Katherine Gili: Out of Step (1976)

About

Katherine Gili’s career began in 1973 when she set up a studio at Stockwell Depot in South London. The Depot was recognised as a powerhouse of contemporary art at the time.(1)

Katherine’s work received considerable attention at the annual exhibitions. A review of sculpture published in Artscribe magazine 1976 singled out “…a collection of sculptures by Katherine Gili …The titles (e.g., “Jive”, “Out of Step”, “Bolero”) suggest that a sculpture as much as a dance is the result of a synchronised blend of individual movements – a synthesis of definite, self- conscious articulation of parts…. everything about the work tends towards openness – the probing rods, the characteristic way the planes of a piece like “Jive” expand as they leave the ground, the crude oval apertures which pierce many of the sculptures. It is very welcome to see such unpretentious work like this, and a relief to see sculpture taking on a form which does not appear to be totally inhibited by the weight of its materials.”(2)

This attention prompted her inclusion in three seminal survey exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery and solo shows at the Serpentine Gallery in London and at Salander O’Reilly in New York. Gili’s sculptures from this period were acquired by the Arts Council at the time and later by the Tate, several sculptures from that period are now in private collections in the UK and the USA.

This cameo exhibition includes photographs of other sculptures included in the 1976 exhibition.

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Katherine Gili born Oxford 1948, graduated from Bath Academy of Art in 1970 and studied at St Martin’s School of Art 1971-73 on Anthony Caro’s recommendation. In 1978 she moved to the Greenwich Studios and began to radically develop her work, leading to exhibitions at Tate Gallery in 1984 and the Conde Duque Centre in Madrid in 1988. She has exhibited widely and has regularly shown in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions. In 2013 her sculpture “Ripoll” won the Sculpture Prize. Her work is represented in private, public, and corporate collections in the UK, Switzerland, Spain, and the USA. This is Katherine Gili’s fifth exhibition with the Felix & Spear Gallery.

(1) Stockwell Depot 1967-79, By Sam Cornish, Pub. Riding House/University of Greenwich.

(2) Excerpt from- Review: David Evison, Peter Hide, Katherine Gili. By David Ward Artscribe no.3 1976.