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20/11/2013

Dennis Oppenheim / Stephen Cripps

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Dennis Oppenheim: Thought Collision Factories

Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011) initiated sculptural events in a quest to make ideas material. He was a pioneer of new thinking in sculpture and over five decades produced sculptures that took the form of actions, performances, installations, film and architecture. Spanning 1972 to 1986, Thought Collision Factories investigates Oppenheim's use of fireworks, flares and machines as sculptural materials.
During the exhibition three flare-sculptures from 1975 will be ignited in front of the Institute's building, each one spelling out the titles 'Narrow Mind', 'Mindless Less Mind' and 'Mind Twist'. Fireworks and flares are at their most material when they dematerialise, a process that involves sight, sound and smell.
For Oppenheim sound was a central sculptural condition. In this exhibition a sound-sculpture, 'Ratta-callity' (1974), uses the artist's voice to propose radicality as an attitude, while the soundtrack of two films reverberate through the galleries. 'Machine-Gun Fire' (1974) emits a continuous discharge of explosions, while in 'Echo' (1973) Oppenheim's hand slaps and vibrates a wall in a relentless impact of sensible body on senseless surface.
In the early 1970s Oppenheim used both the scale of his own body and the landscape to expand the definition of sculpture, with these sculpture-events carefully documented using maps and photographs. 'Polarities' (1972), for example, plotted out graphic gestures by Oppenheim's father and daughter using red magnesium flares, stretching over 150 metres long, in Bridgehampton, New York, while 'Whirlpool - Eye of the Storm' (1973) used an aeroplane discharging white smoke to create a three-quarter mile diameter vortex in the sky. Four examples of these photo-documentations are on display in Thought Collision Factories, as well as a selection of photographs from 'Mind twist, a portfolio of burned out thoughts' (1977) documenting ignition of flare sculptures.
From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s Oppenheim turned to surrogates and machines to visualise the production of ideas. In the Institute's galleries two machines whirr and vibrate, factories producing processes rather than products. One is loaded with rockets and a candyfloss machine, while the other is a model for an outdoor sculpture consisting of spinning motors and packed with fireworks. Oppenheim described the machine as 'a rather perfect device to use as a metaphor for thinking'. Like ideas, machines are never flawless and, like thoughts, will always break down.
Dennis Oppenheim: Thought Collision Factories is paired with Stephen Cripps: Pyrotechnic Sculptor in the Upper Sculpture Study Gallery, and Jean Tinguely: 'Spiral' (1965) in Gallery 4 (until 5 January 2014). In 1981 Jean Tinguely (1925-91) declared Oppenheim the most important artist of the next generation. Stephen Cripps (1952-82) transformed objects with actions, sound and pyrotechnics, developing schemes for sculptures involving military hardware, fire, smoke, light and amplified sound. This exhibition celebrates the 2013 acquisition of his archive for the Henry Moore Institute Archive of Sculptors' Papers and spans the years 1970-82, beginning with his studies at Bath Academy of Art where he wrote his thesis on Tinguely.

Stephen Cripps: Pyrotechnic Sculptor

Stephen Cripps: Pyrotechnic Sculptor is the first posthumous exhibition of the work of British sculptor and performance artist Stephen Cripps (1952-82). Spanning the artist's short career from 1970 to 1982, the exhibition explores the startling originality of Cripps' sculptural experiments. He transformed objects with actions, sound and pyrotechnics, developing numerous and ambitious schemes for mechanical sculptures and performances involving military hardware, fire, smoke, light and amplified sound. His proposals ranged from mobile crematoria to mechanical gardens, exploding balloons, floating fires and choreographed aerial performances.
Cripps used drawings to develop and describe his ideas: some of these were realised as unpredictable events and ephemeral installations, whilst others remained full of potential on the page. Today all that survives of his sculptures are photographs and drawings, moving from detailed plans and large-scale mixed media works to rapid sketches on scraps of paper that, torn, singed and smeared, bear the marks of Cripps' experimentation.
Cripps started to choreograph performances involving machines, film, sound and light whilst studying at Bath Academy of Art (1970-4), where he wrote his thesis on the work of Jean Tinguely (1925-91), whose work 'Spiral' (1965) is on show (until 5 January 2014) in the Institute's series of one work exhibitions in Gallery 4. On graduating, Cripps took a studio in Butler's Wharf, London, a location that was then the hub of experimental artistic practice. Here he lived, worked and stored salvaged objects for his constructions. In this fertile studio complex Cripps' focus shifted from mechanical sculpture to volatile events: in 1979 he joined the London Fire Brigade, both to earn money and to further his knowledge of pyrotechnic devices. During his short career, Cripps exhibited machine and sound installations including Spills and Thrills at Bath Academy (1974), Machine Dances at Bath and Tufnell Park Community Festivals (1974-6) and Machine for Birds at the Serpentine Gallery Summer Show III (1975). He had three solo exhibitions at the Acme Gallery (1978, 1980 and 1981), and staged numerous pyrotechnic performances in the UK, Europe and America. He increasingly collaborated with other artists and musicians, including the percussionist Paul Burwell, the performance artist Anne Bean and the London Musicians' Collective.
Stephen Cripps: Pyrotechnic Sculptor celebrates the acquisition of Cripps' archive by the Henry Moore Institute Archive. A part of Leeds Museum and Galleries, the Archive is managed in a unique partnership that has built one of the strongest public collections of sculpture in Britain. The exhibition is one of a series highlighting recent acquisitions to the collection, focusing on artists who emerged in the 1970s and 80s, including Phyllida Barlow, Helen Chadwick, Shelagh Cluett, Keir Smith and Darrell Viner. As well as Jean Tinguely 'Spiral' (1965) in Gallery 4, this exhibition is accompanied by Dennis Oppenheim: Thought Collision Factories in Galleries 1, 2 & 3, which is dedicated to the American artist's examination of fireworks and flares as creative forces. Cripps' work can also be seen this autumn in a survey of the Acme Gallery's exhibition programme at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London.

Opening Thursday November 21st 2013

Henry Moor Institute
74 The Headrow, Leeds
Open hours: from Tuesday to Sunday at 11 - 17.30

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