Exhibition
Langlands & Bell: A Muse Um
9 Apr 2008 – 10 May 2008
Regular hours
- Wednesday
- 11:00 – 17:30
- Thursday
- 11:00 – 17:30
- Friday
- 11:00 – 17:30
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 14:00
- Tuesday
- 11:00 – 17:30
Address
- 31 & 34 Cork Street
- London
- W1S 3NU
- United Kingdom
About
Langlands & Bell's fascination with language and its structure is the focus of a new body of work that looks at museum acronyms and the identity that these 'new' abbreviated names bestow.Museums are increasingly seen as leisure brands with their public faces and the abbreviations used to codify them becoming ever more important.
n their A Muse Um computer animation, these acronyms are interspersed with photographs of the museums taken by Langlands & Bell. Mathematically ordered, the codes and photographs are superimposed until they merge in an endless cycle of familiar and obscure signs. Neon wall sculptures and a new set of prints published by the gallery further explore their interest in signs and codes.
Another major acronym work by the pair, Moving World (Night & Day) 2008, has just been commissioned and installed at the new Heathrow Terminal 5. It consists of two 6-metre radius semi-circles of neon destination codes LHR JFK RIO etc. at either end of the huge outdoor pedestrian plaza. The monumental letters illuminate both randomly and in sequence, their movement and light creating a constantly changing 'constellation' of places and associations.