Lucy Skaer: The Siege

About

Lucy Skaer's new commission for Chisenhale Gallery takes a siege situation as its conceptual underpinning, and as a narrative scenario in which to physically place her large-scale drawings and sculptures. Skaer is specifically interested in two characteristics of a siege: the limitation of resources and the dramatic reordering of temporality and value that creates a heightened awareness of passing time. Within this scenario, Skaer seeks to explore a tension between the abstraction created by high capitalism, in which objects are understood in terms of exchange value or associated image, and their direct material nature, denuded of their context and meaning. The objects in the gallery will operate as both resources and protagonists within her re-staging of a siege.