Peter Coffin
dal 9/2/2009 al 9/5/2009
Segnalato da
9/2/2009
Peter Coffin
Barbican Centre, London
New Curve Art Commission. He borrows from numerous disciplines, such as art history, science and New Age beliefs to test his ideas about the way things work and exist. In his large installation he projects a 360- degree aerial view of Japanese gardens along the 90m wall of the gallery. When projected, this footage forms a continuous yet disjunctive landscape, marked by shifts in perspective and scale.
The latest installation to be commissioned as part of the Curve Art series is by New York- based artist Peter Coffin. In this, the ninth new commission for The Curve, Coffin explores various models of perspective and challenges the way in which we perceive space. In his sculptures, installations, photographs and videos, Peter Coffin examines our knowledge and interpretation of the world with curiosity and wit. He borrows from numerous disciplines, such as art history, science and New Age beliefs to test his ideas about the way things work and exist.
In his largest installation ever in the UK, Coffin projects a 360- degree aerial view of Japanese gardens along the 90-metre curved wall of the gallery. When projected, this footage forms a continuous yet disjunctive landscape, challenging our sense of perspective and space. In Japanese garden design the use of illusionist effects such as overlapping elements, shifts in scale and multiple points of focus combine to give the viewer an abstract and heightened sense of reality. This spatial ambiguity of Japanese gardens and its illusionary affects are exaggerated by the 360 degree projection on the 90-meter length of The Curve.
Coffin introduces sound to the installation to further alter our sense of space. Directional speakers placed in various positions in the gallery project the sound of someone walking and whistling. The sound is isolated so that it is experienced by the visitor at different points as they wander through the exhibition. The third component to the work is a series of sculptures presented alongside the projections. Sculptures of everyday objects are rendered using a three-dimensional scanner and distorted to create spatial transformations that challenge how we understand a thing to exist in space while confounding traditional notions of representation. The original objects and their counterparts are shown side by side.
Inspired by the belief that scepticism, irrational thought and intuition enables us to leap beyond logical conclusions, Coffin’s playful explorations of these ideas provide an intriguing antithesis to our understanding of the world around us. For example, In Untitled (Greenhouse), 2002, Coffin invited musicians, and sound artists to play to plants in a greenhouse situated in a gallery for the opportunity to experience a connection popularized by the claim that music may have beneficial effects on plants. Other projects have included portraits of a person’s aura taken with a specially designed Polaroid camera, found images of rainbows composed into a psychedelic spiral, trousers made for trees and a seven metre wide UFO flown over the Baltic coast and Gdansk.
Peter Coffin lives and works in New York. Born in Berkeley, California in 1972, he received a graduate degree from the prestigious research institution, Carnegie Mellon University. He has also exhibited a number of solo exhibitions, including Yellow Outline, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Fribourg, Switzerland , 2008; Untitled (U.F.O.), at the Festiwal Gwiazd, Gdansk, Poland, 2008; Untitled (Greenhouse), and ETATS / Grow Your Own at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2007; and The Idea of the Sun , Peter Coffin, le Confort Moderne, Poitier, France, 2007 . He has exhibited in group exhibitions at institutions throughout Europe and America including Museo de Arte Contemporanea, Vigo, Spain, 2008; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2008; Museum of Contemporary Art Miami, 2008; Tate Modern, London, 2007; P.S.1/MoMA, Long Island City, New York, 2005 and 2001 and South London Gallery, London, 2004. Coffin took part in the Moscow Biennial, 2007 and Manifesta 7, 2008 and will take part in the Tate Triennial in February 2009.
Supported by: Arts Council England and The National Lottery
For further press information, photographs or to arrange interviews, please contact Alex Cattell, Media Relations Officer on 020 73826162 or acattell@barbican.org.uk
Media View: 10 February, 5-6.30pm
Artist will be present at the Media View
Admission Free
TALKS AND EVENTS
11 Feb 2009/ 7pm/ The Curve
Free
Artist Peter Coffin in conversation with Lydia Yee, Curator, Barbican Art Gallery, about his new installation for The Curve .
22 Apr 2009/ 6.45pm / The Curve
Free
Ideas from a Japanese Garden
Marc Treib, Professor of Architecture Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley and author of A Guide to the Gardens of Kyoto, examines key ideas behind historical garden design in Japan, and considers their potential relevance to art in the West.
CURVE ART
The Curve is the Barbican’s free exhibition space that wraps around the back of the Concert Hall. Launched in May 2006, Curve Art is a series of new commissions inviting contemporary artists to respond to the distinctive architecture of the space. International artists who have previously made new commissions for The Curve are Argentinean artist Tomas Saraceno; British artist Richard Wilson; Danish artist Jeppe Hein; Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrč; Iranian born Shirana Shahbazi; Austrian artist Hans Schabus; Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping and most recently Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.
The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery
Silk Street London EC2Y 8DS
Opening times: Daily 11.00am – 8.00pm, Except Thursdays 11.00am-10.00pm. The Curve is open until 10pm every Thursday