Event detail
Cerith Wyn Evans, Untitled (Flute Piece Incarnation White Cube Bermondsey), 2011; Mixed media; dimensions variable; © the artist; photo: Ben Westoby, courtesy White Cube
Cerith Wyn Evans' Opening Party, Saturday 17 March, from 5pm
Join us to celebrate the opening of Cerith Wyn Evans' exhibition with music from DJ Princess Julia and a special opportunity to observe his firework installation on the rooftop.
Using Cerith Wyn Evan’s ongoing investigation of architecture as a starting point, and specifically curated as a response to the De La Warr Pavilion, the exhibition will consist of three major installations and smaller new works dispersed throughout the building. Taking the entire Pavilion as an opportunity for installation, including our two gallery spaces and the roof-terrace, the exhibition will provide the impetus for a wider programme of related live art, music, performance and film.
The artist will strip back the Pavilion’s gallery spaces so that they are for the first time undivided. With all windows revealed, the installation explores the relationship between manmade and natural light and returns the building’s structure to its original purpose – as a space for visitors to experience and enjoy. Described by the artist as “a love letter to the building”, the exhibition will embody many recurrent themes within Evan’s art: including code, language, text and an interrogation of aesthetics.
On the rooftop will be a new text firework installation.
Moving down through the building, Wyn Evan’s recent spectacular light/heat column installation S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E ('Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…') 2010 will be installed in Gallery 2 to create an intensely glamorous environment with toxic overtones.
Cerith Wyn Evans : Biography
Born in Wales in 1958 Cerith Wyn Evans graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1984. His conceptual practice incorporates a wide range of media, including installation works, sculptures, photography, film and text.
Wyn Evans began his career as a video and filmmaker, initially assisting Derek Jarman, and then making short, experimental films during the 1980s. Since the 1990s, his work could be characterised by its focus on language and perception, as well as its precise, conceptual clarity that is often developed from the context of the exhibition site or its history. For Wyn Evans, installations should work like a catalyst: a reservoir of possible meanings that can unravel many discursive journeys. Moreover, his work has a highly refined aesthetic that is often informed by this deep interest in film history and literature. Indeed, Wyn Evan’s earlier creators often inhabit his work, an indication of his desire to keep their ideas in play or bring them back to life in order to use them as raw material for future thought. Often his works harness the potential of language to create moments of rupture and delight, where romantic longing, desire and reality conjoin. His Firework pieces, for example, are wooden structures that spell out open-ended texts that burn over a designated period of time. His Chandelier sculptures evoke notions of otherworldly communication by using sections of texts that have been translated into the flashing light signals of Morse Code. In his film and slide installations, such as The Curves of the Needle (2003), Wyn Evans manipulates sound to form a parallel ‘text’ to the visuals, where meaning is opened up by the unexpected slippage that occurs when the soundtrack is dislodged, changed or removed.
Cerith Wyn Evans lives and works in London. In 2003, he represented Wales in the 50th Venice Biennale and has participated in the 9th International Istanbul Biennial (2005), Yokohama Triennale (2008) and Aichi Triennale (2010). He collaborated with Florian Hecker and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary on ‘No night No day’ at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). Recent solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Graz (2005), Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris (2006), MUSAC, Leon (2008), Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2009),Tramway, Glasgow (2009) and Kunsthall Bergen (2011).
http://www.dlwp.com/WhatsOn/ExhibitionDetail.aspx?EventId=1540
