs, both at the
gallery and in a space on the estate, inviting viewers to construct their own
meaning from the information presented, as if they too were participating in the
walk.
To accompany these works, a number of Willats’ drawings will be on display. Willats
employs the methods of cybernetic and philosophical models, information theory,
systems analysis and semiotics in making his work, and a number of his working
drawings will be shown. Alongside these can be seen drawings of modernist domestic
objects, which bridge the gap between people’s domestic realities and the social
organisational structures in which they live.
The exhibition catalogue includes contributions from Emily Pethick, Director of
Casco Projects, Utrecht, and Chris Hammonds, Director of MOT, together with a
conversation between Stephen Willats and Milton Keynes Gallery Director, Michael
Stanley. A range of events will accompany the exhibition.
Stephen Willats was born in London in 1943. Solo exhibitions include 'From my mind
to your mind', Victoria Miro Gallery, 2006; 'Messages from the Polemical City',
Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, 2004; C'hanging Everything', South London Art
Gallery, 1998; 'Museum Mosaic', Tate Liverpool, 1994; M'etaFilter and Related
Works', Tate Gallery London, 1982; and '4 Inseln, in Berlin', National Gallery,
Berlin, 1980. Group exhibitions include 'Art & The 60’s: This Was Tomorrow', Tate
Britain, 2004, 'The Gap Show', Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund, 2002; 'Protest and
Survive', Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 2000. His seminal work, 'Multiple
Clothing', was re-presented at Tate Modern in April 2006.
Exhibition supported by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts and
Milton Keynes Community Foundation
Preview: 25 May 2007, 5:30pm-8pm. All press and media welcome.
Milton Keynes Gallery
900 Midsummer Boulevard - Milton Keynes