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24/6/2015

Two Exhibitions

South London Gallery SLG, London

Thomas Hirschhorn: In-Between

For his first major solo show in London in many years, Thomas Hirschhorn presents a new work entitled In-Between at the South London Gallery. Based on and highlighting the quote; “Destruction is difficult. It is as difficult as creation.” by Italian Marxist theorist and politician, Antonio Gramsci, a new artwork made for the SLG’s main space continues the artist’s exploration in recent works, of the aesthetic of ruins.

In his explanation of In-Between, he states: "The aesthetic of In-Between borrows from pictures of destruction-destruction by violence, by war, by accident, by nature, by structural failures, by corruption, by fatality. I want to establish a body of work which encompasses Antonio Gramsci's quote. Without being anecdotic or literal, I can testify that to set-up a work in an exhibition space which gives form to destruction is indeed as difficult as anything else. With In-Between I want to create a new form, I want to propose an experience, an art-experience in the range of 'successes’, failures and in-betweens.”

Having emerged as an artist in the 1990s, Thomas Hirschhorn is internationally regarded as being one of the most important artists of his generation. Using low-grade materials - cardboard, plastic sheeting, packing tape, aluminium foil - variously combined with newspaper and magazine cuttings, mannequins, furniture and a wide range of other miscellany, together with references to radical theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and George Bataille, he has established an expansive but distinctive visual language with which he creates extraordinary, provocative artworks imbued with political content. Over the past twenty years Hirschhorn has exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, and equally importantly in more openly public locations, from city streets to housing estates. For example, his Gramsci Monument, a major public artwork installed during summer 2013 with the help of residents at Forest Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development in the Bronx, New York, culminated in the publication of a substantial book documenting the project produced by Dia Art Foundation.

At the South London Gallery, In-Between contributes to a body of work made over the past three years informed by a process of researching, collecting and analysing the formal composition of ruinous and bomb-damaged locations all over the world. As an expression of the aesthetic of destruction, ruin and disaster, it further develops ideas explored in the artworks Concordia, Concordia, 2012, shown in New York, Break-Through, 2013, presented in Naples, Abschlag, 2014, in Saint-Petersburg, and Höhere Gewalt, 2014, exhibited in Berlin. Reflecting on the Gramsci quote at the centrepiece of In-Between, Hirschhorn said; “I see this as the in-between-status of a journey or trajectory. To me, the quote is not about separating or opposing ‘creation’ and ‘destruction’, but about the difficulty of positioning oneself in the midst of the moving world. The challenge of confronting the world’s reality stands between ‘creation’ and ‘destruction’. ‘In Between’ is the affirmation of precarious dimension, the dimension of the non-guaranteed.”

The exhibition is generously supported by Stephen Friedman Gallery, Beth Rudin DeWoody and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

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Ane Hjort Guttu: Time Passes

For her first solo show in the UK, Norwegian artist Ane Hjort Guttu presents two film works, each one set within a different educational setting: a primary school and an art school.

Time Passes, from which the exhibition takes its name, is a new work, co-commissioned by the SLG with Bergen Kunsthall where Hjort Guttu is the 2015 Bergen International Festival artist. It continues her investigation into issues of power, freedom and the role of art and artists within political systems through the story of a student who sits next to a beggar on the streets of Bergen as part of an art project.

An earlier film, Freedom Requires Free People (2011), looks at comparable issues from a very different perspective, being that of a child who considers primary school to be a form of imprisonment and an infringement of his liberty. Hjort Guttu’s film works range from scripted fiction to more classical documentary.

The exhibition is supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London.

Ane Hjort Guttu is the 2015 Festival Artist at Bergen Kunsthall where her exhibition is open until 16 August 2015.

Image: Thomas hirschhorn in between 2015 courtesy the artist

Opening: Thur 25 June, 6:30pm

South London Gallery
65-67 Peckham Road, London
Opening hours during exhibitions:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am-6pm
Except Wednesdays 11am-9pm
Last Friday of the month 11am-9pm

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